AS I reported in TCW Defending Freedom here, Dr Sam White, a former partner in a Hampshire GPs’ practice, was suspended by NHS England after tweeting a resignation video in February explaining his concerns around Covid vaccination and what he felt about the government and NHS’s over-zealous response to the pandemic.
Now the independent Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) has ruled that there were no grounds for suspending Dr White – but he must still be gagged.
For the next 18 months, Dr White ‘must not use social media to put forward or share any views about the Covid-19 pandemic and its associated aspects’.
Dr White’s lawyers will appeal under Article 10 of the Human Rights Act 1998, which states that everyone has the right to freedom of expression, although the law may be subject to conditions or restrictions necessary in a democratic society. Surely doctors should never be silenced in a democratic society? Dr White said: ‘If I lose my ability to speak freely so will other doctors.
‘I have been forced to agree that I will erase the video and any other Covid criticism from my Twitter and Instagram accounts.
‘In the wake of the Jane Barton issue [Jane Barton was dubbed “Dr Opiate” after 650 patients in her care died after she prescribed powerful painkillers] the Royal College of General Practitioners commented that doctors should feel able to report promptly systemic failings and that is what I did. So to be punished for that is confusing to say the least.’
The RCGP guide for whistleblowers states: ‘When a professional working in the NHS is aware that care is threatened, sub-standard or dangerous for whatever reason, they have a duty to make these concerns known and for those in charge to assess and, if necessary, act.’
Last Tuesday (August 17) the MPTS, which is independent from medical personnel regulators the General Medical Council (GMC) who are investigating Dr White over alleged fitness to practise issues, said they had received 18 complaints connected with his social media output but did not name any complainants.
They are also relying on the evidence of the manager at his former practice who had not complained about him to bosses while he worked with her, only since she was contacted by NHS England. She is alleged to have stated that the practice had ‘significant concerns’ about Dr White, and that he had expressed ‘strange ideas’ and used inappropriate language whilst at work. Dr White strenuously denies the allegations.
Francis Hoar QC, who defended Dr White, told the tribunal: ‘The NHS and GMC had relied on hearsay with no signed statements being available, no validation of the identity of the complainants, no investigation as to whether his [Dr White’s] remarks were supported by science or clinical practice and no investigation by the NHS of the complaints he has made.’
In fact, Dr White, 41, talked through his concerns about the Covid response to a local GP during his annual appraisal and spoke again to a responsible officer acting on behalf of the GMC and NHS England during his five-year revalidation (relicensing) procedure, but received no meaningful response. He says he turned to social media as a last resort.
His main bones of contention were that the vaccination programme had been rolled out in breach of legal requirements in relation to free and informed consent. As we have reported, informed consent is not being taken seriously at vaccine hubs with people receiving details about potential serious adverse events only after receiving the jab. Dr White also voiced concerns about face masks. He felt elderly patients should not have to wear them and that he should not have to wear one in an NHS setting unless consulting with patients, which he did willingly.
Without investigating any of Dr White’s concerns, which included worries about inaccurate PCR tests that are being abandoned in America by the Centers for Disease Control in December; or vaccination harms, with reports to the Medical Healthcare products Regulatory Agency of 1,596 fatalities post vaccination up to August 11, the tribunal concluded that they had serious concerns about his conduct.
They said: ‘Dr White posted misinformation on social media platforms’, but did not go into detail.
A popular method of silencing doctors wanting to challenge the narrative is to question their mental health. In April, Swiss cardiologist Thomas Binder, 58, based in Baden, an open critic of coronavirus measures and treatment, was taken away from his practice by a SWAT team and locked in a psychiatric ward. He managed to fire off a tweet, minutes before his arrest and before his Twitter account was suspended for criticising the Swiss government, which said: ‘In front of my practice there is a SWAT team from Aargau. They are here to arrest me. Help!’
Dr White’s mental health has been questioned too by a senior NHS England clinical adviser. After a phone conversation with him she urged NHS England in June to ‘consider an emergency suspension given the suspicion that he was suffering from paranoid beliefs and mental ill health’. She concluded this without meeting Dr White and without any kind of formal mental health assessment. Dr White taped the conversation, and the tape reveals that at no time does she ask any direct question about his mental health, so it is hard to know how she came to that conclusion.
The tribunal ruled that Dr White should inform the GMC of any new job he takes so that his behaviour can be monitored, but the ruling will not prevent him from practising as an integrative doctor, a locum or as a GP in any NHS practice.
Dr White maintains: ‘Everything I have said or written is substantiated by peer-reviewed papers or by expert witness testimony, all of which has been discussed by professionals with the lawyer Dr Reiner Fuellmich at his International Corona Committee. [Weekly interviews with respected doctors, scientists, academics, journalists, concerned with the global pandemic response.]
‘I knew that there were problems with the way medicine had become protocol driven and not patient focused but had no idea of the scale.’
Dr White is crowdfunding to pay for his legal expenses.
