Health
Hundreds of doctors resign from British Medical Association over its support for puberty blockers
From LifeSiteNews
Hundreds of U.K. doctors are resigning from the British Medical Association over its opposition to a ban on puberty blockers for kids, accusing the union of ignoring evidence-based medicine and failing to represent its members’ views.
According to reports in The Times and The Telegraph, hundreds of doctors are not only going public to express their anger with the British Medical Associations’ decision to reject the Cass Review’s findings on the dangers of puberty blockers – and many are resigning.
According to The Telegraph: “Doctors with decades of experience have resigned from the British Medical Association because of the union’s opposition to the Cass review.”
As I reported earlier in this space, on August 1 the British Medical Association – the U.K. doctor’s union – called on the government to lift the ban on puberty blockers for minors and called for a pause on the implementation of the National Health Service’s Cass Review.
Initially, 1,000 senior physicians from across the U.K. responded by publishing an open letter to chairman of the BMA, Professor Philip Banfield; that number is now up to 1,400, with 900 of those being BMA members. Among their accusations is that the 69-member council passed their policy at a “secretive and opaque” meeting.
READ: Texas forbids changing sex on driver’s licenses, state IDs for ‘gender identity’
“We write as doctors to say, ‘not in my name,’” the letter read. “We are extremely disappointed that the BMA council had passed a motion to conduct a ‘critique’ of the Cass Review and to lobby to oppose its recommendations … It does not reflect the views of the wider membership, whose opinion you did not seek. We understand that no information will be released on the voting figures and how council members voted. That is a failure of accountability to members and is simply not acceptable.”
The letter further stated that the Cass Review “is the most comprehensive review into healthcare for children with gender related distress ever conducted” and urged the BMA to “abandon its pointless exercise” of attacking and opposing the recommendations.
“By lobbying against the best evidence we have, the BMA is going against the principles of evidence-based medicine and against ethical practice,” the doctors wrote, in an almost unprecedented broadside against their own union in protest of the BMA’s brazen transgender activism.
As first reported by The Times, comments made beneath that open letter “reveal many doctors have torn up their membership cards in response to the union’s stance on the review.” One commenter stated: “On the basis of the BMA’s outrageous stance on the superbly researched and written Cass Report, which has my full support and endorsement, I have decided to leave the BMA having been a member for 50 years since I qualified as a doctor. Increasingly, they not only fail to represent my views, they display no respect for the very premise and ethos inherent in being a medical professional.”
Another doctor wrote: “As a union, primarily, it is the role of the BMA to represent its members, and not to drive clinical opinion, especially in specialist areas. I am considering resigning after membership of 42 years.” A third stated: “I left the BMA partly because of this sort of behaviour on the part of the leadership, having been a member for some thirty years.” Jacky Davis, a consultant radiologist and council member, told The Times:
This minority has voted to block the implementation of Cass, an evidence-based review which took four years to put together. They have no evidence for their opposition. The Cass review is not a matter for a trade union. It is not our business as a union to be doing a critique of the Cass review. It is a waste of time and resources.
READ: Federal court backs Christian teacher who refused to call kids by transgender ‘identity’
GB News also reported on the exodus, reporting that: “Critics slammed the decision as not representing the views of all members, critiquing the BMA’s ‘abysmal’ leadership which was becoming ‘increasingly bonkers and ideologically captured.’” And according to the Daily Mail: “One signatory called for a ‘vote of no confidence in BMA leadership’ and another commenting that ‘activists appear to have been allowed to take over.’”
What is so extraordinary about this is that LGBT activists have achieved phenomenal success by infiltrating and taking over organizations, and then imposing their agenda from the top-down. Once LGBT activists are in a position to pass policies, control votes, and even censor publications, their agenda is assured. This has been incredibly effective for decades.
In this instance, however, the ideologically captured British Medical Association is facing a full-scale revolt from its own members, and its credibility is taking a severe hit. Even the press coverage of their move, which would have been laudatory only a few years ago, is almost universally negative.
The BMA is still committed to its agenda – but its grip on the narrative has been broken, and it seems unlikely that the union will be able to reestablish it.
