A doctor in Poland who denied the existence of the COVID-19 pandemic and discouraged people from vaccinating against the virus has been banned from practising medicine for a year. However, she reportedly plans to continue treating patients as a homeopath.
The Polish Medical Media Association (Polskie Towarzystwo Mediów Medycznych, PTMM), a body that monitors reporting on medical issues, notes that the doctor, Anna Furmaniak, wrote on her Facebook page that “the plandemic [sic] is fake” and urged Poles not to “get vaccinated because the system will not cope with your complications for the next 30 years”.
The doctor’s social media profiles show many posts containing common slogans protesting against pandemic restrictions and Covid vaccines. She also advertised a book promising to reveal “hidden facts” about the virus. In one image, Furmaniak is pictured alongside Poland’s leading anti-vaccine activist, Justyna Socha.
Poland's leading anti-vaccine activist has resigned as head of her organisation amid accusations she misappropriated half a million zloty of donations it collected.
She denies the claims, and says "the system is attacking" her https://t.co/eNZ3tPEZXT
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) November 2, 2022
In response to her activities, the district professional liability officer – an official who operates under the district medical chamber – had called for Furmaniak to lose her doctor’s licence for five years, saying she had been publishing material not compliant with evidence-based medicine, reports PTMM.
At a hearing before the Supreme Medical Council (NSL), Furmaniak’s lawyer argued that she had published such material in order to save people’s lives, noting that she had received hundreds of thankful comments in response.
In a ruling on the case last week, the NSL’s court of appeal upheld an earlier decision for Furmaniak – who obtained her degree in medicine in 1998 – to lose her licence for a year, saying that it would give her time to reflect on her actions.
However, on the same day as the ruling, Furmaniak appeared alongside Socha on wRealu24, a far-right online broadcaster whose websites have been blocked in Poland and whose channels were recently removed from YouTube, where she continued to peddle her previous claims.
PTMM welcomed the ruling against Furmaniak, saying that it showed how doctors “who spread disinformation in the media do not go unpunished”. But it noted that Furmaniak says she plans to continue treating patients as a homoeopath and “Systems Constellation therapist”.
“It is scary that a doctor offers people [treatment] methods that we know do not work (homoeopathy) or even do harm (Hellinger’s so-called Family Constellations),” Maja Herman, a psychiatrist and president of the PTMM, told medical news outlet Puls Medycyny.
Herman said that her organisation would continue to work with the authorities to make them aware of other similar cases. It also plans to create guidelines and training for officials to help them better deal with doctors “publishing anti-scientific content” on social media.
In 2019, another doctor who had publicly criticised vaccinations given to children was suspended from practising for one year by a medical court. The medic, who has 265,000 subscribers on YouTube, has also spread unfounded conspiracy theories about 5G mobile technology and Israel.
Anti-vaccine sentiment has, like in many countries, been growing in Poland in recent years. The proportion of parents choosing not to give children compulsory vaccines rose by over 1,300% between 2010 and 2019.
The refusal rate increased even further in 2020, noted UNICEF last year, resulting in Poland “already losing population immunity” against measles.
During the pandemic, Poland saw a number of large protests against lockdowns and against Covid vaccinations. The country has one of the EU’s lowest rates of full vaccination against the virus, at 57% compared to a figure of 73% across the bloc as a whole.
Main image credit: Adam Stepien / Agencja Gazeta
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
