Minister accused of bullying whistleblower academic

The leader of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, Jacob Rees-Mogg, used parliamentary privilege on Thursday to compare leading neurologist and academic Dr David Nicholl with the disgraced anti-vaccination researcher and doctor, Andrew Wakefield.

Nicholl, a consultant neurologist for the National Health Service who lectures at Birmingham University, challenged the minister to repeat the claim outside of parliament so that he can have legal redress.

“I would sue him,” he said.

He added that the remarks were part of an attempt by government to “bully whistleblowers, and it's not just doctors".

Rees-Mogg, a leading Brexiteer, was announcing the day’s business in the House of Commons on 5 September when he launched the attack on Nicholl, who three days earlier publicly challenged him to say what increased mortality rate he would accept as a result of the UK leaving the European Union without a deal given the ensuing lack of drugs and radioactive isotopes.

The minister said in the House of Commons: “I'm afraid it seems to me that Dr David Nicholl is as irresponsible as Dr Wakefield.

"What he had to say – I will repeat it – is as irresponsible as Dr Wakefield, in threatening that people will die because we leave the European Union.”

Wakefield was the author of a 1998 study linking autism to the measles, mumps and rubella or MMR vaccination, which has been cited by media campaigns that stoked distrust of the three-in one vaccination.

The General Medical Council investigated allegations of serious misconduct by Wakefield and two of his 12 co-authors of the study, which led to him being struck off the medical register. The paper has since been retracted by The Lancet medical journal and denounced by its co-authors.

But Wakefield moved to the United States, where he has campaigned on the issue, despite the fact that 17 trials of his findings have found no effect from taking the MMR jab on autism.

Nicholl, who is secretary of the Association of British Neurologists,
contributed to Operation Yellowhammer, a government plan for dealing with the shortages of food, medicine and fuel that could be expected if the UK left the EU without a deal – details of which
were obtained and published by The Sunday Times last month.

Last Monday Nicholl clashed with Rees-Mogg on radio channel LBC’s phone-in debate, where the neurologist raised concerns that the government’s no-deal contingency plans would not sufficiently protect patients from shortages.

“What level of mortality rate are you willing to accept in the light of a no-deal Brexit?” he asked Rees-Mogg on the radio show.

“I don’t think there’s any reason to suppose that a no-deal Brexit should lead to a mortality rate,” Rees-Mogg said. “I think this is the worst excess of Project Fear and I’m surprised that a doctor in your position would be fearmongering in this way on public radio.”

But Dr Nicholl reminded Rees-Mogg that he wrote the plans for mitigation. Rees-Mogg fired back, “Well you didn’t write very good ones” and claimed there were plans to fly in extra drugs if needed.

Taking expert advice

When on Thursday Rees-Mogg upped the ante by comparing Nicholl to Wakefield under the cover of parliamentary privilege, Nicholl said: “This is no longer about Brexit. This is fundamentally about whether a government minister is willing to take expert advice or not.”

Dismissing expert advice as propaganda from Remain supporters, or “Remoaners” as Rees-Mogg likes to call them, was a repeated tactic of Leave leaders in the Brexit referendum campaign, causing alarm among academics who are increasingly being encouraged by research policy and funding conditions to engage with government and assist the development of evidence-based policy decisions.

Michael Gove as justice secretary during the campaign famously refused to when asked in a Sky Television interview to name any economists who backed Britain’s exit from the EU – although some of them do – saying: “People in this country have had enough of experts.”

According to the BBC, Chief Medical Officer for England Professor Sally Davies wrote to Rees-Mogg after the comments made in the House of Commons to express her "sincere disappointment in the disrespectful way" he spoke to and about Dr David Nicholl, saying the comments regarding Wakefield were “frankly unacceptable”.

She thanked Dr Nicholl for his contribution to contingency planning for a no-deal Brexit and added: "There are now full plans in place that we believe, if enacted to plan, should ensure unhindered medical supplies."

Dr Chaand Nagpaul, chair of the council of the British Medical Association, described Rees-Mogg’s comments as “utterly disgraceful and totally irresponsible”.

On Thursday evening, Rees-Mogg apologised to Nicholl for his comments in the Commons, the BBC reported.