OPINION
New Zealand Doctors Speaking Out with Science
Below are two letters of complaint from doctors that were sent to various officials (Bloomfield, Ardern, Hipkins) in Sept 2021 referencing an Open Letter written by Mary Hobbs about NZDSOS and posted on our (NZDSOS) website. They have perhaps been written by two colleagues from the same team as one describes a peer meeting in which the concerns were discussed, they both refer to the same letter from Mary Hobbs rather than our articles or letters specifically and were sent within days of each other.
These NZ doctors were concerned about the content of Mary’s letter but more importantly appear to be concerned about the questioning and distrust they were seeing from patients. “Our patients are getting confused, some quite agitated and angry.”
The blame seems to be laid squarely at our feet for upsetting their patients. Have they considered that their patients were intelligent enough to be concerned, sceptical or asking questions long before NZDSOS got together and were desperately looking for doctors who they could trust and believe since their own doctors were not providing the answers, support or respect they expected.
Did they pause to wonder why patients might consider the “hard working and well-educated medical community as muzzled and controlled by government” or “gagged and mis-informed”?Maybe these patients were aware that the government had stepped into the consultation room and had told doctors that they could not prescribe hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin and were aware that doctors had never been so constrained previously. Doctors have always been allowed to prescribe off-label medications as long as fully informed consent is adhered to. The agitated and angry patients probably knew the backstory to Ivermectin.
Could it be that these patients knew that MCNZ had given Guidance to doctors telling them to discuss benefits of vaccination only with no mention of risks or alternatives? Perhaps they knew that the MCNZ had threatened doctors with sanctions if they said or did anything that might be construed as ‘anti-vaccination’, and that not discussing risks of pharmaceuticals was breaking the Medicines Act.
Patients were aware that there were financial incentives to swab and to vaccinate – financial incentives that did not necessarily align with a patient’s clinical need or want.
They were also aware of the campaign of fear (well documented in Laura Dodsworth’s book A State of Fear) and the millions of dollars spent on ‘influencers’ and 24/7 saturation advertising. They knew the government controlled the mainstream media.
They were looking to their doctors to stand firm and shield them from all this. In many cases, those confused, agitated and angry patients knew much more than their doctors and the doctors could have learned from them if they had employed the finest tool in medicine – the art of LISTENING.
“People read this and question the entire ethics of the medical care systems.”
Yes, people are indeed questioning the ethics of health professionals because never before have so many ethical principles been disregarded.
- The sanctity of pregnancy
- Informed consent
- First Do No Harm
- Right to Decline Medical Treatment
Let us consider some of the other points made in these letters.
Although the doctors acknowledge that they have not been ‘given a mandate’ to represent all doctors, they imply that their view is the majority view and that they speak on behalf of most doctors and that ‘almost all doctors are supportive of the aims of elimination, cluster mitigation and vaccination‘.
How do they know this? NZDSOS may have a limited number of faces and names publicly visible or even members who have joined but how many doctors are quietly cheering us on from the sidelines? How many doctors have tormented souls, trying to make peace between the part of them that knows what has happened is wrong and flies in the face of ethical medicine, and that part of them that knows they will be ridiculed, attacked, cast out and may be unable to earn an income if they speak up?
We are not aware of any poll or questionnaire that canvassed the opinion of doctors on the various measures implemented during the covid response. In fact, doctors were deliberately encouraged to follow orders and not ask questions. There were no opportunities to discuss and debate. We were given guidelines from on high and told what to do, and how and when to do it. We were never asked for our opinions. We had to listen to the ‘experts’ (who generally were not clinicians on the frontlines of patient care) without being able to advise or challenge them.
As far as we are aware, no one has asked doctors if they support forcing patients to have unwanted medical procedures.
In the absence of evidence of what the majority of doctors think, we have to look for proxies elsewhere. We have noted that only 6500 doctors signed the Stand Up for Vaccination letter. There are over 19,000 registered practicing doctors in New Zealand and over 33,000 doctors on the MCNZ register. Can anything be inferred from this? Who knows.
As seems to be par for the course in this covid era, there are many pejorative terms bandied about in these letters without substance to back them up.
- quite bizarre and potentially harmful contrarian philosophy
- details of the arguments are spurious and vexatious
- this growing aberrant message
- influential renegade group of medics/doctors
- views which are on the edge of sanity
- unprofessional doctors
- views do not carry evidence or credibility
What specifically was spurious and vexatious, or bizarre or aberrant? Why is it unprofessional to have a different point of view, to ask questions or to advocate for patients? Many of our letters are referenced to published science.
