Canadians quit World Medical Association over president’s plagiarised speech

The Canadian Medical Association (CMA) has left the World Medical Association (WMA), the global body created to promote medical ethics, after the new WMA president used parts of a former CMA president’s speech in his first address as leader.

The Canadians were attending the WMA’s general assembly in Reykjavik when new president Leonid Eidelman addressed the conference. Among the audience was Ontario physician Chris Simpson, who had given his own inaugural address when he became CMA president in 2014.

Simpson told Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper: “I suddenly heard familiar words, and I turned to one of my colleagues and said ‘This is my speech!’”

Simpson began speaking …