{"id":667683,"date":"2026-10-28T09:50:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-28T09:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/667683\/"},"modified":"2026-10-28T09:50:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T09:50:08","slug":"gp-prescribed-toxic-medication-to-covid-19-patients-inquiry-hears-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/667683\/","title":{"rendered":"GP prescribed \u2018toxic\u2019 medication to Covid-19 patients, inquiry hears \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A doctor prescribed medication with \u201cknown toxicity\u201d to patients who presented with Covid-19<\/a> during the pandemic, a fitness-to-practise inquiry has heard.<\/p>\n

Dr Patrick Morrissey of Adare<\/a> Medical Centre, who faces 39 factual allegations, continued with his cross-examination on Monday of Colin Bradley, a retired general practitioner.<\/p>\n

Bradley is a professor of general practice and is the expert witness for Dr Maria O\u2019Kane, chief executive of the Medical Council<\/a>.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Kane alleges Morrissey, while working at the centre, prescribed hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, and co-prescribed azithromycin and hydroxychloroquine to a number of patients who had Covid-19 symptoms or who received a Covid-19 diagnosis.<\/p>\n

Hydroxychloroquine is used to manage autoimmune conditions including lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, while ivermectin is used to treat parasitic infection.<\/p>\n

Azithromycin is an antibiotic used to treat bacterial infections such as pneumonia, strep throat and skin infections.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Kane alleges Morrissey\u2019s prescribing of these medicines in respect of Covid-19 symptoms and diagnosis was contrary to the prescribing guidelines of the Health Service Executive<\/a>, the European Medicines Agency<\/a> (EMA) and the guide to professional conduct and ethics for registered medical practitioners.<\/p>\n

Bradley said on Monday that the co-prescribing of azithromycin and hydroxychloroquine in a community setting gave rise to \u201cserious issues\u201d and amounted to disgraceful or dishonourable conduct in a professional sense. <\/p>\n

He said that the prescribing of ivermectin was \u201cnot as serious\u201d as prescribing hydroxychloroquine, as the latter had \u201cknown toxicity\u201d.<\/p>\n

He agreed with Morrissey that there was not a general prohibition on the use of off-label medication.<\/p>\n

An off-label medicine is an authorised medicinal product being prescribed or used outside the terms of its approved summary of product characteristics.<\/p>\n

Bradley told the committee at a hearing in July that tweets posted by Morrissey from December 2020 to September 2021 amounted to poor professional performance and professional misconduct. <\/p>\n

Bradley reiterated on Monday that although his area of expertise is limited regarding virology \u2013 including in relation to the Covid-19 pandemic \u2013 this did not preclude him from evaluating the advice given by public-health authorities including the EMA during the pandemic.<\/p>\n

He said these authorities came to \u201cscientific conclusions guided by medical practise\u201d. <\/p>\n

He disagreed with Morrissey, who asked him was he not \u201crelying on other people\u2019s interpretation of the evidence\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey [the EMA] were not taking this off the top of their heads … Their recommendations were based on studies,\u201d Bradley said.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0GP alleged to have undermined public health policy during Covid faces hearingOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Bradley also said that for a pharmaceutical company to obtain a licence for their product to be approved they are required to pay a fee to the EMA.<\/p>\n

He said that although \u201cminor deviation\u201d from public-health advice on the part of doctors would not amount to poor professional performance, this was not the case here.<\/p>\n

He said the case involved \u201csignificant and persistent deviation\u201d on the part of Morrissey.<\/p>\n

Bradley was critical of Morrissey\u2019s reliance on the findings of a website which indicated that ivermectin could be an effective treatment for Covid-19.<\/p>\n

Bradley said the website\u2019s findings had \u201cdeficiencies\u201d including that they were based on \u201ca lot of small studies of poor quality\u201d.<\/p>\n

He told Morrissey he did not recall describing Covid-19 vaccines as \u201cexperimental\u201d but said these vaccines were perhaps not as fully evaluated as other vaccines due to the global public-health emergency.<\/p>\n

Bradley said Covid-19 vaccines were \u201cgene-based therapy\u201d as they used genetic matter including MRNA or RNA to create an antigen which stimulates an immune-based response to the virus. <\/p>\n

However, with gene therapy, the genetic information of the DNA of the subject is changed, he said. <\/p>\n

Bradley said he thought people were confused between MRNA treatments and gene therapy. <\/p>\n

About 20 people attended the inquiry on Monday in support of Morrissey including Dr Gerard Waters, Dr Billy Ralph and Dr Marcus de Brun.<\/p>\n

The committee will reconvene at a future date yet to be announced.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A doctor prescribed medication with \u201cknown toxicity\u201d to patients who presented with Covid-19 during the pandemic, a fitness-to-practise…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":667684,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[36828,72,160,101728,1418,61,60,1396,37636],"class_list":["post-667683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-adare","tag-business","tag-covid-19","tag-european-medicines-agency","tag-health-service-executive-hse","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-limerick","tag-medical-council"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667683","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=667683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667683\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/667684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=667683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=667683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=667683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}