A Canadian doctor who blew the whistle on severe neurological adverse reactions suffered by patients in his small First Nations community in British Columbia after accepting the Moderna COVID-19 mRNA injection has been disciplined by a Provincial health authority for promoting vaccine hesitancy.
After Dr. Charles Hoffe went public with his experiences in early April of multiple First Nations patients in his village of Lytton who suffered from severe and unique Bell’s Palsy and other neurological adverse effects after receiving the Moderna vaccine, Hoffe was disciplined by BC’s Interior Health Authority only a few weeks later.
“On 29th of April, 2021, the Interior Health Authority (IHA) suspended my clinical privileges, for the crime of causing ‘vaccine hesitancy,’ for speaking out about my vaccine injured patients. So I am no longer allowed to work in the ER,” Hoffe told True North in a May 25 article.
Hoffe says he is still able to see patients in his private practice, as it is not governed by the IHA, but because he has lost his position in the community’s emergency room where he has served the village for 28 years, his income has been slashed in half.
In an April statement by the IHA regarding Hoffe’s claims, spokesperson Carol Fenton seemed to make light of Hoffe’s concerns when she said “It has been a challenge for us to investigate this thoroughly and take reports seriously.”
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Fenton seemed to conclude that the problem Hoffe spoke of simply did not exist, “There have been no deaths or lasting adverse reactions connected to the Moderna/Pfizer vaccines, or any COVID-19 vaccine, in Lytton, Interior Health or B.C. at this time,” she said in a written statement according to Kamloops This Week.
A written notice posted outside Hoffe’s clinic on May 4 said that Hoffe was the attending emergency room physician for two weeks out of each month, which appeared to imply his removal would reduce the faculty’s capacity by half.
The notice also said IHA had cut lab services in the community down to only two days per week.
On May 11, Canada’s far-left public broadcaster CBC published an article with a warning from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia, the medical equivalent of the bar association or law society for doctors, that practitioners who do not toe the party line on vaccines and health mandates will face disciplinary actions.
“Public statements from physicians that contradict public health orders and guidance are confusing and potentially harmful to patients,” College Registrar Heidi Oetter said.
“Those who put the public at risk with misinformation may face an investigation by the college and, if warranted, regulatory action.”
In the same article, First Nations Health Authority acting Deputy Chief Medical Officer Nel Wieman brought “systematic racism” verbiage into the mix, “Indigenous people already face barriers to accessing health care due to systemic racism…Misleading information adds another barrier at a time when the COVID-19 vaccine needs to be delivered to Indigenous people as quickly as possible.”
In Hoffe’s original interviews with media, the doctor said several of his patients had been scared into taking the vaccine in order to protect themselves or the elders in their communities, despite COVID-19 being “less than the flu for everyone in our community who has had it so far.”
After accepting the injections, according to Hoffe, several of his patients have borne what had become long-term neurological disorders and disabilities, including a 38-year-old woman who experienced immediate anaphylactic shock followed by a peculiarly painful manifestation of Bell’s Palsy. As the disorder progressed, it left half her face paralyzed in addition to severe headaches and vertigo. Hoffe said the woman had been unable to drive or go to work for the last three months.
The suspension
On June 21, Hoffe gave a follow-up interview to independent media outlet Rebel News. During the interview, Hoffe explained the circumstances surrounding his IHA suspension from Lytton’s emergency room.
Hoffe said after he first stepped forward he was told he was not allowed to say “anything negative about the vaccine” in Lytton’s public health facility and would be reported to the College if he did. He also said if he had any questions about the vaccine situation, he was not to speak to his peers in the medical profession, but only to the government’s central health authority.
“I was told that I had effectively breached my gag order,” said Hoffe. “The details of that is that I was accused of encouraging a nurse to tell people not to be vaccinated.”
“The details around that was that I had explained to a nurse the scientific evidence for why a person who has had a COVID infection is already immune to COVID, and therefore doesn’t need a vaccination against the disease to which the person is already immune.”
“And because I explained that to the nurse, I was accused of encouraging nurses to tell people not to be vaccinated… And that is what has cost me 50 percent of my income. I can no longer work as an emergency physician.”
“That is the level of science and justice in this,” said Hoffe.
A question of conscience and justice
The doctor said he has no regrets about speaking out, “I think the reason why it was important for me to speak out is because as a doctor I am bound by ethical principles. And that is the Hippocratic Oath, as sort of the bedrock of ethics…So, on the basis of that, when I saw people being harmed, people who were told that a vaccine was safe and they were being harmed by it, I had an ethical duty to advocate for them, and that is why I spoke out.”
Hoffe said he was undeterred by the threats he received from the Province’s governing body for allegedly promoting vaccine hesitancy, “Their only agenda is to have everyone vaccinated. My concern is the vaccine was causing harm.”
“So, once you have healthy people… these are not sick people, these are healthy people. Once you have healthy people being harmed, one has to have a very low threshold for saying ‘Hang on, this doesn’t seem right. This was supposed to be protecting them? And some of them were being seriously harmed’.”
Hoffe said he now has 10 patients out of the original 900 doses administered in his personal practice that are still suffering from serious and chronic medical problems four months later.
He said his patients are private people in a small, ethnic minority community, and are very sensitive to the publicity and personal attacks that would result if they were to go public with their experiences.
Hoffe also said patients do not want to speak out because it will reveal their personal medical situation, and because of that, he feels he has a duty as a doctor to advocate for the ill on their behalf.
Not so ‘brave’
The doctor said when he first stepped forward, many people told him he was “brave,” yet, he found the notion baffling, “I was scratching my head. I didn’t see it as being that in any way. I was just doing what was right. I never for a second thought of it in that way. I just live by my conscience and by my ethical principles, and so you just have to follow that.”
Support from all across the country has been pouring in for the canceled doctor. Hoffe said he has a pile of letters “four inches high” from people expressing their support. The outpourings weren’t limited to Canada. Hoffe received a card from a person in Scotland who was convinced the doctor would lose his license for speaking out and even enclosed money.
“People are just desperate for somebody who has some credibility and some integrity to just speak for truth,” said Hoffe. “This is not medical malpractice. I am standing on science and the Hippocratic Oath, and that is what I stand on.”
“I think the reason why Canadians should be concerned about what’s happened to me and other doctors is because this is not just anti-free speech, this is anti-science. Medicine and science are always a work in progress…We are always examining new evidence to see if what we thought was true is true.”
“And so the BC College of Physicians of Surgeons and the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons have both issued declarations that doctors are not allowed to contradict public health orders, which is basically to tell them that they’re not allowed to follow science.”
He continued, “Unfortunately, public health orders always lag behind the current evidence, because they take a long time to change…It’s called ‘evidence based medicine,’ we are supposed to follow the science. And as new evidence becomes available we are supposed to adjust our decision making process to follow the evidence.”
“To tell us we can no longer do that? We just have to blindly obey what our leaders tell us even if scientifically it is wrong? Makes no sense. That is an abandonment of science,” Hoffe concluded.
