I know, I know, the magazine’s called What Doctors Don’t Tell You, but throughout the recent Covid-19 pandemic we could have changed it to What Doctors Can’t Tell You. A few brave doctors and nurses have put their heads above the YouTube and Facebook parapets to pronounce, from the frontline, either that Covid is not as bad as everyone is telling us, or that there are effective treatments they’re not being allowed to use, or that the vaccines aren’t as safe as you’re being told, and so on.
These videos and posts have usually lasted a day or so before the “fact-checkers”—an algorithm that pounces on anything that even whispers words such as Covid or vaccines—have them removed.
We’ve heard plenty of rumors that these medics have been threatened, and worse, for daring to speak out against the standard Covid narrative—but getting the proof hasn’t been easy. Now we have it, courtesy of a doctor who has received intimidating letters from the goon squad, better known in polite circles as the General Medical Council (GMC), which regulates doctors in the UK.
Culturally, the letter is a sinister blend of the Chicago Mafia and the old Soviet Union’s Communist Party correction unit, and drips of a “Nice family you have, Dr Smith, be a shame to lose them” style of threat.
A doctor will receive the warm missive if the GMC receives “several complaints” about his social media posts that question the Covid-19 strategy or even vaccinations in general. The complaints may be malicious, unreasonable or from a swivel-eyed loon who writes in green ink and capital letters, but their validity is not in question.
The letter makes a passing reference to the right to freedom of speech, thus: “All doctors have a right to express their personal opinions regarding the Covid-19 vaccine,” and, having got that awkward stuff out of the way, the remainder of the letter labors the point that, actually, they don’t really have any such rights.
In this case, the sin wasn’t a mortal one that would bring down the very panoply of Heaven and its angels but was of the venial variety that requires the doctor to “reflect” on his clear wrongdoing. Meanwhile, his fate will be determined by the Responsible Office (yes, really), and ends with the barely concealed threat: “We ask that you consider what implications this complaint might have for your practice”. . . nice practice, be a shame to lose it.
So, although the post may have been mild, the doctor can still lose his livelihood if the Responsible Office decides that is a fitting punishment, presumably determined by the doctor’s depth of reflection over his misdemeanors.
Step forward the Responsible Office in a letter that urges further “reflection” ahead of the doctor’s appraisal meeting.
The Responsible Office isn’t, in fact, responsible to anyone and can stop the doctor from practicing anywhere in the world. It’s the judge, jury and executioner, and much depends on the doctor’s contriteness.
One feisty doctor who spoke out against vaccinations, and who clearly wasn’t contrite enough, did lose his licence. But Dr Sam White wasn’t prepared to be gagged either by the GMC or the Responsible Office, and last year took the case to the UK’s High Court. The basis of his case was that the GMC and its hit men were acting unlawfully as they were denying him his rights to freedom of speech under the Human Rights Act of 1998.
The court agreed, and a legal commentary afterward was fascinated that Dr White won the case on a “technicality.” It’s interesting that our basic human rights have been demoted to nothing more than a legal technicality, but such is the world of groupthink, where a truth is a lie, and vice versa, taken from every autocrat’s favorite playbook, George Orwell’s 1984.
Doctors and nurses who do question the groupthink narrative are indulging in “Covid-19 denial activities,” continues the legal commentary, when once it might have instead been described as having a different opinion.
Societies advance when naysayers have the right to criticize or question the prevailing viewpoint; in science, these viewpoints are known as paradigms, and they are discarded when evidence comes along that demonstrates a better theory that explains the world and phenomena.
We’ve lost the ability as a society to have paradigm shifts because we shut down any discordant or different voices. As a result, we won’t change or improve, but instead we will calcify from a thousand censorships.
