MEP for Ireland South, Michael McNamara, has described the Irish Medical Council\u2019s inquiry into Wexford-based GP Dr Billy Ralph for posting \u2018inappropriate tweets\u2019 during the Covid-19 response as an \u201cinquisition\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Council is investigating allegations that Dr Ralph posted a large number of tweets between October 17th, 2020, to June 16th, 2022, which it is claimed were critical of several aspects of the health policies implemented during the Covid-19 response including lockdowns, face-mask use, and the vaccination of children.<\/p>\n
The MEP, who is a barrister, and previously represented Clare as a TD, quoted Dr Ralph as saying previously \u201cin a slightly different context\u201d that the inquiry was \u201call about control. Not about health\u201d\u00a0 \u2013 and added \u201cThe Medical Council\u2019s Inquisition is not about health.\u201d<\/p>\n
On 14 December 2021, Dr Ralph tweeted: \u201cI will not be injecting any child with this completely untried product in this cohort. 27 years of practice I have never seen an experimental product used on children. Especially for a condition that holds less risk than the treatment. Smacks of regulatory and moral capture.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Council is also examining tweets where it is claimed that Dr Ralph supported the use of ivermectin as a treatment for Covid-19, and was\u00a0critical of the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) and the State\u2019s response to the pandemic.<\/p>\n
In addition to claims that the tweets were inappropriate, it is claimed that they undermined public health guidelines.<\/p>\n
Yesterday Dr Ralph said that the IMC committee should clarify that none of the allegations are connected to his clinical treatment of patients \u2013 and relate only to his comments on X (then known as Twitter).<\/p>\n
Michael McNamara told Gript today that the IMC hearing \u201csmacks of inquisition\u201d and that he now understood why doctors who did not agree with the policy at the time were afraid to speak out.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt smacks of inquisition,\u201d he said.\u201dI knew many doctors agreed with the Medical Council position, but also some who did not but remained silent. Now I understand why,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
On December 14th, 2021, Dr Ralph tweeted in response to a tweet from RT\u00c9 News on the same date in regard to vaccination of under 12s:<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cI will not be injecting any child with this completely untried product in this cohort. 27 years of practice I have never seen an experimental product used on children. Especially for a condition that holds less risk than the treatment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dr Marcus de Brun, who faced an IMC hearing in February accompanied Dr Ralph at the hearing today, posting on X that: \u201cI know now how honest men and women must have felt and what they experienced when they faced the Inquisition many centuries ago, and how Galileo felt when he was being punished for daring to suggest that the earth revolves around the Sun.\u201d<\/p>\n
The committee in the inquiry into Dr de Br\u00fan has yet to announce its findings.<\/p>\n
Yesterday, Dr Ralph expressed concern about the delay in bringing the case before the Irish Medical Council, saying it was not an isolated one as he was one of eight GPs who challenged the Covid-19 public health guidelines.<\/p>\n
Counsel for the Medical Council, Neasa Bird, said that while Dr Ralph had a constitutional right to freedom of expression which included questioning strategies adopted during the pandemic, this was not an absolute right and was subject to public order and morality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MEP for Ireland South, Michael McNamara, has described the Irish Medical Council\u2019s inquiry into Wexford-based GP Dr Billy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":366558,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[165091,165092,103,61,165093,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-366557","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-inquisition","9":"tag-dr-billy-ralph","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-imc","13":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=366557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/366558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}