Business
Canadian health care continues to perform poorly compared to other countries
From the Fraser Institute
By Mackenzie Moir and Bacchus Barua
At 30 weeks, this year marked the longest total wait for non-emergency surgery in more than 30 years of measurement.
Our system isn’t just worsening over time, it’s also performing badly compared to our universal health-care peers.
Earlier this year, the U.S.-based Commonwealth Fund (in conjunction with the Canadian Institute for Health Information) released the results of their international health policy survey, which includes nine high-income universal health-care countries—Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Unfortunately, Canada continued to come in near or dead last on key measures of timely access. Most notably, Canada ranked worst for wait times for specialists and non-emergency surgery.
For example, whereas almost half (46 per cent) of Canadians surveyed indicated they waited two months or more for a specialist appointment, that number was just 15.1 per cent in the Netherlands and 13.2 per cent in Switzerland. And while one in five (19.9 per cent) Canadians reported waiting more than one year for non-emergency surgery, just half a per cent (0.6) of Swiss respondents indicated a similar wait. And no one in the Netherlands reported waiting as long.
What explains the superior performance of these two countries compared to Canada?
Simply put, they do universal health care very differently.
For example, the Netherlands, which ranked first on both indicators, mandates that residents purchase private insurance in a regulated but competitive marketplace. This system allows for private insurance firms to negotiate with health-care providers on prices, but these insurance firms must also accept all applicants and charge their policy holders the same monthly fee for coverage (i.e. they cannot discriminate based on pre-existing conditions).
In Switzerland, which ranked among the top three on both measures, patients must also purchase coverage in a regulated private insurance marketplace and share (10-20 per cent) of the cost of their care (with an annual maximum and protections for the most vulnerable).
Both countries also finance their hospitals based on their activity, which means hospitals are paid for the services they actually provide for each patient, and are incentivized to provide higher volumes of care. Empirical evidence also suggests this approach improves hospital efficiency and potentially lowers wait times. In contrast, governments in Canada provide hospitals with fixed annual budgets (known as “global budgets”) so hospitals treat patients like costs to be minimized and are disincentivized from treating complex cases.
It’s no surprise that in 2022, the latest year of available data, a lot more Swiss (94 per cent) and Dutch (83 per cent) reported satisfaction with their health-care system compared to Canadians (56 per cent).
No matter where you look, evidence on the shortcomings of Canada’s health-care system is clear. Fundamental reform is required for Canadians to have timelier care that matches what’s available in universal health-care countries abroad.
Health
Dr. Malone: Bird flu ‘emergency’ in California is a case of psychological bioterrorism
From LifeSiteNews
Contrary to initial reporting from corporate media, the WHO, and the apocalyptic mutterings of Dr. Peter Hotez, there continues to be no evidence indicating the circulation of a highly pathogenic version of bird flu in either animal or human populations.
What is the current threat assessment for Avian Influenza, and has it changed?
I previously established and published a brief baseline threat assessment for Avian Influenza on July 2, 2024. Four dominant parameters must be considered when assessing a potential infectious disease threat to human populations:
- Disease severity (a measurable objective truth)
- Mechanism of transmission and observed transmissibility (an experimentally testable objective truth)
- Evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission (a measurable objective truth)
- Assessment of anticipated future risk (subjective, speculative, and hypothetical)
Politicians and their allies (in BioPharma, academia, and other sectors) have a variety of conflicts of interest and agendas which are not aligned with objective, dispassionate assessment and response to public health and infectious disease issues, and cannot be relied upon to analyze and respond to these key parameters objectively.
An assessment of the conflicts of interest and political agenda(s) of California’s Gavin Newsom is beyond the scope of this analysis. Still, please remember that Governor Newsom clearly mismanaged and overreacted to the COVID threat, as did the World Economic Forum that trained and coached (coaches?) him as a “Young Leader” and clearly continues to influence his political postures.
Although California has remained under Democrat party control – in significant part consequent to “rank choice” voting policies – during the recent presidential election there was a clear shift and momentum toward the Republican party across the majority of the state.
