Doctors Who Challenged COVID Dogmatism
Need to Take a Page from Jordan Peterson's Playbook
THUNDER BAY, ONTARIO ~~~~~ January 15, 2023 (LSNews) Those who spoke ‘Truth to Power’ should stand united
So, there is yet another move afoot to cancel Dr. Jordan Peterson. The famed former university professor, clinical psychologist, turned author, political commentator, podcaster and passionate free speech advocate and is probably one of the most esteemed, intelligent and famous Canadians alive today. The ‘woke’ left keeps trying to cancel this man to no avail.
The University of Toronto tried and failed, Sir Wilfred Laurier University tried and he sued them, and the leftist legacy media have tried countless times and yet he still keeps popping up on television. Twitter also tried, and did boot him off its platform until Elon Musk bought the company and reinstated him along with many others that the Twitter trolls didn’t like. Now it is the College of Psychologists of Ontario who are going after him for tweets he made on Twitter, quite a number of which were critical of the overall pandemic response, among other things, and comments he made skewing ‘settled’ climate change ‘science’ during an interview on The Joe Rogan Experience.
The College is threatening to revoke Peterson’s license to practise as a clinical psychologist, unless he agrees to their Orwellian edict that he undertake a social media ‘re-education’ process provided by the College, so as to ensure he better behaves in online forums. In other words, ‘gets with the program.’ If the College’s attempts to ‘re-educate’ Peterson, on his own dime—I might add—sound a little too 1984-ish, it would seem this is the new COVID and post-COVID dystopian era we are finding ourselves in when it comes to questioning ‘the science’.
Now if Peterson was simply a practicing clinical psychologist, the College, purposes, would be threatening, not just of his job, but his entire livelihood. But Peterson isn’t just a clinical psychologist, nor is he currently a practising one, due to the demands of his many other career endeavours. But, rather than agreeing to the College’s Maoist ‘re-education’ terms, Peterson has decided to fight to keep his license, on principle, and has launched a public and legal battle against the College. The legal arguments recently filed in court make a constituional argument that the College’s actions violate Peterson’s Charter right to freedom of expression.
Regulatory bodies that govern the conduct and qualifications of professions such as psychologists, doctors and lawyers, and many other disciplines that require licensing or professional oversight, do have the power to revoke the licenses of their practitioners. Such decisions, however, should be carefully considered, otherwise they could be very costly to these regulators and the College needs to take note of this in their attempts to relieve Peterson of his credentials. Courts have dealt with cases where regulatory bodies have unfairly sanctioned and revoked the licenses of their members who, in their view, have ‘stepped out of line’. As revoking a license, is tantamount to ending a person’s career, and thus their livelihood, courts view it as a more serious situation than a wrongful dismissal case between an employee and employer. As such the offending regulatory bodies are often ordered to pay much higher damages to those they have tried to sanction.
Given the increasing wokeness of regulatory bodies of all stripes, any number of professionals could find themselves in their crosshairs if they are found criticizing the current sacred cows of the woke crowd–including the public health response to the pandemic. Yet, very few victims of this ‘wokeness’ can mount legal challenges to defend themselves against the zealotry of these tribunals, while under suspension, and awaiting a hearing, and afford the costs associated with it, unless you’re Jordan Peterson. So perhaps the Ontario College of Psychologists may rethink its decision, because it could end up paying damages far beyond its financial means if Peterson is successful in his legal challenge. It could also open the floodgates for other victims of this regulatory overeach, like the many many doctors and scientists who spoke out against the pandemic response measures, to follow in Peterson’s footsteps, in tandem. By that, I mean take them to court, not individually, but in a class action suit, put an end to what are nothing more than witch hunts.
The Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons that oversee the professional conduct of doctors in Canada and throughout North America, for that matter, were very busy over the past two and half years, harrassing some of their members. They became very committed to hunting down and suspending the licenses of doctors, or sanctioning and silencing them, if they determined said doctors were ‘flouting’ COVID public-health rules. Doctors who questioned the COVID orthodoxy around lockdowns, social distancing measures, vaccine efficacy and safety, the use of vaccines versus effective treatments and masking mandates, found themselves facing disciplinary actions, and being accused of ‘professional midconduct’, or spreading ‘misinformation’ and ‘endangering public health’ by these regulatory bodies. The actions taken against them by the colleges were, of course, fully endorsed by governments and the legacy media, who never questioned their grounds for sanctioning or punishing these physicians. Instead they often portrayed them as a lunatic fringe, much deserving of such punishments.
