Dealers in Second Hand Words (cont.)

Bringing Medicine into Disrepute or the ‘I Should Coco’ charge

The last day of the prosecution case, before the three week break organized by the GMC so that the prosecution can re-tutor its expert witnesses, was Wednesday September 6. The prosecution used the morning of the 6th to show an incredibly poor quality video of Dr Wakefield brightening up a lecture on IBD by telling a few jokes about how he gained control-group blood samples from children at his son’s birthday party.

What strikes me about this final charge on the prosecution calendar, is that it strikes at the very heart of professional, medical and legal culture. Both lawyers and doctors have always told interesting and funny stories about their experiences and their patients. There is of course a reason for this, the everyday experience of both doctors and lawyers, brings them into contact with death and disease, murder and mayhem, these abscesses on the human soul have to be balmed and soothed, this is done with humour, strange tales and surreal stories.

What of course does bring medicine into disrepute is the marketing and prescription of drugs like Vioxx which kill 30,000 people or the shameful and continuous prescription of HRT which results in breast cancer and heart disease. Even more so than these examples, is this present GMC hearing which is blatantly trying to censor original scientific research at the behest of the government and pharmaceutical corporations. This hearing isn’t bringing only medicine into disrepute but democracy and government … yes I know it’s difficult to imagine that anyone could do the latter.

But then perhaps this particular charge says more about the GMC and the politics of medicine than all the other charges put together. The GMC obviously intends that we live in a world not just free of choice over vaccination but where it is a crime to make fun of doctors, scientists and medical apparachiks. Just like the industrial bourgeois of the nineteenth century the humour-challenged plutocrats of science hate anyone reminding them of their unregulated history in quackery and illegal experimentation; and god forbid you joke about medicine.

Fundamental Attacks on the Independence of Science

The case brought against Jayne Donegan by the GMC was a calculated attack on the right of defendants to bring independent expert evidence to court. Like the Wakefield, Murch and Walker-Smith case, the case illustrates the GMC acting well beyond it’s remit in attempting to stifle independent scientific thinking. Where the GMC picked up this prevailing idea that as the regulatory body for doctors, they have the expertise and authority to arbitrate on matters of science, God - or Dawkins - only knows.

One thing is certain however. These contemporary cases show that the GMC, in the face of very serious criticism over the years, is now hell-bent on taking the lead in the regulation of scientific and medical method. This bid for power and authority well beyond their competence will not be stopped until the scientific community intervenes and takes these bourgeoning powers out of their hands.

Apart from anything else, the legal form which the GMC has hijacked is utterly unsuitable for resolving arguments about scientific method. But as with all other interventions in this field, the interests behind the GMC are the multinational pharmaceutical companies and other corporate interests that have been trying over the last twenty years to bend the regulation of science away from qualitative approaches and towards quantitative methodology. Towards the laboratory and away from the person.

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A journalist I was speaking to the other day, suggested that the Sunday Times was about to send Brian on a social skills course. I must say that he does have a funny way about him. On the last day of this part of the hearing, we were shown the video of Dr Wakefield speaking at a conference. Predictably the large screen suspended from the ceiling over the heads of the public and press was not working. Being appraised of this I settled myself down next to a tiny monitor in the corner of the press section of the public gallery, meant I think for GMC staff to keep an eye on the hearing.

Brian, who on many days is my constant and only companion in the hearing room, came in a little later while Miss Smith was introducing the video. I must say I find this closeness can be quite disturbing it’s as if we were participants on a Big Brother set. I am always fearful that, banged up in such a small space together, I might develop some variety of Stockholm syndrome and feel a desire to engage in serious conversation with him.

When Brian came in and saw that I was in the press section where he had thought of sitting, he seemed to snort and veer off, sitting instead below the large suspended defunct video screen. I thought that he was probably anticipating that it would come to life when the video began. Not wanting him to miss his big moment, I tried to attract his attention by quietly calling his name. On the third call, he turned his lugubrious but stony face slowly in my direction without actually looking at me. It was as if his attention had been drawn to something on his shoe which smelt. I whispered, to the inattentive side of his face, ‘That screen isn’t working’, at which he turned his face slowly back to Miss Smith as if I was invisible and unheard. When Miss Smith began running the video and it dawned on Brian that it wasn’t showing on the screen above him, he jumped out of his seat and ran headlong out of the hearing room for the Press Room.

I was surprised at Brian’s reaction to me. Why is he so distrustful? Not at all the ‘hail fellow well met’ approach that has been common amongst most journalists and writers in past times.