The Recent Rotorua GP CME Conference and The Glaring Absence of that Darn Elephant

Prior to the conference there were three emails advising of cancellations of sessions due to speaker illness and/or family bereavement.

Then the opening remarks for the conference this year included a number of apologies.  Several of the speakers would not be attending due to bereavement, covid, family illness or other commitments.  Some of the sessions were cancelled as a result, including the opening karakia.

Dr Shane Reti, Minister of Health, who had been a confirmed speaker several months before pulled out three weeks prior due to other engagements, a ‘diary clash’ officially.  (Maybe he didn’t want to face a crowd of disillusioned GPs?)

Dr Curtis Walker, former Chair of the MCNZ, had been going to speak about “Healthcare in a Post-Pandemic World” but pulled out apparently due to having clinical duties to attend to in Palmerston North.  (Maybe he is dealing with a variety of unusual and devastating, rapidly fatal medical diagnoses in Palmerston North?)

Dr Helen Petousis-Harris, vaccinologist, pulled out on Thursday night.  She had been scheduled to talk on Saturday afternoon on “Three Vaccines that are Cooler Than You Thought”.  No specific reason was given for her absence.

One speaker had 4 children sick with covid.  At least one speaker ‘Zoomed in’ due to being in recovery from illness.

No-one acknowledged the elephant in the room. 

Why so much sickness and absenteeism?  Could those covid vaccinations pushed on the population using uninformed coercion have anything to do with it?  Repeated covid infections due to damaged immune systems?  Bereavements from sudden death, strokes, heart attacks, turbo cancers, auto immune conditions?  However, maybe there were benign reasons…

Despite the many absentees, a good number of presenters were able to attend.  GP Dr Nikki Turner of IMAC (Immunisation Advisory Centre) – her of ‘the little fatty bubbles and bits of genetic material are safe in all stages of pregnancy’ – was there in her usual cheerleading fashion for a number of presentations.  She had plenty to say about how great covid vaccinations were (“bloody amazing”) and how well New Zealand had done.

 She breezed over safety concerns stating that a huge effort had been put into safety monitoring and that the safety profiles of the covid vaccines had been ‘extensively monitored’.  Four deaths (3 myocarditis, one pericarditis) were a great tragedy, but we did not know at the start of the pandemic about rare events and we learnt the hard way.  The safety monitoring picked it up pretty fast.

She did acknowledge there had been a drop off in trust in the medical profession and thought perhaps mandates had something to do with this.  She thought some sectors of the population might need 6 mthly boosters for covid and that intradermal microarray patches would be great vaccine delivery mechanisms particularly for those who did not like needles.

Masks were good in certain situations and should be encouraged.  She wasn’t happy about “some loud individuals selling opinion as if it was science”.  We wonder who she was referring to – Dr Michael Baker, Dr Shaun Hendy, Dr Siouxsie Wiles perhaps?

Dr Turner declared she had no conflicts of interest in her talk on Common Immunisation/Vaccine Problems.  No mention of the funding her organisation IMAC receives from the pharmaceutical industry or the multimillion dollar conflict of interest with her husband Dr Tony Dowell’s contract to train lay vaccinators in 2021.

Speaking of Dr Dowell, during his presentation he mentioned trialling a new multi-viral RAT test that could test for 4 different germs – flu A, flu B, RSV, covid.  Patients and doctors both were inspired by this.  A positive result provided proof they had a viral illness and explained why they felt so ill but reassured them that they did not need antibiotics.

The main attractions for NZDSOS were the covid-related sessions where hope was high that there may at last be some discussion or debate in medical circles. We were particularly interested in a question that appeared to be going to generate discussion:  

“Was it ethical for the medical council to issue guidance relating to doctors discussing harms of the Covid vaccine?”

Unfortunately, this titillating question went undiscussed. We suppose our court case against the MCNZ may shed some light. 

The main panel session related to covid was titled: ‘How well did we do in NZ?’ and featured GP Nikki Turner, specialist GP and lifestyle medicine proponent Glen Davies and professor of public health Grant Schofield.

This session was run concurrently with other sessions so only about 80 people were in attendance, but Dr Davies did note that that was more than in the UK parliament to listen to MP Andrew Bridgen.  He also acknowledged that this was the first time covid had been discussed at a GP conference in 4 years! We think this is curious, but these conferences do rely on corporate sponsorship. 