Similar to Francis Collins of the NIH (National Institute of Health) writing to Anthony Fauci in October 2020 calling for ‘a quick and devastating published takedown’ of the Great Barrington Declaration, they called for a response which needed to be swift, researched, fact- and peer-checked for release within a couple of days. One of them said they did not want “to be increasing their [NZDSOS] profile and popularity by engaging in a public campaign against them”. That sounds very much like what we discussed in our commentary on engaging with the pro-vaxxers. No debate, only censorship allowed. Why would those on the fence – their vaccine-hesitant patients – choose to follow the side unwilling to prove or defend their position in a discussion? Why would those on the fence side with the censors?
If these doctors were so certain of their position, why were they not comfortable defending it?
The authors could have talked with us. They could still talk to us, whoever they are. We’d be interested in a discussion.
One doctor mentioned the ‘proven and extremely safe Pfizer vaccine’. We would disagree, even more so now than when the letters of complaint were written.
The original clinical trial supposedly proved that the vaccine was 95% effective. A read of the first page showed that this was the relative risk reduction (RRR) based on the outcome of 170 patients and the absolute risk reduction (ARR) could be calculated at 0.84%. Doctors know that ARR is the number that should be used whereas pharmaceutical marketing companies like to use the RRR as it sounds better.
The injection was not tested for its ability to prevent transmission. This was not one of the endpoints of the trial and the government knew that they had no evidence that vaccination prevented transmission.
Even in the lead up to vaccine mandates, the Medsafe ‘COVID-19 Therapeutic Products – Questions and Answers’ asked the question, “Does the vaccine prevent or reduce transmission of COVID-19?” The answer stated, “At this stage, we do not know if vaccination prevents or reduces transmission of COVID19”. This answer remained there until 30 September 2021, when the question and answer were removed.
With regards to safety, even the most pro-vax doctor must by now be aware of the significant level of harm being suffered by New Zealanders. We have written many times about the harms being caused.
One of the more disturbing comments in the letters is the suggestion that a Nuremberg Code breach was ‘laughable’. We have written about the Nuremberg Code several times including here. This Code was written in 1947 in the wake of WWII following inhumane experimentation on human subjects by the Nazis.
It provides a series of guidelines or rules to be followed in relation to medical experimentation. In our opinion, the Pfizer covid vaccine meets the definition of experimentation. Never before have healthy humans been injected with synthetic genetic material and lipid nanoparticles. Never before have the majority of inhabitants of planet Earth been injected with a substance while the clinical trial was still ongoing. Of course, it should be subject to the 10 points of the Code. What is laughable about that?
Agreements, codes and declarations in medicine have come about because doctors as a group can be led by unscrupulous leaders to do things that history later despises. The Holocaust didn’t happen overnight. All the way through the 1930s, doctors led the German people down a path of seeing certain groups as subhuman, and to accept euthanasing those that didn’t fit the Aryan ideal. In addition, the American psychiatrist Walter Freeman led a craze for crippling psychiatric patients with prefrontal lobotomy up until it was banned in 1977. The procedure was already outlawed by Soviet doctors by 1950, declaring it “contrary to the principles of humanity”. There are also the Tuskagee experiment, and our own “Unfortunate Experiment” at Greenlane Hospital. Both involved deliberately not treating a group of patients to see what would happen.
These are two examples of letters that people have written about us as a group. Some other doctors and members of the public have written complaints about us as individuals. But no one has spoken to us in a professional manner to understand our position or to discuss their concerns about our communications or to explain why we are so wrong.
The letter writers have in common that they plainly trusted government information, and thought themselves well-educated and informed, claiming an ethical high ground because they are part of a majority. But what of injecting pregnant women, and children, and discriminating against people for exercising their rights under the HDC code and Bill of Rghts and, yes, the ‘laughable’ Nuremberg Declaration?
We know that many doctors are obedient workers rather than original thinkers and that some worry a lot about the collective power of medicine being undermined by heretics who go against groupthink. However, our allegiance is to the truth, and the efforts to discern it are hard-won and humanitarian.
Oddly enough, no real patients have complained about NZDSOS as a group (though there have been fake patients trying to get stories or ‘evidence’ of our supposed wrongdoing) and we have yet to see any proof of the harm perceived by the MCNZ. We have received many, many more messages of thanks and appreciation which keep us inspired to carry on.
Thank you to those who support us.
Letters of Complaint
From: [redacted]
Sent: Thursday, 23 September 2021 11:59 am
To: Ashley Bloomfield <[email protected]>
Subject: NZDSOS Letter
Dear Ashley,
I hope that you remain well during this rare time.
I am writing to you today regarding the open letter that I include below, attributed to the group NZDSOS.
This morning in peer discussion, many of us voiced our concerns regarding the power of this letter in spreading vaccine dis-information. Many of our patients are vaccine hesitant and the power of this letter being “penned” by an “award winning New Zealander” has us extremely concerned.
