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This February 14, the National Assembly adopted at second reading a text to combat sectarian excesses, and the creation of a new offense of “provocation to the ™abandonment or abstention from medical treatment”, including with preventive purposes, apparently targeting charlatans. The Medical Association for the Defense of Ethics and Patients’ Rights (AMDDDM) is concerned about the questioning of freedom, serenity and pluralism of the analyzes necessary for the conduct of future scientific and medical debates.
Charlatans exist. In the care offered, particularly online, there are some who offer unconventional methods for patients who are often in diagnostic or therapeutic wandering within the conventional system. It is to counter this phenomenon that the National Assembly adopted, on Wednesday February 14, this text to combat sectarian abuses.
Surprisingly slow adoption for a minor phenomenon
As France Info announces, it took two votes to obtain the approval of a majority of deputies on the creation of this new offense of provocation to the abandonment or abstention of medical treatment. An adoption considered sluggish.
The coalition of oppositions had in fact made it possible to reject article 4 on Tuesday evening. The LFI, LR and RN deputies denounced a threat to “public freedoms” and to “whistleblowers” who will criticize Public Health recommendations under the influence of the pharmaceutical industry. Despite the protests, Renaissance deputy Sacha Houlié requested and obtained a new deliberation on Wednesday, in the name of the law committee… of which he is president. And the return match bore fruit.
The argument adopted was: “Faced with the 2.0 gurus and their false promises of curing cancer with “lemon juice”, the executive demanded this new offense which will punish “provocation” to the abandonment of care “by means of pressure or repeated maneuvers” , exposing individuals to “serious consequences for their health” reports France Info.
A threat to pluralism in medicine?
But between the lines, part of the medical and scientific community is concerned about a much more global scope than that put forward by the defenders of this bill. Dr Leila Gofti, secretary of the AMDDDM contacted by Doctissimo, relays to us the various points which were reported to her:
“The first point is the sincerity of the stated objective. It is already difficult to understand why there was an urgency to create this offense, when we already have well-made laws in France, and a whole legal arsenal to condemn misleading health claims, influence on vulnerable people, or endangering the lives of others. And at the same time the State does not take the time to resolve real health priorities, such as the closure of emergency services, inequalities in access to care, the psychological distress of young people or shortages of essential medicines. she regrets.
According to the AMDDDM, under the guise of a fight against sectarian aberrations, the very principle of the professional independence of doctors is threatened. This bill, if it succeeds, will intimidate more than one person and even experts and professionals in good faith will have to walk on eggshells.
“This bill is seen as a bit of a Trojan horse. It will become more and more difficult to make people hear a path other than that of science and state medicine. Medicine is made up of a diversity of analyses, of sensitivities, of professionals who can oppose each other, without issuing crazy therapeutic options, and ultimately co-construct new recommendations. Historically, doctors have not always agreed among themselves on the practices to adopt in this or that complex medical situation, which is normal, but now, instead of encouraging consultation, it is politics that will decide to tell the scientific “truth”, and that’s really problematic.”
From one drift to another, ethics questions
Ultimately, what the AMDDDM points out is the risk of moving, step by step, towards a situation where medicine would be increasingly constrained by political power, itself increasingly porous to the influence of certain private interests. The entire history of medicine and the health scandals of recent years have demonstrated this quite clearly (from Thalidomie, to Médiator, including Distilbene or the new formula of Levothyrox).
“Under the cover of fighting against sectarian excesses, of fighting against “gurus”, what will enter into the turmoil is above all the part of the medical and scientific community which will be led to discuss or even contest, not the data of science, but the use and interpretation of these data made only by the bodies authorized by the State” maintains Doctor Gofti.
At a time when political and industrial lobbies seem infinitely more influential in the medical community than the “gurus”, we can indeed wonder.
The expert specifies in fact, “What is shocking is:
1) that this law anchors a political process already well underway, which no longer seems there to really protect public health (see the state of the health system), but to offer an increasingly permissive framework for the interference of private interests in the management of the healthcare system with unprecedented renunciations;
2) the growing distrust towards all those whose vocation is to care for and support patients who increasingly need it in a psycho-social context that is generally difficult for everyone.”