Newsmax has been running a weekly segment complaining about alleged “cancel culture” that features and promotes the “counseling” services of disgraced commentator Keith Ablow. Newsmax is touting someone who reportedly sexually abused women while gaining fame as a Fox News commentator and had his medical license suspended a few years ago after Massachusetts’ medical board concluded that he “poses an immediate and serious threat to the public health, safety and welfare.” 

Ablow is a former Fox News contributor who was part of the network’s misnamed “medical A-team.” He used his platform to give false and dangerous medical misinformation to viewers, especially regarding LGBTQ issues. He left the network in 2017. 

The Boston Globe and The New York Times have reported extensively on Ablow’s reported history of sexual abuse of multiple patients. The Times noted that Ablow has “claimed to be a target of cancel culture.”

In May 2019, the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine announced that it “summarily suspended” Ablow’s license after “finding that Dr. Ablow poses an immediate and serious threat to the public health, safety and welfare. The Board alleges that Dr. Ablow engaged in sexual activity and boundary violations with multiple patients, diverted controlled substances from patients, engaged in disruptive behavior, including displaying and pointing a firearm on multiple occasions in a manner that scared an employee, and procured his license renewal fraudulently.” 

His license status in Massachusetts is currently listed as suspended and his license in New York is listed as “inactive,” according to a Media Matters search. In 2019, Ablow settled medical malpractice lawsuits with three former patients.  

Ablow is now a weekly guest on Newsmax in a regular segment called “Cancel Contagion.” It airs every Wednesday on the National Report, which is hosted by Shaun Kraisman and Emma Rechenberg. As its name indicates, the segment features various people and things that have supposedly been “cancelled,” from former CNN commentator Rick Santorum to The Bachelor former host Chris Harrison. During the segments, the hosts treat Ablow -- who is identified as a doctor -- as an expert and ask him various questions. 

Reprehensibly, the segments not only feature Ablow but also promote his company The Ablow Center and its “Pain-2-Power” program, which is his “life coaching,” “counseling,” and “mentoring” business that he started after losing his ability to practice medicine. In other words, Newsmax is potentially directing viewers to the services of someone who’s been deemed a “serious threat” to public health and reportedly abused patients in his care. 

A “terms of use” section that is linked to at the bottom of his website states, among other disclaimers, that his services “are alternative and complementary to healing services provided by a licensed professional” and “no statement made by Keith Ablow should ever be taken by a client as medical advice or treatment.” 

Media Matters previously reported that Ablow has done work for the American Liberty Fund, a super PAC that has been doing independent expenditures to support Republican candidates. 

Washington Post reporter Jeremy Barr wrote in August 2020 that “Newsmax has notably scooped up cable news personalities who have either left their perch in the Fox News universe or were in need of a new network opportunity.” One of those people includes “Mark Halperin, who lost his job on NBC News and MSNBC in 2017 after reports that he sexually harassed women while at ABC News.”