Doctor who practised “functional medicine” is suspended for nine months

A specialist in alternative “functional medicine” has been suspended from the UK medical register for nine months after a tribunal found that he “persistently overdiagnosed thyroid problems” and treated patients with drugs that were not clinically indicated.

Georges Mouton, 62, practises privately from a clinic in London’s West End. Functional medicine, said to be a holistic approach that focuses on the root causes of disease, is not recognised in the UK.

The General Medical Council’s allegations against Mouton accused him of ordering unnecessary or unproved tests, sometimes without obtaining proper consent, on eight patients treated between 2013 and 2016.

Wrongly interpreting the test results as evidence of thyroid problems, sometimes without considering obvious …