Sanctioned for Misinformation, This Doctor Keeps Spreading It

During the confusion and angst of the COVID-19 pandemic, retired Edmonton pathologist Dr. Roger Hodkinson rose to become one of the world’s most high-profile contrarian COVID-19 medical “experts.”

Hodkinson, a regular promoter of his University of Cambridge credentials, derided the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta, or CPSA, for alleging that anti-vaccine, anti-masking and other such counter-scientific public statements by doctors like him constituted dangerous misinformation. He said the college had no right to limit his free speech.

But when the CPSA finally called Hodkinson before a disciplinary tribunal in November, the 80-year-old appeared to meekly accept the independent regulator’s authority.

He admitted to professional misconduct after the tribunal ruled he had made statements that were outside “the scope of practice of a pathologist, and were inconsistent with accepted public health medicine guidelines.”

The tribunal also found he had breached the college’s code of ethics by criticizing his medical colleagues, which included Alberta’s chief medical officer of health.

The CPSA issued its written sanction on March 27. It comprised a caution, a required course on advocacy and influence, and $5,000 to help cover his investigation’s cost.

Many viewed it as a soft tap, given the oversized malign role Hodkinson played in spreading misinformation to the public and spurring on anti-vax zealots.

The college now says it was unaware, until informed by The Tyee, that Hodkinson continued to publicly make many of the same statements for which he was cited — and worse — including on March 29, two days after the tribunal issued its sanction, and in the weeks after.

In fact, an online search reveals Hodkinson appears to have begun a talk radio show to promote his business, Malpractice Check, on Solid Gold Family Radio, an Edmonton-based online radio company, on March 22, five days before his sanction was issued.

False claims about measles, hepatitis, COVID and autism

During his most recent show on May 3, Hodkinson announced he was branching out into vaccine-injury consultation — “COVID-19 and autism related,” his website states.

A consultation costs C$790 or US$570, plus tax, and “if you have difficulty paying our fee, you can engage a specialized lending agency that pays Malpractice Check on your behalf,” the website states. The fee is refunded if the client decides not to move forward with a claim.

On that same May 3 show, the host, “the Wolf,” averred that when he was a kid, you caught measles and you got over it, but now health officials are recommending vaccinations. Is this something people should be worried about?

“There need to be studies that really determine that risk-benefit ratio,” Hodkinson said, and then referenced a study that he said had shown “the risk of an adverse event from the measles vaccination was 60 times greater than the risk of a serious adverse event from the disease itself.

“So one can make a good point that vaccines are more dangerous than the disease they are trying to prevent,” Hodkinson said.

He blamed the COVID vaccine for declining birth rates and for the “autism epidemic.” Long COVID, he said, was caused by vaccine injury. And he claimed every successive booster shot increased the risk of complications.

Citing a Cleveland Clinic study, he said the influenza vaccine was also useless.

“It does not protect you. What it does is give you the risk of the complications of the vaccine itself,” he said.

Hodkinson claimed the hepatitis B vaccines for newborns were unnecessary, unless the mother was a drug addict or hepatitis B positive.

All of these statements are contrary to the overwhelming preponderance of accepted scientific evidence — which is what the CPSA sanctioned Hodkinson for six weeks before this May 3 radio show.

Case shows problems with doctors self-regulating: expert

The Tyee provided the CPSA with a web link to Hodkinson’s radio shows and asked what, if anything, it would do.

“If the CPSA receives a complaint about a physician or opens one, we follow the complaints process laid out by the Health Professions Act,” its spokesperson said.

Hodkinson’s suggestion that the measles vaccine is more dangerous than the disease “is a blatant lie,” as are all of his statements on vaccines and public health measures, said University of Alberta law and health professor Tim Caulfield, an expert in misinformation on social media.

Caulfield said Hodkinson’s case is illustrative of the seemingly intractable problem faced by regulatory authorities in North America.

The self-regulating authorities have a duty to protect the public but they are struggling to find a balanced approach to regulate scofflaw doctors who spread harmful, even deadly, misinformation while asserting their right to freedom of expression.

“There is just no doubt that the spread and normalization and legitimization of demonstrably false claims does harm to the public,” said Caulfield, who has received hate mail that cites Hodkinson as an authority.

