A concerted attack has been launched on Jorge Amil Dias, president of the College of Pediatrics within the general medical council (Ordem dos Médicos) following his backing of calls for the suspension of Covid vaccines in children (click here).
According to reports, 16 doctors have asked the disciplinary council of the Ordem to “evaluate” whether Dr Amil has violated the Order’s professional code.
In a letter sent yesterday to the Ordem’s disciplinary council of the south, the 16 want this evaluation to establish whether their peer committed a disciplinary offence – “in particular articles of the professional code that refer to individual protection and public health”.
At issue, writes Jornal de Notícias, is an interview the pediatrician gave SIC noticias in which he “questioned the professional competence of colleagues, pediatric medical peers at Hospital Dona Estefânia regarding the process of reasoning (casuistry) and follow-up of patients hospitalised with Covid-19, and made unsubstantiated comments that question the methodology of studies by the North American Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)”.
The paper suggests the head of the Ordem, Miguel Guimarães, is prepared to see Dr Amil dismissed from his position.
For now, the respected child physician has “guaranteed that he never spoke in the name of the Ordem”.
Indeed it has been very clear from the outset that Dr Amil and other doctors and health professionals who have penned Open Letters calling for a step back from the vaccination of children were writing as medical professionals who had taken the Oath to “first do no harm” (click here).
According to CNN Portugal, the 16 doctors believe the stance “fomented confusion in the population, created hesitation in parents in vaccinating their children, and prejudiced the action of the Ordem dos Médicos in the prevention of illness”.
“This situation has to stop. The Ordem has one position which is of its president”, says Miguel Guimarães
The disciplinary complaint boils down to lack of tolerance for any conflicting opinion. The Ordem’s president Miguel Guimarães has told reporters that “there cannot exist the idea that the president of the Order is in favour of vaccination, and the president of the College of Pediatrics is against.
“The position of the Ordem is only that defended by the president”, he said. “And in this case, the position is to support vaccination promoted by the DGS”.
Another issue behind this brouhaha will be the lukewarm response by the country’s parents in responding to the DGS call to vaccinate their children – a response that has not been helped by the death of a six year old child in Porto shortly after receiving his first shot of Pfizer mRNA child-dose vaccine.
Authorities have stressed the death had no relation to the little boy’s vaccination – but on the basis that he was perfectly healthy before his shot, and died shortly afterwards, this assurance may not have fully convinced.
By coincidence today a report has been released to say the inquiry into the child’s death has been archived “as there were no elements that could indicate any suspicion of crime”.
As crime was never an issue, it was an odd choice of words.
But perhaps the saddest aspect of today’s news is the contention, by the head of the Ordem dos Médicos, that there is no room within the institution for differing opinions.
Columnist Henrique Raposo in a text entitled: ‘Why is one child with Covid more important than 127 with serious reactions to the vaccine?’ concedes “criticising or doubting the official narrative has become very difficult, almost impossible. To challenge has too many risks. Any question or different opinion is attacked as ‘negationism”.
Of the doctors’ Open Letters, which have now been signed by over 90 medical professionals, he says, they “say the obvious: if Covid is not a serious problem to childen, and the vaccine does not impede propagation of the virus, why are we vaccinating the little ones? Just as in so many other questions during the pandemic, fear and social pressure win over reason and sense. Vaccinating children en masse is a necessity of fear, not of reason; vaccinating children en masse responds to a psychological necessity created by fear: the desire to control. It is an illusion. This case, our action and our desire to control everything, actually has the potential to go out of control”.
