The GMC will reconsider its decision not to investigate a high-profile cardiologist amid concerns he is spreading ‘vaccine misinformation’.
Yesterday, the regulator admitted it had made an ‘error’ when deciding whether Dr Aseem Malhotra’s fitness to practise (FTP) should be investigated.
Last year, Doctors’ Association UK co-chair Dr Matt Kneale had asked the GMC to review its decision not to investigate Dr Malhotra.
When the regulator concluded that the ‘grounds for a review hadn’t been met’, Dr Kneale, with the help of the Good Law Project, launched a judicial review (JR) against the GMC.
He and a group of doctors had previously called for a FTP investigation of Dr Aseem Malhotra based on what they claimed is his ‘high-profile promotion of misinformation about Covid-19 mRNA vaccines’.
Dr Malhotra, a consultant cardiologist, campaigner and author, has over half a million followers on social media platform X, with many posts focusing on what he claims are adverse effects of mRNA Covid-19 vaccines.
The GMC’s statement yesterday said: ‘In 2023, Dr Matt Kneale asked us to review our decision to close the concerns he had raised with us about Dr Aseem Malhotra.
‘We considered Dr Kneale’s request under Rule 12 of our Fitness to Practise Rules, which set out the grounds that must be met for us to review a decision, and subsequently informed him that the grounds for a review hadn’t been met.
‘Later in 2023 Dr Kneale was granted permission to judicially review (JR) our decision. While preparing for the JR, we identified an error in the Rule 12 decision, which means that it needs to be re-taken.’
Rule 12 of the FTP rules stipulates the grounds on which a GMC decision can be reviewed, including if the decision may be ‘materially flawed’ or if new information comes to light.
A spokesperson for the regulator said the error was identified during ‘extensive further assessment’ of their evidence.
‘We are sorry for this error; as soon as we realised it had been made, we took steps to inform all relevant parties and concede the Judicial Review,’ they added.
Dr Kneale said the GMC ‘has been forced to reconsider its flawed decision’ meaning he and his peers have ‘secured an important step forward’.
In a post on X, he said: ‘My complaint highlighted the danger of such misinformation. It’s troubling that the GMC initially dismissed it and defended their position, even after a court challenge. This undermines public trust in our medical regulator.’
Dr Kneale also claimed that the GMC has refused to cover any of his legal costs, but is ‘astonishingly’ paying towards Dr Malhotra’s costs.
The Good Law Project claimed that the GMC has ‘insisted’ on going back to court to decide how much of Dr Kneale’s costs it will pay, but has agreed to pay £4,000 plus VAT towards Malhotra’s costs. The legal campaign organisation described this move as ‘highly unusual’.
In response, the GMC told Pulse that since they ‘conceded’ the case brought by Dr Kneale, they will meet ‘reasonable costs’ incurred by both him and Dr Malhotra.
The regulator added: ‘A decision on the exact amount to be paid to Dr Kneale is yet to be confirmed – it will be no more than £15,000 due to a cap imposed by the Court as part of the judicial review.
‘The GMC has agreed to pay a portion of Dr Malhotra’s legal costs and an amount of £4,000 has been agreed.’
Dr Malhotra has said he hopes that in its ‘renewed look’ at concerns about him, the GMC will ‘realise’ he is a ‘long-standing champion of patient safety’.
In a post on X, he wrote: ‘I am disappointed that entirely due to an error in the GMC’s processes I have been unable to present my case at the High Court to stand up for the vaccine injured and to clear my name from the vexatious allegations that Dr Matt Kneale has made about me and my practice.
‘I have a track record of being a very strong advocate for ethical, evidence-based medical practice and speaking truth to power over a number of issues – such as the obesity epidemic, excess sugar and ultra-processed food impact on metabolic health and Covid vulnerability, low-carb diets for type 2 diabetes, lack of transparency in the prescription of statins, ambulance delays; and more recently the harms of the mRNA vaccine for Covid-19.’
READERS' COMMENTS [2]
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I wonder if the GMC didn’t want to have a public debate about the fact that all medical interventions will have side effects of varying degrees. I think we have a tendency as a profession to play down the side effects with vaccination as the benefits to the public greatly outweigh any harm to a particular individual but this is a difficult thing to explain without turning people away emotionally from deciding to have a vaccine. I don’t know how far this doctor went and whether he did provide misinformation but I do know Covid has meant the profession has had to try to explain more clearly the cost/benefit of vaccinations.
Closing down conversation rarely helps in any field or topic. I’ve listened to DR Malhotra. It’s not inflammatory or dangerous in my opinion and the public understand nuance a lot better than doctors or politicians give them credit for. This is evidenced by the masses doing the correct thing even when completely misadvised by the government eg when the government told everyone to get out before Xmas to boost the economy during omicron wave and Chris Witty said you might not want to do that before seeing your granny for xmas so people chose their preference and either partied it up or saw granny and xmas economy boost was affected. People have a lot of sense. It is going to be important to track effects of these vaccines including adverse effects not least of which because they had less oversight before being introduced because of the need for rapid implementation, Shutting down discourse loses trust, people are not sheep and want to hear different opinions. Unless the information is inflammatory or discriminatory or bonkers which its not, let it go ahead. Shutting down conversation will harm public trust more than hearing wide debate will