California has a very large dairy industry, and I know that a leader in and representative of that industry has close connections to Newsom. The presence of the virus in Southern California dairy farms is widespread, with over 300 dairy herds testing positive in the last 30 days
Has the threat assessment circa July 2024 changed? Let’s revisit the basics:
Disease severity, December 2024
Disease severity continues to be mild, with the exception of one new case which apparently triggered Newsom to declare a state of emergency in California.
According to Newsweek, “A person in Louisiana was hospitalized in critical condition with severe respiratory symptoms from a bird flu infection, according to state health officials. The patient had been in contact with sick and dead birds in a backyard flock, according to the CDC. Louisiana health officials said the patient is older than 65 and has underlying medical conditions.”
Here is the current CDC threat summary
- H5 bird flu is widespread in wild birds worldwide and is causing outbreaks in poultry and U.S. dairy cows with several recent human cases in U.S. dairy and poultry workers.
- While the current public health risk is low, CDC is watching the situation carefully and working with states to monitor people with animal exposures.
- CDC is using its flu surveillance systems to monitor for H5 bird flu activity in people.
The CDC charts above document that the risk of H5 in humans is low, disease severity is low, and although massive testing has occurred, there are only 61 total “exposure” sources found from cattle, birds, and other mammals.
There are a total of three human cases picked up from the CDC flu surveillance program since February 25, 2024, and a total of 58 cases in the U.S., after testing almost 10,000 people who were exposed to infected animals.
In sum, the profile of disease severity has not changed since July 2024. As opposed to initial reporting from corporate media, dark warnings from the WHO and Dr. Tedros, and the apocalyptic mutterings of Dr. Peter Hotez, there continues to be no evidence indicating the circulation of a highly pathogenic version of this virus in either animal or human populations.
Mechanism of transmission and observed transmissibility
All reported U.S. transmission events involve human exposure in the context of intensive contact during animal husbandry or other known animal hosts, indicating that the mechanism of transmission remains intensive exposure to infected animals and animal carcasses. No change from July 2024.
Evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission
No evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission, now or in the past with this currently circulating variant.
Assessment of anticipated future risk
This appears to be the crux of Newsom’s alarmist response involving the declaration of a “State of Emergency” for bird flu in California. A statement from the governor’s office characterized the move as a “proactive action to strengthen robust state response” to avian influenza A (H5N1), also known as bird flu.
“This proclamation is a targeted action to ensure government agencies have the resources and flexibility they need to respond quickly to this outbreak,” Newsom said in a statement. “Building on California’s testing and monitoring system – the largest in the nation – we are committed to further protecting public health, supporting our agriculture industry, and ensuring that Californians have access to accurate, up-to-date information.”
He added, “While the risk to the public remains low, we will continue to take all necessary steps to prevent the spread of this virus.”
This statement demonstrates either a profound ignorance of the mechanism by which animal influenza viruses spread, including avian influenza, or the presence of a hidden agenda. With a wide range of animal reservoirs, including migratory waterfowl, there is no way that the state of California can prevent the spread of this virus.
READ: Australian doctor who criticized COVID jabs has his suspension reversed
Conclusion
There has been no significant change in the current threat assessment associated with Avian Influenza relative to July 2024. The CDC, which has recently been implicated in industrial-scale “PsyWar” deployment of psychological bioterrorism regarding COVID and has an organizational conflict of interest in promoting vaccines and vaccine uptake, characterizes the current public health risk as low.
My conclusion regarding the Newsom declaration of a “State of Emergency” for bird flu in California is that it is being driven by a hidden agenda. There are multiple hypotheses regarding what that hidden agenda may be, but Newsom’s statement that, “Building on California’s testing and monitoring system – the largest in the nation – we are committed to further protecting public health, supporting our agriculture industry, and ensuring that Californians have access to accurate, up-to-date information,” suggests that this declaration may, at a minimum, reflect advocacy by and for California’s infectious disease testing industry, which includes both academic and commercial components.
Reprinted with permission from Robert Malone.
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