Johns Hopkins Doc on Leave After ‘Depraved Animals’ Remark

A doctor at Johns Hopkins University has been placed on leave after disparaging Palestinians on X, formerly Twitter. This comes after Dr. Darren Klugman, the director at Pediatric Cardiac Critical Care, became the subject of a Muslim civil rights advocacy group’s Tuesday complaint to the Maryland Board of Physicians that called for an investigation into the posts and a demand to have his medical license taken away. According to WMAR 2, the posts were made just after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, when Klugman called Palestinians “blood thirsty morally depraved animals.” Zainab Chaudry, the Maryland director of the Council for American-Islamic Relations, said, “When you are entrusted with the livelihood of patient populations, then you have a responsibility to demonstrate that you can take care of those individuals in an impartial, objective way.”