Guy Hatchard
Guy is an international advocate of food safety and natural medicine. He received his undergraduate degree in Logic and Theoretical Physics from the University of Sussex and his PhD in Psychology from Maharishi University of Management, Fairfield Iowa. He was formerly a senior manager at Genetic ID, a global food safety testing and certification laboratory.
New Zealand physician Dr Sam Bailey has had her medical registration rescinded along with an award of legal costs and fines totalling $158,000. The charges levelled against Bailey are detailed in an article in Stuff newspaper. The Medical Professional Conduct Committee submitted that the positions Bailey took in her YouTube videos were “not in the realm of legitimate scientific debate”, had the “hallmarks of conspiracy theory” and contained “deliberate efforts to undermine or discredit the official position and experts”.
Following the case of another doctor who raised concerns about the health effects of McDonald’s menus, ACT leader David Seymour and the Health Minister Simeon Brown have issued a diktat limiting public servants in the medical sector from opposing the government no matter if their concerns are valid or not. Seymour is the minister for regulation and the associate minister of health, finance, and education who, mid year, will become deputy prime minister. He announced that he and Brown are “putting muppets back in their box”.
So what did Dr Sam Bailey actually say that was so offensive to the government that they are seeking to further curtail free speech? Were her questions out of the realm of legitimate scientific debate? According to the Stuff article, the main charges were:
1. Bailey was accused of questioning the accuracy and appropriateness of PCR testing of Covid-19. A 2021 article available on PubMed is entitled “Analytical Performance of Covid-19 Detection Methods (RT-PCR): Scientific and Societal Concerns”. It concludes, “According to several reports, the diagnostic accuracy of many of the currently available RT-PCR tests for SARS-CoV-2 may be lower than optimal, as false-positive, and false-negative results are seen in a small but significant proportion of individuals.”
2. Bailey said the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine had a short development and testing timeline. She said it “was not a safe product” and alleged people had been dying as a result. A 2024 study entitled “Covid-19 vaccines and adverse events of special interest: A multinational Global Vaccine Data Network (GVDN) cohort study of 99 million vaccinated individuals” concluded: “This multi-country analysis confirmed pre-established safety signals for myocarditis, pericarditis, Guillain-Barré syndrome, and cerebral venous sinus thrombosis. Other potential safety signals that require further investigation were identified.”
3. Bailey suggested the Covid-19 fatality rate was much lower than suggested by official figures. A 2021 study entitled “Case fatality rate of COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis” concluded: “The present review results highlighted the need for transparency in testing and reporting policies and denominators used in case fatality rate (CFR) estimation. It is also necessary to report the case’s age, sex, and the comorbidity distribution of all patients, which are essential in comparing the CFR among different segments of the population.”
4. Bailey was critical of some figures among the medical establishment. For example she said “Unfortunately, scientists like Dr. Siouxsie Wiles seem to have become detached from the very nature of human health as they focus on molecular test results and top-down political policies.” Dr Wiles is a high profile advocate of masking, vaccines and lockdowns. A 2022 article in Frontiers journal is entitled “Side-Effects of Public Health Policies Against Covid-19: The Story of an Over-Reaction“. It concluded “Our article has highlighted just some of the many side effects of Non Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPIs) that have been adopted by our governments since the COVID-19 crisis began. Even in a terrible epidemic, decisions cannot be taken without an exhaustive risk-benefit analysis, not to mention consideration of civil liberties.”
5. Dr Bailey suggested that our body’s ‘terrain’ was more important than the effect of viral infection or germs when determining potential Covid-19 outcomes. Terrain theory is a controversial offshoot of functional medicine, but the assertion that pre-existing health conditions are crucial determinants of Covid-19 outcomes is clearly mainstream science with multiple scholarly references. A 2022 study entitled “Covid-19 mortality is associated with pre-existing impaired innate immunity in health conditions”. It concludes: “Our results suggest that impaired innate immunity in pre-existing health conditions is associated with increased hazard of Covid-19 mortality. The discovered molecular risk factors are potential prognostic biomarkers and targets for therapeutic intervention.”
Our intention above is to highlight the fact that from the outset of the pandemic, the substance of the charges laid against Dr Bailey were, in fact, the subject of genuine scientific debate and continue to be so up to the present. Whether you agree with Dr Bailey or not, her assertions were similar to questions being widely discussed and investigated by mainstream scientists.
Has Dr Bailey been the subject of an unjustified prosecution?
Dr Bailey has been convicted on seven counts of being a ‘discredit to the medical profession’ and a person whose public statements have the ‘hallmarks of conspiracy theory’. Not too far from the accusations that female herbalists (witches) routinely faced in early modern Scotland. To support this extraordinary conviction, the Health Practitioner’s Disciplinary Tribunal (HPDT) hired a so-called expert in misinformation – research fellow Dr Sanjana Hattotuwa. Dr Hattotuwa is based in Sri Lanka, where he began work as a democracy activist and is now working at the Centre for Policy Alternatives. He studied for a PhD in social media and politics from the University of Otago in 2021.
He is cited on the website of the “Center for the Study of Organised Hate”, based in Washington DC, whose director is Raqib Hameed Naik, a Kashmiri journalist. Its focus is combating extremism, radicalisation, disinformation, violence and hate speech around the world. Hattotuwa was formerly the director of the now defunct Disinformation Project set up by the Ardern government with the possible intention of censoring media coverage of Covid-19 policy.
Hattotuwa has had some previous public exposure in New Zealand, where he shared the effect of reading disinformation on personal cleanliness. He explained to a TVNZ audience that he needs to take long showers at the conclusion of the day in order to wash off the effects of disinformation. The show pictured him in the shower so we know that he is speaking the truth. I did an AI google search entitled “Scholarly articles, do showers wash away the effects of disinformation?” It replied, “It looks like there aren’t many great matches for your search,” which just goes to show the limitations of AI. If only Dr Sam Bailey had taken more showers.
In response to questions from the NZ Herald about the costs and fines levelled against Bailey, Medical Council chairwoman, Dr Rachelle Love, said the case’s legal costs included preparation for hearings, gathering evidence, paying for expert opinions, and ensuring that the process was fair and thorough. She cited the complexity of the case and the need to be fair and thorough. Am I missing something here? You tell me.
Even epidemiologist Dr Michael Baker, another government Covid-19 spokesperson whose public statements Bailey also questioned, believes our government has gone too far in suppressing free speech on medical topics, saying: “Having to go through a centralised vetting process, which will be risk averse and potentially politicised, will ultimately reduce the ability of our system to respond to public health issues.”
The New Zealand Parliament under Ardern and now Luxon has shown itself unable to tolerate questions. The main loser has been the New Zealand public who if they followed the government experts should be making sure they don’t read too much scientific literature and just in case, take a great many more (now compulsorily fluoridated) showers.
This article was originally published by the Hatchard Report.
