The British Medical Association finds dissent "unacceptable"

Extraordinary, but maybe not so extraordinary coming from the British Medical Association...

A retired GP has been suspended from the BMA Welsh Council until 2014 after he questioned the evidence behind the BMA's campaign to ban smoking in vehicles on BBC Radio.

Dr Brendan O'Reilly, a retired GP, has also had his BMA membership suspended until he provides ‘an acceptable written apology' to four named BMA members, including Dr Vivienne Nathanson, head of the BMA science and ethics committee.

In a hearing held yesterday a BMA Council panel said they considered Dr O'Reilly's language when describing his opposition to the BMA's use of statistics on the risks of passive smoking in cars as 'unacceptable'.

How I hate that word 'unacceptable'. Like 'inappropriate', it is used by the prim and the passive aggressive to silence anyone who disagrees with them. What I wouldn't give to see these overpaid, sanctimonious quacks knocked off their high horse. Bear in mind that the "evidence" O'Reilly was criticising was later retracted by the BMA for being a complete fiction.

In its determination, the BMA admitted it did, at a later stage, have to publicly revise some of the data in its briefing paper Smoking in Vehicles. But it said Dr O'Reilly's use of the term manipulation was ‘detrimental to the honour and interest of the BMA'.

Well, tough. How detrimental to public discourse has the BMA's repeated manipulation (sue me) of statistics been over the years?

The panel also said it found ‘unacceptable'...

That word again.

...a comparison made by Dr O'Reilly between ‘the statement of Dr Vivienne Nathanson and the dossier that allegedly led to the Iraq War'.

Ha ha! Nice one Dr O'Reilly. Do we have to wait for every GP to retire before they tell the truth in public? Both documents were deeply misleading and factually incorrect pieces of propaganda designed to instigate wrong-headed public policy. Sounds like a fair comparison to me.

But Dr O'Reilly said he was being ‘harangued' by the BMA for simply expressing a difference of opinion.

They've been doing it for years.

‘BMA members should be able to debate differences in opinion without being threatened or harangued for doing so,' he added. ‘There is a massive issue here about free speech.'

That argument may have cut some ice when Dr O'Reilly started practising all those decades ago, but the BMA today has zero interest in free speech, or any other kind of freedom for that matter.

I would rather join the International Pederasts Society than join this vile group of messianic medics, but if by some bizarre misfortune I found myself involved with the BMA I would consider it a badge of honour to be suspended for speaking the truth. Furthermore, I would pray for expulsion in every waking hour of my gardening leave. So well done, Dr O'Reilly. Don't let the bastards grind you down. If anything is unacceptable, it is this jumped up trade union. If they were capable of shame, they should be ashamed of the way they have treated you. They are, alas, not.

My special t-shirts are still available by the way...

Taking Liberties has the full story about this episode which seems to date back to November last year.

Speaking of organisations which shamelessly lie to the public, the FDA has completely abandoned science and should be shut down.

UPDATE

Michael Siegel adds his two cents...

Readers of the Rest of the Story will recognize that Dr. O'Reilly's experience in being expelled from the BMA is similar to my own experience. I was expelled from a number of tobacco control list-serves for expressing dissenting opinions. Interestingly, the opinions which most directly led to my expulsions were also criticisms of exaggerated facts about secondhand smoke.

It appears that secondhand smoke claims are a sacred sacrament in the tobacco control movement and that you absolutely can't criticize them. Doing so represents heresy and you must be ex-communicated from the movement on the spot.