The headquarters of the Silesian Medical Chamber hosted the second meeting of medical authorities against the anti-science conference ‘Czego ci lekarz nie powie’ (What your doctor won't tell you), which will be organised this Saturday in the Gliwice Arena. The meeting was attended by the mayor of Gliwice, Katarzyna Kuczyńska-Budka. She ‘inherited’ from her predecessors the disastrous hall lease agreement, which she cannot terminate for legal reasons.
- I would do it with one signature immediately. My hands are tied for the time being, but together with my colleagues we are preparing measures which will make it possible to rescind the contract which allows for the promotion of information contrary to medical knowledge,’ said Mayor Kuczyńska-Budka and added: ’The city wants to be and is a university city. Together with the Silesian Medical University, we have signed a letter of intent to build a hospital. At the National Institute of Oncology, Gliwice branch, our doctors help the sickest patients. There is no agreement on my part to misinform patients, the local community. I simply say a resounding no to charlatans who spread untruths about some miraculous therapies, medicines, destroying the authority of doctors and leading unaware people to misfortune.
Kuczyńska - Budka added that, as part of good medical practice, the Gliwice authorities are organising and will continue to organise campaigns for treatment based on proven methods. These include ‘white cities’ and ‘health benches’, where it will be possible to benefit from the knowledge of experts. - Unfortunately, it is seniors who most often succumb to false information, and we want to protect them,’ said the mayor of Gliwice.
Tadeusz Urban, MD, PhD, President of the Regional Medical Council in Katowice, who initiated the campaign against, among others, anti-vaccinationists and propagators of false information on medical treatment, admitted that as early as March 2024, the Silesian medical self-government issued an appeal to the Minister of Health and MPs to take action to introduce a statutory ban on proclaiming views contrary to current medical knowledge, signed by presidents of seven Regional Medical Councils. Correspondence was also made with the then city authorities and the tenant of the PreZero Arena. - Unfortunately, the matter was not taken up. We, however, are not laying down our arms. We will be encouraging MPs to look into creating a law to make it impossible to organise meetings similar to those in Gliwice.
- I am a paediatrician and in my career I have encountered situations where parents, contrary to medical knowledge and standards, use so-called unconventional medicine. I always advise people not to read online ‘prescriptions’ for health. Besides, we are currently in a situation of ever decreasing numbers of vaccinated children. We may lose the collective immunity to cough, measles. It is necessary to bring about a situation in which the percentage of vaccinated children increases, so that infections do not occur on a larger scale,' assessed Professor Tomasz Szczepański, rector of the Silesian Medical University.
It is worth mentioning that after the spring edition of the conference, the Silesian Medical Chamber in Katowice sent a notice to the prosecutor's office, after a detailed analysis of all the lectures delivered on 20 April 2024, indicating fragments of the speakers' statements which insulted and slandered doctors. The Gliwice Wschód District Prosecutor's Office refused to open an investigation into the case. The Silesian Medical Chamber filed a complaint against this decision of the prosecutor's office, which is currently being examined by the District Court in Gliwice.
- I meet victims of charlatans almost every day and I see how important it is to educate, to do more to promote evidence-based medical knowledge. Many such people became victims of indoctrination during the covid - 19 pandemic. For some time now, patients have been starting to appear, sick with diseases that should have been eliminated through vaccination. We cannot allow the ‘authority’ of pseudo-medics to spread. This is the key to fighting this charlatanry,’ added Jerzy Jaroszewicz, MD, PhD, from the Silesian Centre for Infectious Diseases at the Leszek Giec Upper Silesian Medical Centre.
