Overzealous regulators and a culture of fear are top of mind for doctors and medical professionals as they descend on an idyllic Cape Breton village.
Baddeck, N.S. is playing host to the second Free Speech in Medicine conference this weekend, which promises to ignite discussions surrounding the state of free speech within the professional community.
The Oct. 27-29 conference, co-organized by Drs. Chris Milburn and Julie Curwin, aims to be a gathering for those whose voices have been marginalized and silenced in recent years.
This year’s agenda features prominent speakers including psychologist Gad Saad, Dr. Ken Zucker, and True North’s Rupa Subramanya. Guests are slated to discuss contentious topics ranging from Covid policy and the rise of the biomedical security state, the legal boundaries of regulatory colleges’ control over free speech, transgender ideology, and the limits of harm reduction strategies for drug abuse.
Speaking on the Andrew Lawton Show Thursday, Milburn said free speech is not a new challenge to doctors, but it’s worsened in recent years.
“Free speech has been a problem in medicine over several decades,” he said. “I think that many people didn’t realize this was happening. But then, suddenly Covid hit, and it’s like, oh, wow, doctors are really not allowed to say what they think.”
One of the topics to be explored is whether regulation is creating the political climate, or is a consequence of it.
“I’d say, to some degree, it’s a vicious circle. They feed on each other. The colleges have become very draconian. As with many institutions, they’ve been kind of captured by the left-wing fringe,” said Milburn.
“One thing that everybody has in common is that they’re afraid that they’re not getting the whole balanced story on these difficult subjects. They don’t feel they’re getting both sides of the story, and they want to hear it.”
As previously reported by True North, Milburn was removed from his three-year post as a head of emergency medicine in Nova Scotia after criticizing public health measures in a June 2021 radio interview.
He voiced concerns about school closures and claimed the approach was “unscientific, political, and crass.” Following his remarks, Nova Scotia’s chief medical officer, Dr. Robert Strang, suggested Milburn should stick to his own area of medicine.
Milburn further emphasized the fear that many harbour.
“A fair amount of doctors behind the scenes come up to me in the mail room — they make sure the door is shut, and nobody’s there — and say, ‘Chris, I really like what you’re doing, but I don’t think I can come to the conference because they just don’t want to be seen associated with this,’” said Milburn.
Milburn said that the issues in the healthcare field are particularly challenging to tackle because of government controls — even though many people agree the status quo isn’t working.
“The College of Physicians and Surgeons in Nova Scotia has a very bad reputation,” he said. “If you talk to 20 doctors, you get 20 negative opinions. But how anybody would change that is beyond me. I don’t think there’s any way to do that.”
According to Dr. Milburn, the trends for free speech in medicine are still heading in the wrong direction.
He hopes this upcoming annual conference can somewhat turn the tide.
“Hopefully, more people will grow the courage necessary to speak out and start to turn the tide. It’s not happening yet, but I’m hopeful it will,” he stated.
