Dr Sarah Myhill MB BS
Image: drmyhill.co.uk
This is the curious case of Dr Sarah Myhill MB BS whose website has always aimed to give individuals access to all the information and tests they need to take control of their own health.
The blurb reads:
"Everyone should follow The general approach to maintaining and restoring good health, which involves eating a stoneage diet, taking a basic package of nutritional supplements, ensuring a good night's sleep on a regular basis and getting the right balance between work, exercise and rest. Because we live in an increasingly polluted world, we should probably all be doing some sort of detox regime. Start with Your very good health!"
Fair enough it would seem.
Alas, Dr Myhill has fallen victim of the General Medical Council [GMC]
In brief the verdict from the GMC states:
“The circumstances surrounding this case relate to concerns regarding your clinical and professional practice, and concerns regarding your website, your promotion of treatments and consequently your potential failure to recognise and work within the limits of your competence.”
You see, what we have here is competition. We have a Dr who prefers to use 'alternative' therapy than that of the run of the mill GP. Who loses out? Well, pharmaceutical companies of course.
This complaint apparently stems from a user of an online forum who goes by the name of 'Jonas' - the forum is called 'BadScience', owned and run by Dr Ben Goldacre, more about Goldacre later.
'Jonas' wrote the following on Thu Apr 15, 2010
“OK, so I finally bit the bullet and complained (anonymously for reasons that will become clear) to the GMC about uber-quack, Dr Sarah Myhill and to my surprise they have decided to launch a Fitness to Practise investigation. Her response has been quite interesting so I thought I would share it with the Badscience community. It will be interesting to see how the GMC proceed as I believe she has been in the same situation on numerous occasions in the past with similar public campaigns resulting in the GMC dropping charges for undisclosed reasons."
Jonas... or rather, the sock puppet, later gloats:
“I actually find this quite funny as the my initial contact with the GMC was just a speculative email to the general enquiries email asking whether it would actually be worth submitting another complaint given the failure of the previous 6 efforts. This was written with some haste during a coffee break and hence contained a few typo’s. Amusingly, after submitting my full complaint the GMC decided to use this email to front the complaint to Myhill *sigh*”.
Seems like some sort of witch-hunt to me.
I have in my possession an email that points the finger of blame regarding this decision directly at GlaxoSmithKline. I'm just awaiting to see if I can gain permission to use it on this blog.
It's a truly eye-opening and fascinating email. The 'sender' writes:
I believe that the organisation that most stands to benefit from the persecution of doctors like Myhill, Hyams, Skinner and indeed, Wakefield, is GlaxoSmithKline. Originally known as Wellcome, it merged with Glaxo in 1995 to become Glaxo Wellcome and then again with Smithkline Beecham in 2000, to become GlaxoSmithKline. For reasons that I will explain later in this letter, I believe that this organisation – the fourth biggest pharmaceutical company in the world and manufacturer of a large range of antidepressants – is somehow involved in all these cases.
I believe that members of the school of conventional medicine, looking to get rid of the „competition‟ posed by those who practice environmental medicine, or alternative medicine, are using the legal powers bestowed on the GMC to achieve their aims; and that further, they are using their influence within the Council to do so.
I believe that either unwittingly, or with its full knowledge, the GMC has become embroiled in the row between practitioners of conventional medicine and practitioners of environmental medicine, and is favouring the former over the latter either deliberately or misguidedly. This means that the GMC has contravened its own regulations and has allowed itself to become embroiled in arguments about different medical practices.
I believe that the cases against Drs Myhill, Skinner, Hyams and others constitute a deliberate attempt by those who favour conventional medicine (possibly with the assistance/collusion of GlaxoSmithKline), to modify the „marketplace‟ and make a mockery of Patient Choice by picking off, one by one, those doctors who offer an alternative choice of medical treatment.
The sender of the email also draws a link to GlaxoSmithKline and Ben Goldacre, a member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and a research fellow at The Institute of Psychiatry. Remember, it is Goldacre who owns and runs the 'BadScience' forum where 'Jonas' seems to take great delight in alleging that it was 'He', could be a 'she', who made the complaint.
Here is a photo of Goldacre [centre] receiving an award from everybody's favourite, Dr. Alistair Benbow, GlaxoSmithKline's European Medical director. [right] I'm unsure who the man is on the left.
The email alleges that Goldacre received an award from GlaxoSmithKline for an article he wrote on MMR and allegedly received a cash prize of £2,000.
In the UK, the MMR vaccine was the subject of controversy after publication of a 1998 paper by Andrew Wakefield et al. reporting a study of twelve children who had bowel symptoms along with autism or other disorders, including cases where onset was considered to be soon after administration of MMR vaccine. In 2010, Wakefield was found by the General Medical Council to have acted "irresponsibly" [Source]
GlaxoSmithKline manufactured the Priorix MMR vaccine.
Now, call me a cynic but is it really that difficult to join up the dots here?
The sender of the email goes in to much more detail.
Incidently, some time ago, I believe, a complaint was made to the GMC regarding Alistair Benbow's performance on BBC TV's Panorama programme, 'Taken On Trust'. As I understand it, nothing came of this complaint.
Keep your eyes peeled - I'm just awaiting permission to upload the revealing mail so the readers of this blog can download and draw their own conclusions.
I believe this is persecution of the highest order and I urge you all to follow these links:
**Update - not long after this post was published, I recieved the following comment and to allow a sense of balance, I'm adding it to the foot of this post.
Are you talking about this Ben Goldacre, who writes in the Guardian and the BMJ about bad behaviour in the pharmaceutical industry, and specifically about their crimes in relation to psychiatric drugs?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/feb/27/pharmaceuticalindustry
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/339/nov27_1/b4949
SUPPORT DR SARAH MYHILL [FACEBOOK]
WITCH HUNT OF DR SARAH MYHILL [Sign petition]
Support Dr Sarah Myhill Campaign Launched By Jane Bryant [PDF]
There are many more links on Dr. Myhill's website at http://www.drmyhill.co.uk/
ARE WE ALL JUST GOING TO SIT BACK AND ALLOW THIS TO HAPPEN?
GET BLOGGING FOLKS!
Fid
ORDER THE PAPERBACK
'THE EVIDENCE, HOWEVER, IS CLEAR...THE SEROXAT SCANDAL' By Bob Fiddaman
SIGNED COPIES HERE OR UNSIGNED FROM CHIPMUNKA PUBLISHING
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