Toronto area physician Dr. Jeff Matheson had his medical license suspended for nine months by the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons for challenging the COVID orthodoxy by refusing to wear a mask and encouraging his patients to do the same while also maintaining the pandemic was a media-driven hoax. The hoax part may have been a bit of an over-statement. There is, however, little doubt now that much of the pandemic propaganda was very much driven and endorsed by the legacy media, who never once questioned any of the COVID public health restrictions, vaccine mandates or draconian lockdowns, and took fear-mongering to dizzying new heights.
Then there is Dr. Patrick Phillips of Englehart, Ontario who was sanctioned and suspended, by the College, for providing exemptions for COVID vaccines and masks to patients, and for ‘deliberately spreading misinformation about the pandemic’. Like Peterson, but on a smaller scale, Phillips had a sizable following on Twitter so the College objected to his tweets which challenged the COVID orthodoxy. He compared the COVID public health measures to the Nazi’s treatment of people with disabilities and called Ontario’s vaccine certificate or ‘passport’ system illegal, maintaining it could be used to deny medical treatments, food, banking and shelter to the unvaccinated. He pretty much hit the nail on the head there, as the unvaccinated did become the pariah’s of society, thanks to governments, who with the unfailing support of the legacy media, openly demonized them.
There actually were serious public discussions about denying the unvaccinated medical treatment or admissions to hospitals. Then there was Trudeau’s Liberal government that actually froze the bank accounts of the ‘unvaccinated truckers’ of the Freedom Convoy protest in Ottawa last February. And thanks to federal government mandates the unvaccinated were also denied the right to travel both domestically and internationally and many lost their jobs or livelihoods for refusing the COVID vaccine. Still, the College demanded Phillips face a disciplinary tribunal, citing him as ‘incompetent’ and accusing him of engaging in ‘disgraceful, dishonourable conduct’. The College also barred him from providing exemptions from COVID testing, and vaccine and mask mandates, and restricted him from prescribing Ivermectin as a treatment for COVID19. Philips declined to cooperate and opted not to comply with the College’s ‘remedial efforts,’ which were perhaps similar to the College of Psychologists ‘re-education plans’ for Jordan Peterson.
Brampton pediatrician Dr. Kulvinder Kaur Gill received three cautions from the Ontario College for publicly stating that neither the vaccines nor the lockdowns were needed to combat COVID. She was cited for ‘irresponsible’ and ‘indefensible behaviour’ that ‘could endanger public health.’ In response to this reprimand Gill filed a $6.8-million libel suit against 23 of her detractors – including a former president of the Ontario Medical Association (OMA) – claiming they had maliciously sullied her reputation. In February 2022 a judge dismissed Gill’s lawsuit, then in November, Gill was ordered to pay the ‘defendants’ as much as $1.1 million in legal costs. The ordeal is not over for Gill who is appealing the dismissal of her lawsuit and the decision on costs.
She also still has to appear before the College’s disciplinary tribunal, for her questioning of the COVID orthodoxy, which could lead to the revocation of her license. There is little doubt that the judge’s ruling in Gill’s lawsuits was an effort to curb potential public debate on the whole COVID orthodoxy, given what is now coming to light in the aftermath the pandemic. That being that much of the ‘accepted’ science and messaging around COVID and the public health measures taken to ‘control’ the spread of were not scientifically based and have turned out to be dead wrong. And that the silencing and sanctioning of doctors, who called it out, was politically, rather than scientifically, motivated.
Yet, the Ontario College is still at it. On January 6th of this year, it suspended Dr. Chris Shoemaker through an interim order under the Regulated Health Professions Act for the publicly critical stance he has taken on pandemic measures such as the vaccines. The College says it is prohibited from disclosing details of what led to the suspension, however, Shoemaker says there were no complaints made against him from patients or third parties, but rather it is the College itself that actually put the complaint together and it is over 500 pages long. He says it all relates to his advocacy and the public speeches he has made wherein he criticized pandemic management. He actually stopped seeing patients in February of 2022, after 45 years of practice, in order to fully concentrate on his advocacy, where he has been very vocal about the suppression of drugs like Ivermectin to treat COVID19 and the harms the vaccines have caused.
