We have recently reported snippets of overseas data. For example from leading UK oncologist Professor Angus Dalgleish which suggests reactivations of melanomas, lymphomas, leukaemias, colorectal, and kidney cancers. A Japanese study indicates increases in all cancer types after the third mRNA Covid booster. Dr. Frizzelle of Otago Medical School let slip in a recent interview that the rate of colorectal cancers in young NZers accelerated in 2022. How serious are these trends and how concerned sho... moreWe have recently reported snippets of overseas data. For example from leading UK oncologist Professor Angus Dalgleish which suggests reactivations of melanomas, lymphomas, leukaemias, colorectal, and kidney cancers. A Japanese study indicates increases in all cancer types after the third mRNA Covid booster. Dr. Frizzelle of Otago Medical School let slip in a recent interview that the rate of colorectal cancers in young NZers accelerated in 2022. How serious are these trends and how concerned should we be?
We are getting a lot of waffle from mainstream media. For example from Stuff newspaper “What illnesses are currently making Kiwis sick?” And the NZ Herald says “Why is everyone sick right now?”. These offer us a potpourri of what the Stuff health correspondent Hannah Martin refers to as ‘the usual winter culprits’—coughs, colds, flu, Covid-19, whooping cough and RSV. Is this the extent of it? No.
If you want a reality check, try the 2023 emergency response report of Hato Hone St John ambulance service. In 2014 there were 99 ambulance call outs per 1000 people. In 2023 there were 130 ambulance callouts per 1000 people. That is an alarming 16% rise over 2019 and steady compared to 2022. These increased call outs are not for coughs and colds and they are not going away.
So why aren’t alarm bells ringing in the corridors of power, the medical establishment or the public arena here or overseas? Part of the answer was revealed by the UK Daily Telegraph last week in a piece of real investigative journalism entitled “The four-step ‘playbook’ the NHS uses to break whistleblowers". The authors interviewed doctors who raised patient safety concerns. They recount how they were confronted with systemic bullying and harassment from managers and colleagues along with a culture of cover-up. The article covers multiple cases where:
“Law firms and private investigators are also often brought in to investigate the whistleblower, who is then told they are being suspended. Years of internal investigations, disciplinary hearings and legal battles typically follow, until medics succumb to the personal, professional and financial pressure and quit. Many doctors who have decades of expertise in their field and distinguished careers are reduced to depression and suicidal thoughts by the situation they find themselves in. Some sign non-disclosure agreements, enabling them to return to work if they promise to keep their mouths shut, others try to fight back through the High Court or employment tribunals, and others leave the NHS for private hospitals or quit the medical profession altogether.”
The evidence collected by The Telegraph suggests NHS employers are more likely to investigate the conduct of whistleblowers than the issue they have raised. Of the 52 medics interviewed by this newspaper, 41 said their own conduct was put under investigation. They were all subjected to counter-allegations after raising concerns.
One typical example involved Jasna Macanovic, a consultant hepatologist at Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust, who raised concerns with the Care Quality Commission about an “innovative” dialysis technique being used by her colleagues, which she said amounted to harmful experimentation. The CQC visited the trust to investigate, and within days of inspectors departing, Dr Macanovic was herself put under investigation. Ultimately Macanovic was cleared, but only after months of harassment.
Such ‘investigations’ often involve intimidating police interviews of the whistleblower. Another consultant told The Telegraph the investigative processes “give hospital management unbelievable power with no accountability. Essentially the NHS trusts investigate themselves, mark their own homework, and they become the judge, jury and executioner for the