“It reduces public trust in the health-care system. It drives individuals to unproven and often disproven therapies, and it causes people to avoid approaches that have a large body of evidence supporting them, such as vaccination, as we now see with the rise in measles that is part of this story.”

Danielle Smith platformed Hodkinson’s views

Danielle Smith hosted Hodkinson and two other anti-vax doctors on a podcast before she became Alberta’s premier. And while Smith and other far-right politicians claim doctors with alternative opinions are being silenced, Caulfield said the amount of junk science and misinformation is increasing.

It is now being used by governments to justify “incredibly harmful positions,” he said, despite a concomitant increase in the number and scope of studies that have provided yet more evidence of the harm caused by health misinformation.

The colleges that regulate physicians in Canada have interpreted their enabling legislation more broadly than their U.S. counterparts, which is a good thing, Caulfield said. But more needs to be done.

“Their duty is to the public and being a member of the medical profession is a privilege that is granted by the state, and I think that has been forgotten,” he said.

“With that privilege comes the responsibility to meet certain standards and so I would argue that if an MD is saying things that are harmful to the public, and using their professional standing as a way to legitimize those positions, the college has a duty to exercise its oversight.”

Doctor’s legal funding flowed from charity

The CPSA tribunal sanctioned Hodkinson based on a joint submission negotiated by its lawyer and the retired pathologist’s lawyer, Alan Honner of Toronto.

Honner is the litigation director for the Democracy Fund, a Canada Revenue Agency-designated charity that defends anti-vaxxers. It solicited donations to fund Hodkinson’s defence. He was also formerly a director of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, another CRA-designated charity that also defends anti-vaxxers as well as Ottawa convoy leaders Tamara Lich and Chris Barber.

The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms was engulfed in a scandal when two of its lawyers, including its president, John Carpay, were found to have hired a private investigator to surveil the chief justice of Manitoba.

Honner declined to comment when asked by The Tyee if he had any knowledge that his client had been making some of the same statements for which he was cited at the time, and after, the CPSA issued its sanction.

Asked if he would inform Hodkinson that The Tyee was trying to reach him, Honner replied, “I will take that under advisement.” Hodkinson did not respond to an email seeking comment.

The Democracy Fund published a story that trumpeted the fact that Hodkinson had retained his licence. But it did not report that he is now “restricted from providing medical services or advice directly or indirectly to patients,” according to a listing on the CPSA website.

The story quoted Honner:

“Dr. Hodkinson acknowledged that he could have used more measured language when critiquing physicians with whom he disagrees.

“However, he did not concede that any of his statements were misinformation, nor did the tribunal make such a determination.”

Hodkinson, the story said, “now joins prominent health professional Dr. Jordan Peterson, who their respective regulatory bodies have cautioned for making public comments that diverge from the official narrative.”

And it also noted that Smith, Alberta’s premier, had pledged to review the province’s regulated professions to “ensure that the freedom of speech of professionals is adequately protected.”

She also “committed to legislative changes to ensure that professionals are regulated based on competence and conduct rather than speech.” That review is apparently ongoing.

What Hodkinson could next face

Elyse Sunshine is a Toronto lawyer who specializes in health and regulatory law. Even if the CPSA’s hearing tribunal had learned that Hodkinson continued making some of the statements that were at issue in the hearing, they could not have done anything about it, she said.

“The tribunal is limited to considering whatever is in the notice of hearing,” Sunshine said.

“So even if there was evidence of the same type of conduct continuing to happen, that would not be admissible in terms of finding him, in essence, guilty of that misconduct during that hearing.”

The tribunal also was bound by the law relating to acceptance of the negotiated joint submission. The legal bar for rejecting a joint submission is high.

“The law is actually quite clear that the tribunal can't interfere with that unless by doing so, by accepting what the parties have agreed to, it would bring the administration of justice into disrepute, or it would be an abuse of process,” she said.

But “that doesn't mean the regulator can't investigate other or ongoing conduct,” and “if a doctor is found to have continued the behaviour for which they were sanctioned, they will certainly face a harsher penalty and can even be found to be ‘ungovernable.’”

“A finding of ungovernability can result in the most significant penalty, which would be revocation of their medical licence.”

If you have any information for this story, or information for another story, please contact Charles Rusnell in confidence via email.