Everyday in our work we are presented by our patients, with links to NZDSOS website and links to videos of the group leaders speaking about their concerns to welcoming supportive public gatherings. Some GP’s have had “cease and desist” letters delivered to their place of work by patients concerned that their GP is gagged and mis-informed.
I have not been given the mandate to speak on GP’s behalf, but many of us have voiced the opinion that MOH should take the lead in writing an open answer to their letter. The response we feel needs to be swift, should be researched and collated today, fact and peer checked immediately for release within the next couple of days. The response needs to be non-defensive easy to understand but a comprehensive answer to each of their claims.
Those in discussion this morning feel a single accord, gentle but open answer could then be used by all of us in any media space to refute these claims. Discussion today showed we believed that this is essential in support of our vaccine roll out.
Thank you for your consideration.
Nga Mihi
[redacted]
From: [redacted]
Sent: Sunday, 26 September 2021 11:26 am
To: Ashley Bloomfield <[email protected]>
Cc: [email protected]; [email protected] nz
Subject: GP concerns regarding Open Letter NZDSOS to government.
26 September 2021
Tena koe Dr Bloomfield, Prime Minister Ardern and Minister Hipkins,
I am a GP and palliative doctor, and as with all other medical practitioners, am taking an active role in combating SarsCoV2/ Covid-19. I like most doctors are taking an evidence based and collective approach in keeping with our aims to minimize disease by early diagnosis, prevention with mask wearing and in practice risk management and vaccination with the proven and extremely safe Pfizer BioNTech BNT 162b2 mRNA vaccination
I thank you all for the efforts you are making to help protect New Zealanders from the worst case scenario of COVID pandemic. I am very keen to draw your attention to (although no doubt you are well aware) a small group of doctors who are subscribing to quite bizarre and potentially harmful contrarian philosophy.
Regarding NZDSOS and the recent open letter to the government from Mary Hobbs.
Ashley, Jacinda and Chris I speak not just from my own perspective, but from almost all colleagues in General practice, that we are appreciative of your ongoing efforts in managing this COVID pandemic response and the quest for elimination until we are at threshold of community vaccination so that when we do develop endemic, and epidemic SARS CoV 2 transmission in Aotearoa, we will be healthier, more resistant and as a community and health care community, will be able to manage what will be still a challenge, but with reduced mortality and severity.
To this end rest assured almost all doctors in NZ are supportive of the aims of elimination, cluster mitigation and vaccination. I am humbled that most of our patients are also supportive and follow the best advice.
It is therefore with huge concern that I keep hearing about a renegade group of doctors who are spreading disinformation and fear and are attacking the very basis of our best evidenced approaches to COVID pandemic. I refer to NZDSOS, and their recent open letter which was forwarded to me by a concerned patient some days ago.
I was forwarded this latest open letter from NZDSOS, written by a Mary Hobbs, apparently an award winning new Zealander (for writing books about mountains) who literally ranted for pages in opposition to the entire approach to COVID, creating a platform of selfless bravery for the very few and many would contest unprofessional doctors who make up this group, whist patronizing the hard working and well educated medical community as muzzled and controlled by government. (i) Thie content and tone of the letter is patently incorrect. The details of the arguments are spurious and vexatious. To cap it off the Nuremburg code breach and cease and desist demands are laughable if not actually so concerning as people in the community read this and question the entire ethics of the medical care systems, we have that have evolved and serve us as well in the times we are in.
I am now being asked by some members of the public why is it that we as doctors who practice medicine for the benefit of humanity could be practicing such harmful medicine on the basis of this organization and other usually social media led contrarian and conspiracy groups who they are increasingly believing know more than we do. I am doing my best to put things straight using a non-threatening knowledge based and evidence based informative and educative approach. I am concerned however that doctors in this group are fanning these flames and am absolutely bewildered that any doctor with a medical education and ongoing responsibility for patients, as well as a platform of respect, are espousing views which are on the edge of sanity, and certainly do not carry evidence or credibility.
On one hand I feel we need to counter this growing aberrant message, but on the other hand I and many of my colleagues feel that we do not want to be increasing their profile and popularity by engaging in a public campaign against them. This is a difficult impasse; however, I do feel a measured response will be needed. Our patients are getting confused, some quite agitated and angry. As said, most of our patients can see through this and are doing a wonderful job in supporting our community aims for disease prevention and control.
I very much appreciate your attention and guidance with this problem. I understand this is not new information to you, however I hope to express on behalf of many of my GP ad Palliative colleagues the concern we have regarding contrarian interests that could jeopardize the health of many. Myself, and a significant number of my GP colleagues I know are committed to the aims of COVID control and are extremely concerned about this seemingly small but influential renegade group of medics.
Kindest regards
Naku iti noa, na
[redacted]