Dr Gordon Skinner

[MaryF]

A request for some more letter writing:

Gordon R B Skinner MD (Hons) DSc, FRCPath FRCOG

22 Alcester Road

Moseley

Birmingham

B13 8BE

Tel/Fax [phone]

23rd September 2014

Dear Everyone,

On Tuesday 7th October 2014 it will be exactly one year since Dr Gordon Skinner’s last IOP at the General Medical Council, St James’ Buildings, 79 Oxford Street, Manchester, M1 6FQ. Sadly, one year on, nothing has changed for the patients who continue to be ill and their needs ignored by the medical establishment.

Perhaps the GMC is not the ultimate vehicle for change but they cannot forget that they owe an explanation to Dr Gordon Skinner’s patients - and more widely to this particular group of people who are clinically hypothyroid but biochemically euthyroid - as to why they continued to ignore thousands of letters which supported the success of Dr Skinner’s diagnosis and treatment.

I would like to urge you all to email and/or write to the people listed below at the GMC and the Department of Health to reach them on the 7th October 2014 to remind them that they have been very irresponsible in being influenced by the current dogma regarding the way that hypothyroidism is diagnosed and treated and that if they claim to protect patients and act in the patients’ best interest they must address this issue.

It would be a reminder to the GMC that they cannot renege on their duty by closing the doors and hoping we will all go away. They must take some responsibility for having brought these cases against Dr Skinner and acting under the influence of those who promote this current dogma even though such dogma has failed to take into account the individual needs of patients who are clinically hypothyroid but biochemically euthyroid. One has to ask, was the GMC manipulated by some members of the medical profession in this instance resulting in a failure to protect the interests of certain hypothyroid patients?

It is also very important that everyone who writes asks for acknowledgement of receipt of their letter.

Kind regards,

Afshan Ahmad PhD

Names and addresses to write to:

Mr Peter Swain, Assistant Director of Investigation, General Medical Council, Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service, Seventh Floor, St James’s Buildings, 79 Oxford Street, Manchester, M1 6FQ Email: [e-mail]

Professor Sir Peter Rubin, Chair of General Medical Council, Seventh Floor, St James’s Buildings, 79 Oxford Street, Manchester, M1 6FQ Email: [e-mail]. Email to be marked in subject box as: FAO: Professor Sir Peter Rubin, Chair of GMC.

His Honour David Pearl, Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service, General Medical Council, Seventh Floor, St James’s Buildings, 79 Oxford Street, Manchester, M1 6FQ Email: [e-mail]

Professor Dame Sally Davies, Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health, Richmond House, 79 Whitehall, London, SW1A 2NS Email: [e-mail]

The Editor of the Sunday Telegraph Email: [e-mail]

and copied to Dr Afshan Ahmad Email: [e-mail]

MaryF

[linda65]

Please write your letter

[MaryF in reply to linda65]

I shall start on one this week-end. MaryFx

[linda65 in reply to MaryF]

I hope everybody does. He didn't deserve the treatment he got and he was so caring towards us his patients. I wish so much that we still had him x

[MaryF in reply to linda65]

Yes, I would have liked to have met him, but I did follow his work. MaryF

[linda65 in reply to MaryF]

The whole team were fantastic and SO caring.x

[rosetrees]

Thank you Mary. I feel a letter will need some time and thought, so it might take me a day or two.

[Hidden]

I'm a bit confused. This is for Dr Skinner's patients to action, yes? Is the letter to or from Dr Skinner, and why is it signed by' Asfshan Ahmad'?

[MaryF in reply to Hidden]

I was not one of his patients, but still wrote letters of support for the various hearings he was so wrongly put in! Asfshan Ahmad runs his old office, it is fairly self explanatory and thank you for asking. MaryF

[LindaC]

I have only just seen this... sorry!

What is the status of the World Wide Register that Dr Skinner set up for change? I have a picture of him within my FB pics... can still see him dancing and singing in Glasgow [in his office ] - wonderful man - 'I hope both him and his dear wife are now dancing in Chateau Le Bung right now' see below for context:

Colin G Fink: Obituary - Gordon Robert Bruce Skinner

Director and chief executive officer Vaccine International, private

practitioner (b 1942; q Glasgow 1965; FRCOG, DSc, MD (cum laude),

FRCPath), died after a massive cerebral bleed on 26 November 2013.

Extracts from:

.......................

"When the smallpox outbreak of 1978 occurred in the virology

department and Henry Bedson died, it was Gordon who

resolutely supported Henry’s reputation. His vigour and sense

of fair play determined that all the technical staff within the

department were compensated by the university insurers for

their considerable life disruption during the outbreak and the

quarantine. This did not endear him to the institution but was

typical of his moral stand for those without a voice.

Eventually his university post was discontinued, and the BMA

defended him. He received a considerable compensatory cheque

from the university, and when he went to collect it he uttered

the unforgettable Glaswegian words: "Thanks for the Bung."

The cheque purchased a house on the northern coast of France

which he and his wife, Janet, who predeceased him, loved and

named Chateau Le Bung, in appreciation of his colleagues in

the University of Birmingham.

....................

Gordon was a one off—sensitive, talented, intolerant, combative,

and endearing. He exposed human weakness and was what

Nietzsche would have described as a Nomad. Nomads pay a

high price by alienating themselves from much of society but

it is they who change the way that society works."

Cite this as: BMJ 2014;348:g2459