Covid-19: Italian doctors are disciplined for anti-vaccination propaganda

An Italian doctors association has warned or disciplined 10 medics for promoting anti-vaccination propaganda and is considering sanctions against three others who are accused of downplaying the gravity of covid-19.

This comes amid growing concern that public scepticism over covid-19 vaccines could undermine Europe’s fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

Antonio Magi, president of the Ordine dei Medici di Roma (Rome Doctors Guild), said that inquiries into 10 medics accused of unwarranted criticism of vaccinations had been completed, with punishments ranging from warnings to two month suspensions. The other three investigations were ongoing, he told the Ansa news agency. The disciplinary procedures followed complaints from other doctors and members of the public.

The three medics still under investigation will be asked to justify claims they have made online, on television, and on radio, to a special commission of the guild.

One of the three is Mariano Amici, who practices in Ardea, 30 km south of Rome. He describes himself as a practitioner of general medicine. He says that he is not against vaccinations as such, despite having some misgivings about the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine that is now being given in Italy. On his website he says that he is “perplexed” about the health risks from such mRNA vaccines and questions whether they are appropriate for fighting a disease that he claims has a death rate of only one in 2000.1 Most estimates put the mortality rate 10 times higher.

Despite the investigation against him he has continued to make unsubstantiated assertions. Last week he declared, “The English variant of covid that is causing so much concern at the moment confirms what I have been arguing for months: the vaccine for a virus that has already changed so many times risks being ineffective and even dangerous.”