The presenters had 15 mins each.  Dr Turner spoke first about the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.  The good was how well the world collaborated, how money made a huge difference to vaccine development, how well NZ got behind the initial lockdowns and the marvel of electronic prescribing.  But then nationalism and division crept in and there were international inequities (Africa missed out on vaccines), polarisation, punitive mandates, mandates introduced too late, and disruption with major health sector changes in the middle of a pandemic.  She is dead keen for the WHO to be able to operate internationally and not be stuck by countries wanting to do their own thing next time!

Dr Glen Davies spoke next about the social cost of the covid response and recognised that everyone had been traumatised in some way regardless of whether one thought the measures taken were appropriate or harmful.  He shared thoughts and questions from members of the community group he has run for 6 years.

One patient had a stroke 24 hrs after her vaccine and was upset she had not been informed of this possibility.  Others were concerned about ‘bad batches’, inadequate testing of the vaccine, lab origins of covid infection, gain of function research, lack of safety data especially for pregnant women and children, lack of informed consent, the Nuremberg Code.  Some expressed a loss of faith in vaccines in general after the covid experience.

The inability to attend a tangi was described as a most hurtful experience.  Others found it offensive to be told their business was ‘non-essential’.  Glen noted the significant financial cost to the country which is ongoing, as well as a loss of trust in the mainstream media. 

He said the thing that has upset him most during the covid response was learning via OIA that 11,005 healthcare workers received vaccination exemptions.  He finished with noting the need to listen to our patients.  We couldn’t agree more.

Dr Grant Schofield said he had been dreaming about a time when doctors could have a robust discussion about covid.  Read his opinion piece on Covid: Your Opinion Counts.

His area of specialisation is metabolic health and he was inspired early in the pandemic to learn that most of the risk factors for a poor outcome were modifiable – eg diabetes, vitamin D status.  He thought, as did we, that maybe this would be an event that would motivate people to improve their health.  However, he soon realised his optimism was misplaced as the government’s pandemic response kicked in.

He disclosed how vaccine mandates had affected his, his colleagues, friends and his family’s lives, which included comments about his sons’ serious adverse reactions, neither of which were reported to CARM. Perhaps he was unaware he could report them himself, as over 2/3 of the jab-affected patients had to do, with only a minority of reports coming from their doctors. 

He thought the idea of 11,005 exemptions for healthcare staff was perverse.

In his academic role, he was aware freedom of speech was challenged.  He noted that labelling people as ‘anti -vaxxers’ or ‘conspiracy theorists’ should not be part of an academic discussion.  He has written about falling out of love with the university here.

At the end of the three presentations there was no time for a robust discussion, only two questions allowed – one about informed consent which Dr Turner leapt on and babbled about how difficult it was.  Dr Schofield was much more concise- there was no consent, doctors coerced their patients.  Bravo Dr Schofield – uninformed coercion at that.

The second question was about whether aspiration of the vaccination needle would have reduced deposition of the vial (vile) contents into a blood vessel and hence adverse effects.  Once again Dr Turner had lots to say about there being no evidence that aspiration made any difference. We couldn’t disagree more. 

And that was the covid discussion.  Not earth-shattering but at least one doctor said he’d have to go away and consider his position.

One other presenter relevant to NZDSOS was Dr Stephen Child, respiratory physician and a board member of the MCNZ, who spoke on “Regulation of Doctors in the Time of Uber”.  He was very worried about the trend of compliant patients turning into informed consumers and suggested complementary and alternative medicine were at the cross roads of the conversation. (Yes, we know this has been in the crosshairs of the Medical Council. NZDSOS was born out of a defensive move by integrative doctors and dentists).  Child noted a trend towards ‘patient-initiated treatment’, which he likened to customers requesting and expecting a service. We always thought that the HDC Code of Health and Disability Consumers’ Rights had rather put the patient at the centre of treatment decisions years ago. 

He also commented that trust was an issue and that the level of trust patients have in health providers is falling.  He suggested that in order to gain or maintain trust a doctor needs to be honest, competent, reliable and minimise self-interest.  Ironically and hypocritically, he finished by emphasising the importance of ‘true informed consent’ – something that the MCNZ obliterated during covid! (We already informed him and the other board members that the HPCA  Act that creates the Council legally obligates it to uphold medical ethics).