In a rare partial victory for free speech and reasoned discourse, two New Zealand doctors have won their appeals against the Medical Council. Their “crime”? Daring to contradict the Podium of Truth.
Two doctors who were suspended by the Medical Council over spreading Covid-19 misinformation have won their appeals against the suspension – but it doesn’t mean they can go back to work yet.
Of course not. If they did, that would mean that New Zealand is a place where ideas can be contested freely. We all know that’s simply not the case.
Note, though, how Stuff poisons the well against the doctors: “spreading Covid-19 misinformation”. Says who?
Wellington doctor Matthew Shelton was suspended after sending a text message to his patients about his anti-vaccination views stating he did not support the vaccination of children, and pregnant and fertile women.
Logically, if he specifically only does not support the vaccination of some people, he must therefore support the vaccination of others. That’s not “anti-vaccination”: it’s exactly the sort of cautious advice any doctor should give when prescribing medications. If a doctor rightly advises a pregnant woman not to take aspirin, is he “anti-aspirin”?
As the scientific literature clearly states, “drugs that may be of benefit or even life-saving to the mother can deform or kill the fetus”. Does that statement make the peer-reviewed National Library of Medicine “anti-prescription drug”?
Australia’s official HealthDirect advisory explicitly rules out almost all common vaccinations during pregnancy: are they therefore “anti-vaxxers”?
Shelton’s lawyer, Matthew Clelland QC, had told the judge that his client was not an anti-vaxxer.
“These people are daring to express a view that is not consistent with the Medical Council.”
[Dr Peter] Canaday’s lawyer, Adam Holloway, had said he was debating data and sharing opinions and there was no evidence of him telling people not to get vaccinated.
Canaday was not anti-vaccination, he said.
Can we just retire the term “anti-vaxxer”, now? Because, like so much else in the legacy and social media lexicon, it’s lost all meaning. Like “far right”, “fascist”, “white supremacist” and so many more, it’s just become a swear word bereft of any real meaning.
To that lexicon of empty epithets we can also add “misinformation”.
In 1960, New Zealand’s medical authorities approved the use of Thalidomide for morning sickness. It was available until at least August 1962. Should any doctor who recommended against prescribing it have been disciplined for “spreading Thalidomide misinformation”?
The point here is not that medical authorities are always wrong, but that doctors, more than anyone, should be free to challenge their orthodoxies. Medicine is, after all, a science, and the most basic tenet of science is the freedom to reasonably challenge authority.
This also does not mean that doctors should be free to spout any old quackery. There are some things we can know with almost certainty. At the time that Dr Shelton sent his text, the safety of Covid-19 vaccinations for children and pregnant women was not one of them. His caution may have been right or wrong, but it was not unreasonable.
Suspending the doctors was absolutely unreasonable and draconian.
Now Judge Stephen Harrop has released his decisions and said he was satisfied that the council’s decision to suspend was not a fair, reasonable and proportionate response to patient safety or public health.
The judge said the interim suspension decisions must be reversed. But that did not mean an immediate return to work.
Instead, the judge has asked all sides for further information on whether he should send it back to the Medical Council to be reconsidered or whether the doctors and the council could agree on a voluntary undertaking that could outline what the doctors were able to do – which could include not to post on social media.
Stuff
The derangement of public discourse by the Covid panic continues. Genuine anti-vaxxers might be bad enough: fanatical covid vax zealots are even worse.
