BMJ 1998;317:1592 ( 5 December )

Letters

The Bristol affair

    "Dispatches" programme was painstakingly researched and did not attract writ for defamation
    GMC made grave error in taking the case on
    Committee of inquiry should include a cardiac surgeon

"Dispatches" programme was painstakingly researched and did not attract writ for defamation

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR---It was my programme in March 1996 about the Bristol heart surgery tragedy, for Channel 4's current affairs series Dispatches, that prompted the General Medical Council (GMC) to investigate what, it subsequently became clear, was the medical scandal of the century. Since then I and my colleagues have continued to report on these cases. I wish to reply to Dunn's allegations about media reporting of the tragedy; I am, presumably, one of those whom he pronounces guilty of "using a sustained stream of biased, misleading, and often inaccurate information."1

According to Dunn, bereaved parents should direct their grief and anger over the death of their children towards people like me, rather than the surgeons who operated on the children and have since been found guilty of serious professional misconduct. "Shoot the messenger" is the age old response of those who dislike the message.

The Dispatches programme was researched . . . [Full text of this article]
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This article has been cited by other articles:

  • Smith, R. (1998). Regulation of doctors and the Bristol inquiry. BMJ 317: 1539-1540 [Full text]  

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