Right to Selfdetermination and Monopoly of the Profession

Editor’s Note

Here is an email from one of our readers to the medical college in the context of the trial against Dr. Benoît Ochs and for which he gave us permission to publish on our website.

Nelly Antoine for the Expressis-Verbis Team

Good morning Ladies and Gentlemen of the Medical College,

A professional body which attacks one of its members for having practiced a therapy that does not correspond to the “official” therapy is abandonning the very principle of the liberal profession. The liberal profession which is one of the foundations of democratic society! This situation disappoints me and, I must confess, it makes me angry.

This situation is highly regrettable as the manipulation of scientific publications has since a long time become a commercial and political lobbying battleground:

“How can we deal with these situations without reverting to a deviant epistemology: Is identifying intentions and instrumentalizations equivalent to subscribing to a “conspiratorial logic”? It is quite a narrow path between an attitude that would link All of history and All of the institutions in the light of hidden intentions and another attitude that would deny in its very principle the possibility of self-interested hidden agreements. ”

Translated extract from the book “De l’agnotologie, production de l’ignorance” by Mathias Girel (Director of Studies of the Philosophy Department of the École normale supérieure, rue d’Ulm, “rue d’Ulm” is a top academic reference in France). https://theconversation.com/de-lagnotologie-production-de-lignorance-88500

The medical college could also investigate whether, by prohibiting therapeutic practices that do not correspond to the majority opinion, it is not compromising the therapeutic monopoly which it is supposed to care about. Indeed, the right to self-determination of the patient is ubiquitous, even in the code of ethics of the medical college. The patient has the right to alternative therapies.

How can this right to alternative therapies be reconciled with the monopoly of the profession if the medical college refers to a rather narrow conception of science?

Quite incidentally, Galileo Galilei and Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis defended very minority opinions. But they were right!

I am forwarding a copy of this message to members of the medical profession and interested citizens of my acquaintances.

Yours sincerely

Mathias Foehr
Ingénieur de l’Ecole Centrale de Paris, Actuaire (Ilac)