A Medical Council fitness-to-practise inquiry heard allegations that a Wexford-based GP posted inappropriate tweets during the pandemic that undermined public health guidelines. <\/p>\n
Dr William (Billy) Ralph, of the Ballagh Health Centre, Enniscorthy, Co Wexford, is alleged to have posted a large number of tweets from October 17th, 2020, to June 16th, 2022, which were critical of several aspects of Covid-19 public health policy including the vaccination of children, the wearing of face masks and lockdowns. <\/p>\n
It is alleged that in 2020 and 2021, Ralph posted tweets that were critical of the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) and the management of the response to the pandemic. <\/p>\n
It was further alleged that Ralph tweeted comments where he promoted the use of ivermectin as a treatment for Covid-19. <\/p>\n
Neasa Bird, barrister for the chief executive of the Medical Council, Dr Maria O\u2019Kane, said that ivermectin was a medicine used for parasitic infection. <\/p>\n
It was further alleged that Ralph knew or ought to have known that these tweets were inappropriate and undermined public health guidelines. <\/p>\n
O\u2019Kane also alleged that the factual allegations amounted to several breaches of the Guide to Professional Conduct and Ethics for Registered Medical Practitioners, including relating to the use of social media. She also alleged that the allegations amounted to professional misconduct. <\/p>\n
The inquiry heard that there was no clinical issue regarding the allegations against Ralph. <\/p>\n
One of Ralph\u2019s tweets, dated November 12th, 2020, said, \u201cNo change in deaths so lockdown a complete waste of people\u2019s time. … Sack NPHET and [former chief medical officer Tony] Holohan\u201d.<\/p>\n
A further tweet from Ralph dated May 12th, 2021, said \u201cMasks neither protect the wearer nor other ppl around them. This has been proven. Just as Asymptomatic transmission is not a thing. So what\u2019s the point of masking kids OR teachers? All about control. Not about health.\u201d <\/p>\n
On May 27th, 2021, Ralph tweeted, \u201c\u2026 Masks, lockdowns, distancing, now vaccines \u2013 all bullsh*t.\u201d <\/p>\n
On July 11th, 2021, Ralph tweeted, \u201c\u2026There is no public health emergency, no need for mass vaccinations, no need for coercive population control measures. There is a dire need for Irish people to wake up and take back their freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of Ralph\u2019s tweets dated December 14th, 2021, was in response to a tweet from RT\u00c9 News of the same date, which said that according to then-taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin\u2019s Twitter account, vaccination of under 12s would begin on December 28th with further vaccinations on January 10th. <\/p>\n
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.\u201d <\/p>\n
The inquiry heard that the tweets posted by Ralph were no longer accessible as his account had been suspended. <\/p>\n
Dr Marcus De Brun accompanied Ralph as a McKenzie friend or \u201chelper\u201d before the committee. De Brun was the subject of a fitness-to-practise inquiry last year where it was alleged that between May 2020 and October 2021 he tweeted comments critical of Nphet and the State\u2019s Covid-19 vaccination programme for children and young people. The committee in that inquiry has yet to announce its findings. <\/p>\n
A number of other people also attended the inquiry on Tuesday in support of Ralph. <\/p>\n
The inquiry will continue on Thursday where the chief executive\u2019s expert witness is due to give evidence. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Medical Council fitness-to-practise inquiry heard allegations that a Wexford-based GP posted inappropriate tweets during the pandemic that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":496769,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[35320,59,102,76551,174847,56,54,55,15269],"class_list":{"0":"post-496768","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-covid-19","9":"tag-gb","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-medical-council","12":"tag-national-public-health-emergency-team","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom","16":"tag-wexford"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=496768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496768\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/496769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}