To paraphrase the Sound of Music song, “How do we solve a problem like Malhotra?” After receiving several complaints, the General Medical Council has decided not to investigate cardiologist Dr. Aseem Malhotra, who has become a thorn in the side of the medical profession.
Professional regulators have been at the forefront of pandemic discipline, contributing to a culture of fear among practitioners. Severe action has been taken against registrants who criticise or do not comply with the official narrative. I know this from my experience as an officer of the Workers of England Union, representing members brought before the Nursing and Midwifery Council on charges of bringing the profession into disrepute. Apparently the public must be protected against nurses who don’t believe that masks stop airborne respiratory viruses, or who believe in informed consent for novel mRNA vaccines.
A significant strike against this censorial tyranny was by general practitioner Sam White last year. Dr. White was ordered, as a condition of maintaining his clinical licence, to delete his social media posts about COVID-19 and to refrain from making similar comments. Dr. White took the GMC to the High Court and won. The condition was overturned as a breach of his rights to freedom of expression under the Human Rights Act 1998.
Whereas White was an early critic of COVID-19 policy, Malhotra is a relatively recent convert. Initially he promoted the vaccine, but when his fit and healthy father died shortly after receiving the injections, Malhotra changed his mind and began speaking out against the mass vaccination programme. His personal loss came alongside his observation in clinical practice of a marked increase in myocarditis cases (as well as blood clots and other cardiac complications). Malhotra had a review paper published on this phenomenon, and his findings of iatrogenic harm are corroborated by other medical scientists.
Malhotra has repeatedly urged suspension of the vaccination programme until the risks are better understood. He became a darling of vaccine sceptics, with his charismatic and compassionate voice doing the rounds of alt media channels and independent-minded broadcasters working for more mainstream channels (such as Tucker Carlson’s show on Fox News, and Neil Oliver on GB News). However, he was ignored by the legacy media, and it was not until two weeks ago, when he took the opportunity of a BBC interview on statins, that his call was more widely heard.
The context for Malhotra’s BBC appearance was a claim by Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty that cardiac morbidity had increased as a result of limited access to statins during lockdown. Malhotra disagreed, explaining that myocarditis is unrelated to cholesterol level, which statins are meant to control. He instead blamed the vaccines, telling the BBC presenter that this radical medical intervention should be halted. Cue outrage.
The Guardian did a particularly nasty report on Malhotra, smearing him as a peddler of an ‘anti-vax’ conspiracy theory. Numerous doctors expressed their outrage on social media, angered by the BBC giving a platform to this known sceptic, who they accused of hijacking an interview on a different topic. Some reported Malhotra to the GMC.
The GMC’s decision not to act against Malhotra is a victory for science, ethics and common sense, but we should not get ahead of ourselves. This was a reluctant decision by the regulator, as the wording of their response to the referrals shows:
We recognise that Dr Malhotra has views on the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines that are at odds with the national and international scientific and medical communities. We also recognise that his words are strong and there is a question around the accuracy of his statements. There is currently no evidence that Dr. Malhotra has engaged in the type of Covid conspiracy related conduct that has to date justified regulatory action.
— Dr Aseem Malhotra (@DrAseemMalhotra) January 15, 2023
Note here the emphasis on consensus, as if that amounts to truth. It seems that if Malhotra had followed the likes of James Delingpole or Maajid Nawaz down the rabbit hole of globalist conspiracy, he would have been in big trouble. The GMC continued:
We also feel it is relevant that Dr. Malhotra started expressing his concerns about the vaccines in late 2021 and by this time the vaccine programme was well underway with the vast majority of vaccines delivered before this time. We would suggest that Dr. Malhotra’s impact on the COVID-19 vaccination programme in the U.K. could only have been negligible.
This is the most worrying line in the GMC response. If Malhotra is right about the risks of these vaccines, the GMC should be concerned that doctors were inhibited from speaking out earlier, thereby potentially saving lives. Instead, the GMC assumes that Malhotra is wrong, and that his remarks have not stopped the biggest vaccination drive in history.
The GMC acknowledged that Malhotra has a right to freedom of expression under Article 10 of the Human Rights Act, although that is not an absolute right for a medical practitioner. His outspoken opinions on the vaccines, according to the GMC, are “not so egregious as to justify a public hearing and a forum for further scepticism to be aired as to aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic and response”.
This, I believe, is the real reason why the GMC has decided not to take any further action. Any proceedings would inevitably attract publicity and give Dr. Malhotra a platform to air his sceptical views. Ultimately, the truth will get out, and those who tried to hide it will be judged by history.
Dr. Niall McCrae is a former university lecturer who now works for the Workers of England Union.
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There does not appear to be any mention of contracts with DWP. Probably another few billion there. And doubtless lots of other government departments.
That’s peanuts compared to what they spent on PPE that ended up in the bin.
It’s not their money (the bureaucrats’ that award these contracts), so why would they take care on how they spend it?
Will anyone ever be held to account for reckless spending? Not in a million years. I doubt ever in the history of the civil service did anyone lose their job for a poor spending decision costing the tax payer billions let alone millions.
Use the wrong pronoun though…
Apparently, they’re still prosecuting postmasters based on Horizon shortfalls.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/10/post-office-scandal-horizon-ongoing-demand-money-fault/
How on earth can the FCA spent £630 million on IT. That is incredible, or it would be except the public sector judges itself on how much it can spend.
shocking.
Software companies that can do these huge contracts are not ten a penny. You will see the same names cropping up time and again, that’s just a fact of life. As I was often told in my long computing career, you can have it right, you can have it on time, you can have it to budget. Pick two, maybe you’ll get one of them. The amount of money wasted on grand, bespoke systems, not just for government but the private sector too would make your hair curl.
I am not a computer/software career person but I was told if one such example involving an NHS system in the south west that was effectively a licence to print money – by a person right in the thick of it…. Utter fraud.
I too have been involved with computer systems and agree with you. There have been many companies actually bankrupted trying to implement grand computer systems. Most companies do not have the in house expertise to know when they are being taken for a ride. Just look at Canada’s Federal Government payroll system from IBM. It didn’t work. They couldn’t even pay themselves. It cost billions to fix. Most private companies would have been bankrupted.
I read somewhere that Fujitsu were awarded the contract for the mobile telephone emergency alert system.That was an astounding success, too
It seems to be the norm that the more cock-ups companies make, the more likely they are to be awarded high value contracts from the public purse. Honesty and value for money is not a necessity.
No reason then why Fujitsu shouldn’t bear the entire cost of the Post Office compensation scheme.
Oh, and it can transfer a few £million to HM Treasury as well to cover the cost of taxpayer-funded prosecutions based on its faulty Horizon system.
Sadly, RTSC that is just plain common sense and that disappeared years ago. Or has it ever existed?