There are similar stories from other parts of the country. In Alberta, at least six doctors had their practices restricted by the Alberta College of Physicians and Surgeons because they challenged the COVID orthodoxy. The British Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons suspended the license of Dr. Stephen Malthouse for making what it termed were ‘false’ public assertions that the vaccines were more dangerous than the virus itself, and that the lockdowns did more harm than good.
Again, his assertions were neither wrong nor misinformed, as we know now that COVID vaccines, do pose the threat of myocarditis, for some, particularly healthy young men. Let’s also remember that when it was learned that the AstraZeneca vaccine resulted in the occurrence of rare but serious blood clots in vaccine recipients, the shot was then restricted to people over the age of 40, because the risk of the blood clots in young individuals was greater than their risk of death from COVID.
While the AstraZeneca vaccines were eventually discontinued completely, the number of reported injuries from the mRNA vaccines continues to grow, as do European countries who have stopped vaccinating their young people because of this. Yet, in North America governments are still vehemently promoting their use despite knowing this. Otherwise why would the Canadian government have launched its first ever Vaccine Injury Support Program (VISP) in June of 2021? The program is designed to provide monetary compensation to individuals who have suffered a serious or permanent injury, including death from a COVID 19 vaccine. To date, the VISP has received some 1300 complaints and paid out over $3,000,000 in compensation to vaccine victims.
The evidence that the vaccines haven’t been able to stop COVID infections is now so indisputable that even Health Canada has given up on promoting the propaganda that vaccines stop infection, instead its online information on COVID-19 vaccines now says:
“Vaccination is one of the most effective ways to protect against COVID-19. All approved COVID-19 vaccines used in Canada continue to be very effective at protecting against severe illness, hospitalization and death from COVID-19.*“
So those doctors that challenged the efficacy of the vaccines were right all along, but they still remained accused of spreading ‘misinformation’ about them.
*There is very little peer reviewed studies or data that even support this claim of protecting from severe outcomes.
The evidence is also clear that the draconian lockdowns and stay-at-home orders, that were literally a form of house arrest, did little to stop the spread of the virus, did more harm than good and were actually a terrible mistake. The dramatic increases in drug abuse and overdoses, domestic abuse, and mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety, speak to that. Then there is the overall economic pain and destruction felt by individuals and countriesl as a whole, brought on by the lockdowns. It is also abundantly clear that the lockdowns negatively impacted the most vulnerable members of society—the poor, the elderly, children and minorities. And finally we have always known that masks were more theatre than protection and that, given the spike in other respiratory illnesses in young children now emerging, they did nothing more than stunt the natural growth of their immune systems. And finally there is that growing number of ‘mysterious’ unexplained sudden deaths in healthy young people and athletes that no one seems to want to talk about.
These medical warriors who challenged the COVID dogma who were punished for speaking out against the manufactured political propaganda that was the accepted COVID narrative, are but a few examples of the injustice carried out against those who, to coin a much used phrase, spoke truth to power, and paid the price. The doctors that have been sanctioned, faced the possibility of having their licenses revoked, or otherwise found their reputations sullied, or careers damaged, should stand firm and united as there is strength in numbers. A class action suit launched against the medical Colleges who acted in such an authoritarian manner may make such organizations think twice before they behave in such manner again, and deter other such regulatory bodies such behaviour. As they, above all, should have known, and probably did, that the science on the coronavirus, the vaccines, and the effectiveness of lockdowns was far from settled. Rather than condemning their members, they should have supported them and the notion that questioning and challenging all aspects of the pandemic response was justified, and even necessary, to encourage public and scientific discourse and debate on the matter, rather than insisting on their fealty-like obedience and acquiescence to all things COVIDian.
Courts also need to become ‘unwoke’ and take these cases seriously. They must start recognizing, in the aftermath of the pandemic, that it is time for a reckoning of those professional regulatory bodies that chose destructive COVID dogma over scientific discourse and punished their own members for simply questioning such extreme untested actions that had never been taken before, in response to a health crisis. Actions, which for the most part have been proven misguided, destructive and ineffective.
When science becomes dogma, we are all in trouble!
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I am a retired journalist who served with the Canadian Armed Forces and for the last 13 years of my working career was a Senior Emergency Planning Analyst with the RCMP. I am a wife, mother and dog, cat and intrepid explorer
An Intrepid warrior exploring issues in today's strange new world.
Roxanne Halverson
https://roxannehalverson.substack.com/ |
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