1 APRIL 2022

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FOUR IN THIS ISSUE

GP was denied right of reply after anonymous complaint .

Heather Saxena The NSW Health Care Complaints Commission is refusing to back down after issuing an official warning to a GP who spoke out against antivax misinformation , saying he had

NEWSPIX

What the article said : ... Dr Holliday sounds exhausted and has admitted that COVID-19 and the vaccination rollout are taking a toll on the mental health of medical professionals and their staff .

One reason for that is the way they ’ re treated by some members of the public , often aggressively .

“ We did 180 Pfizers on Saturday , and we had half a dozen over-60s bullying their way in , wouldn ’ t take no for an answer . Their backsides weren ’ t going to move off the chair ,” Dr Holliday said .

The other reason is the neverending fight to counteract the insidious misinformation .

“ People who have been getting their information from Sky News and some of the extremists in the

made “ offensive assumptions ” about patients .

Dr Simon Holliday had been interviewed by a local newspaper in which he talked about six patients over 60 “ bullying their way in ” to his clinic and demanding the Pfizer mRNA vaccine .

“ People who have been getting their information from Sky News and some of the extremists in the Liberal / National parties and getting their information from Facebook ,

Liberal / National parties and getting their information from Facebook , unfortunately , they ’ re putting themselves in a terrible position .

“ We ’ re doing all we can to help those people get to a safe position , but people have got to get their feet on the ground , get their head out of the internet and stop listening to these people , who are evangelical , talking nonsense with conviction .

“ There are a lot of people who are foolish , who believe bizarre things . We can ’ t let those people indirectly cause the death and illness in our community .

“ Unfortunately , you can ’ t vaccinate against foolishness ,” Dr Holliday said . The article was published on 6 August 2021 .

unfortunately , they ’ re putting themselves in a terrible position ,” he told the Manning River Times in August last year ( see below ).

A reader then filed a complaint with the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission .

“ We live in a democracy not a dictatorship , so regardless of Dr Hallidays [ sic ] medical profession , he is not allowed to dictate and police the communities [ sic ] political choices ,” they wrote .

“ He lacks empathy for those over 60s openly judges people as fools [ sic ].”

After reviewing the anonymous complaint , the commission did not ask Dr Holliday to respond , claiming it had all the information it needed .

It told him he had made “ judgemental and unprofessional comments about Liberals over 60 ”.

While the article made no references to “ Liberals over 60 ”, it warned him to “ maintain PAGE 2

Dr Simon Holliday .

Antony Scholefield THERE has been a long debate on the various ailments that afflicted Ludwig van Beethoven .

While his deafness in his later years is known to most , he had a plethora of other symptoms — including diarrhoea and cirrhosis — which has prompted a long and detailed scientific debate about what killed him . Associate Professor Phil Allen , a pathologist and academic at Flinders University in Adelaide , believes the composer had ulcerative colitis .

Writing in the Annals of Diagnostic Pathology , he documents the list of historical diagnoses made following Beethoven ’ s death at the age of 56 : lead poisoning , syphilis , viral hepatitis , Whipple ’ s disease , TB , lupus , Paget ’ s disease and more .

Inflammatory bowel disease is also among them , and that ’ s what Professor Allen plumps for .

The available medical records are mostly autopsy results recorded in 1827 by a pathologist named Dr Johan Wagner , he says .

Dr Wagner found posthumous evidence of macronodular cirrhosis and cholelithiasis and described Beethoven ’ s pancreas as very firm and abnormal .

Among other evidence , Professor Allen writes , is Beethoven ’ s letters to his friends , where he complains a lot about his hearing and his constant trips to the loo .

In one letter , he wrote that his deafness was the result of the “ condition of my abdomen — which , as you know , was wretched even before I left Bonn but has become worse in Vienna , where I have been constantly afflicted with diarrhoea and have been suffering in consequences from an extraordinary debility ”.

This was in 1801 . Thirteen years later , he wrote in another PAGE 4