Uncovering Part of Grace City Church’s Impact on Public Health during the Pandemic
Recently a woman named Leanne Lafferty reached out to tell me about a local medical provider named Karl Lambert who had prescribed her father Ivermectin to treat Covid-19. I had been looking to cover the Ivermectin craze on Common Sense, my show on NCWlife. So I interviewed her about her father’s battle with Covid and Lambert’s care. After the interview I reached out to Lambert and requested a comment or interview, but he didn’t respond to my multiple attempts to reach him. So I reached out to Dr. Mark Johnson at Confluence Health and asked if he would come on my show and explain why folks shouldn’t take Ivermectin to treat or prevent Covid-19. With those interviews in hand, I filmed and released this episode about Lambert prescribing Ivermectin, but it’s only a part of the story…
While researching Lambert I had a few folks tell me he’s a member of Grace City Church, which I have written about before. I noted it, but my focus when it comes to Grace City isn’t to “out” individual members but rather examine the systems that empower and enrich the leaders. These leaders have been very vocal with their positions on public health. It made me wonder why they were so staunchly against public health guidelines. At the time I had no former or current member to reach out to and ask, so thankfully this part of the story came to me. A source reached out and provided me with a GCC document titled “9 Critical Lenses To Help See COVID More Clearly,” written by lead pastor and “church planter” Josh McPherson and Kyle Strong, pastor of finance.
In the chapter titled “The Medical Lens” the pastors make a case for why public health measures taken to mitigate the spread and impact of COVID-19 were ineffective and how the disease “presents a very small risk to a very small percentage of people.”
In the summary of the chapter they even set the groundwork for vaccine hesitancy among their followers. This document was released about a month before the first doses would be available to selected groups.
The chapter made me wonder if they had an alternative medicine provider advising them on medical misinformation. Or perhaps these teachings from religious leaders might affect local healthcare providers, like Lambert.
It wasn’t until after that episode of my show dropped that another source reached out to me to send emails from Lambert to his “members” and things began to come more into focus. I’ve organized the messages in chronological order below. This message in March 2020 seems to echo some of the same things McPherson and Strong were writing in their “9 lenses” document later.
As you can see, Lambert seems to be as interested in influencing public health policy and the impact on “communities of faith” as he was treating patients. I’m no doctor, but I do know a few good ones. So I know that their main focus is patient care, not billing or politics or the priorities of local pastors.
A few months later Lambert admits that they were seeing an “uptick of COVID19 within our own community of members.”
To my knowledge, it’s not until December 2020 that he mentions Ivermectin, and says he’s taking it himself.
In April 2021 he then claims their protocol has an “100% success rate,” which seems too good to be true. Even some of the most effective medications and medical treatments don’t have 100% success rates. How is this possible?
In July 2021 Lambert goes into more detail on the treatment protocol they put together to “treat any and all individuals that either may be suffering from ‘long hauler Covid syndrome’ or now ‘post vaccine Covid syndrome.” I’ve never heard of such a thing.
Here’s the rest of that battery of medications he prescribes to his “members.”
It seems as if the pandemic has been an opportunity to expand his business, which is something that should be noted.
However there might be storm clouds on the horizon. Around the same time Leanne filed her complaint to the state Department of Health Lambert sent this message to his members.
But where’s the connection between Lambert and GCC – other than shared views on public health policy and similar vocabulary? I don’t have any way of knowing that Lambert advised GCC leaders while they were writing that “9 Lenses” document. I do have multiple sources who have told me Lambert is a member of Grace City Church though.
But hearsay isn’t enough. Thankfully it’s not all I have.
Here’s a photo of Lambert wearing GCC apparel they released after the pandemic. In my experience as a Wenatchee Valley resident only GCC members wear the “No Town Like Home Town” apparel.
But it still doesn’t ties Lambert to GCC unequivocally. Perhaps since that photo was taken Lambert has moved on to another church. But Grace City Church leaders themselves prove that he has been in GCC orbit for some time now.
On this page of the GCC website, they ask folks to support these businesses one of which is Lambert’s.
I figured I’d put the screenshot up here, just in case that URL disappears at some point in the future. And I blurred out the other businesses because my goal is not to create a situation where people punish GCC-affiliated businesses, but only to prove the link between GCC and Lambert. And this screenshot from a public post on Lambert’s Facebook account proves that beyond ashadow of a doubt.
“This is clear and thoughtful rant by fellow citizen, colleague and friend.”
Note that Wenatchee City Council Member Jose Cuevas is front and center and I also picked out Council Member Linda Herald in the pink shirt and Council Member Ruth Esparza in the white blazer. Chelan County GOP Chairman Cary Condotta is also in the picture in the blue shirt and shades as is Jeff Kurpuis, who I have mentioned before in a previous post. He’s standing directly behind Esparza.
I’d like to say that none of this information would have been accessible to me without the sources who have provided me with Lambert’s digital communications to his members. And none of those sources would have been willing to do that unless Leanne had the courage to come forward and make her statement about her father’s care at the hands of Lambert on the record. I am just connecting the dots, but I wouldn’t be able to see them without the light my sources are shining for me.
I’d also like to note that folks who know Karl personally have reached out to me to tell me that he’s a caring healthcare provider and that the RediMedi Clinic does offer the Moderna vaccine for free. But a source who has known Karl for years did say, “However, I’ve seen how GCC has corrupted his practice.”
I’d like to nip any “HIPAA violation” talk in the bud right here and now. I consulted multiple legitimate medical professionals before deciding to publish Lambert’s emails. They confirmed what I already suspected – no specific patient information is in any of these communications and therefore it’s not a HIPAA violation to publish them.
But if even that isn’t enough, I would direct your attention to #8 in the RediMedi Patient Agreement, in which Lambert states:
“You acknowledge that communications with the Provider using facsimile, video chat, instant messaging, and cell phone are not guaranteed to be secure or confidential methods of communication.”
You may be wondering what comes next. Well, I’m going to keep that to myself for now. I do know I’m not the only journalist who is interested in this story. I also know I’m not the only journalist who has reached out to GCC leaders with questions.
And I know that Lambert isn’t the only medical provider with ties to Grace City Church who has been pushing medical misinformation. I know there has been a push among some Confluence Health employees for them to use Ivermectin, and one ER nurse was fired for stapling directions on how to get and use Ivermectin to Covid-positive patients’ discharge papers as they were being sent home to quarantine. My source tells me she is, not surprisingly, GCC affiliated as well.
But the public health angle is just one I’m following up on though. What I’m even more interested in are the guns, teachings on marriage and sex, and of course – the money.
