Friday, October 13, 2023

Ontario regulator drops case against sceptic MD

Ontario's College of Physicians and Surgeons has ended its quest to silence anti-lockdown pediatrician Kulvinder Kaur Gill.

Ontario regulatory body drops inquest into COVID-critical doctor | National Post | Michael Higgins: 

Oct 4, 2023 - "If the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) was to be believed, the tweets of Dr. Kulvinder Kaur Gill were ... unprofessional, irresponsible, critical of official messaging and potentially destructive to public health.... The college was unhappy that Gill believed government and public health responses to COVID were based more on politics than science. So it comes as a surprise that the college, which had been hellbent on bringing Gill to heel, has decided to end a planned disciplinary hearing against her. 

"Lisa Bildy, Gill’s lawyer, said in an email that the CPSO seemed to concede it had a bad case. 'It appears they finally recognized that Dr. Gill’s concerns about the harms of lockdowns and vaccine mandates were well-supported and could not reasonably be said to constitute "misinformation",' Bildy said.

"Gill’s case is another example of a regulatory body trying to exert control over the tweets, speech and language of a professional. The most high-profile occurrence is that of psychologist Jordan Peterson, who is fighting an order from the College of Psychologists of Ontario to undergo social media training, thereby regulating what he says on social media.

"'Regulatory bodies have become far too comfortable with exerting control over the expression and values of their members,' said Bildy. 'The (CPSO) is legislatively tasked with keeping patients safe from incompetent and unethical doctors and regulating the profession in the public interest. It is not there to give disgruntled people on Twitter a tool for "cancelling" people with whom they do not agree, nor to take up the mantle of enforcer for politicians who don’t want their policies challenged.'

"In 2020, Gill, a pediatrician with immunology training practising in the Greater Toronto Area, found herself the subject of complaints — from members of the public, not patients — to the CPSO. The Democracy Fund, a civil liberties organization assisting Gill, described her in 2022 as the subject of a 'malicious online campaign” that encouraged the public to file complaints about her. Five complaints were dismissed by a committee of the CPSO, but three resulted in 'cautions' being issued in 2021 against the doctor....

"Gill found herself in the crosshairs of the college again in 2022. This time, she was accused of advocating against masks and COVID vaccines, and for undermining trust in public health. In February 2023, the college pointed to the 'totality of Dr. Gill’s communications' as evidence that, 'Government and other institutions are engaging in tyranny, lying to the public and acting in unconstitutional and unscientific manner'.... A 15-day disciplinary hearing was scheduled for early 2024. However, in September, the CPSO told Gill’s lawyer that it was not proceeding with the hearing. The CPSO declined to comment on the case, citing confidentiality.

"Gill’s real crime, Bildy said, was refusing to go along with the 'groupthink.' She pointed out that the CPSO’s statement to the profession, back when Gill was being investigated, told doctors their comments could lead to public harm if they did not 'align with information coming from public health or government.'  'This was an astonishing edict,' Bildy told me. 'Public health is fundamentally a political office and should not be beyond reproach. Physicians are bound by an ethical and moral duty to do no harm, and it is sometimes essential and in the public interest to question public health decisions and government policies. Consensus can be dangerous, particularly when groupthink coalesces around the wrong decision....

"'If we don’t push back, an enforced consensus on the social and scientific issues of our time will steamroll over us. If that happens, especially on a global, technocratic scale, the Enlightenment era with its ideals of rationalism, democracy, individualism, the scientific method, fundamental freedoms and the like — a relative blip on the historical time scale — may be gone forever.'”

Read more: https://nationalpost.com/opinion/ontario-regulator-walks-back-inquisition-against-covid-critical-doctor

“the basic concept of public health is to look at all harms” Dr Kulvinder Kaur Gill | Sceptic Nurse | February 21, 2021

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