An Ottawa surgeon has been ordered to take a remedial course on ethics and boundaries after sharing with several patients his controversial opinions about the prevention and treatment of COVID-19.
The complaints panel heard evidence Matyas cast doubt on the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines, promoted the use of ivermectin, an anti-parasitic drug, and suggested that surgical masks were ineffective at preventing the disease’s transmission.
Matyas appealed that decision to the Health Professions Appeal and Review Board, arguing the college had no authority to investigate and punish him for expressing scientific opinions that challenged the “official narrative” on COVID-19.
According to the review board decision in the case, the college received complaints about Matyas from two patients, including a Carleton University microbiology professor. The professor, an infectious disease specialist, said Matyas spread “unsolicited propaganda” about COVID-19 vaccines during an appointment in September 2021 and described them as a useless, money-making venture for pharmaceutical companies.
I feel that doctors that reject documented medical science in favor of conspiracy theories and debunked medical claims should not be allowed to practice medicine.
Yup, same as nurses that rejected the COVID vaccine for no reason – if you don’t believe in the science, then get the fuck out of an industry where science is central to all progress in the last hundred years.
I’m reminded of a comic where a child asks their mother why she has a polio immunization scar, and they don’t – and the answer is “Because it worked.”
no authority to investigate and punish him for expressing scientific opinions
Saying that ivermectin is an effective treatment for COVID-19 is not a “scientific opinion”, it’s a lie. We have enough good data at this point to know that. Him telling his patients that they ought to do their research is rich.
I believe there was some evidence that it might help people from countries where parasitic infections are more common. Which makes sense.
But people in Canada and the US? Waste of time. I really want to know why it was pushed so hard by the right - who was making money?
There are plenty of people in the Northern Hemisphere with parasite infections, the issue is it doesn’t treat Covid, it treats worms, so doctors shouldn’t say it treats Covid.
My favourite unironic quotes from the article:
“He likely experienced cognitive dissonance when I presented him with some of the up-to-date data on the pandemic and COVID-19 management,” Matyas wrote. “Cognitive dissonance can result when people hold a core belief that is very strong … The respondent (patient) is likely a very strong believer in the COVID vaccines being the only possible saviour of humanity in this pandemic.”
Matyas took exception to the professor’s suggestion that he was spreading misinformation: “Everything I quoted to him are published facts and I encourage him to develop a little scientific curiously and humility about what he thinks he knows in the field of medical science.”
Why a “remedial course on ethics and boundaries”? That’s just patronizing. Sure, fine the guy, suspend him, or even fire him. But why pretend that he’s simply ignorant of what the policy is when that’s clearly not the case? (I suppose being patronized is humiliating, which is a sort of punishment, but not one that makes the institution doing the punishing look very good.)
Canada has a bad shortage of doctors at the moment. It was probably a judgement call, whether firing him would make things worse.
Narrator: It would not make things worse
A bad doctor is worse than no doctor.
A good surgeon who is a bad GP is in fact, better than no surgeon.
I mean if he’s bad across the board, sure. What if they’re great at everything else, but just happens to off kilter here? Dangerous gamble to be sure, and does speak to a fundamental issue with their reasoning.
Easy to say that when you have plenty of doctors.
His opinions are not “controversial.” They’re horseshit. Counterfactual conspiracy wank that kills people.
We should eliminate the word controversial from news. It is not a sign of averted bias. It is a refusal to describe a conflict accurately.
