Trust in medical professionals is under severe threat due to fringe conspiracy theories and “colossal” lies entering the mainstream.
That’s the warning to future doctors from the head of the School of Medicine at Trinity College Dublin and consultant neurologist at St James’ Hospital, Dr Colin Doherty.
“I took the opportunity on Friday to talk to doctors who are entering their clinical practice years to warn them about what I think is the biggest issue facing them,” he told Newstalk Breakfast.
“It's not climate change, it's not AI and digital, it's not health and equity.
“It's the fact that now, fringe conspiracy theories... the people who peddle these fringe conspiracies theories are actually running institutions that have a renowned history in public health.
“That's never really happened before, apart from possibly in the 1930s in Germany.”
Unhappy doctor feeling exhausted in clinic. Image: Aleksandr Davydov / Alamy Stock Photo. 11 May 2021According to Dr Doherty, a key example of this is the increase in vaccine scepticism.
“It's now common in public health institutions, among the leaders of public health institutions in the West, for people to believe that microchips were in vaccines for population control,” he said.
“[Also], that they cause autism, and that they have killed hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of young men, particularly.
“I mean, that is so disprovable, so easily disprovable with one click.”
Social media
Dr Doherty rejected the idea that social media is at the centre of this conspiracism.
“There's no question that social media is playing its role in the dissemination of this maybe much faster than we've ever known before,” he said.
“But if you think back to the early part of the 20th century and the dissemination of disinformation, it was done by pamphleteers, it was done in newspapers.
“The medium by which things are disseminated is not the problem - that certainly contributes to the speed of dissemination, but there's a movement now.
“We feel it all; it almost feels organic that we are moving into this phase of darkness.”
Dr Doherty acknowledged that many of these conspiracy beliefs came out of the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, he said medical professionals had done the best they could during “an unprecedented time”.
Main image: Doctor holds a stethoscope, © PA Archive/PA Images
