There is a broadcaster in Cork, Neil Prendeville, who has no problem promoting pseudoscience and instilling fear into people during his radio programme. He regularly invites a guest, Michael O’Doherty, whom he calls a healthcare professional, onto his show to expound on vaccines and antibiotics. O’Doherty has no medical qualifications. He is a quack healer whose shtick seems to be that natural is good, that the body is capable of healing itself without the need for modern medicine.
This stuff is dangerous. It is simply not true to say that our bodies are able to deal with every illness that comes along. The flu, a common disease, kills millions of people every year. Before modern medicine, deaths from smallpox, measles and TB were common. They are much less so now because of vaccines, antibiotics and antivirals. Where is the evidence for the great natural panaceas they keep talking about? In the face of an invader, eating berries and taking exercise won’t always cut it. That’s not how human physiology works.
Another pernicious lie that’s promoted is that when you get sick, it’s your fault. If only you had been thinking properly, or meditating the right way, or drinking the correct drinks, or eating the right foods, you wouldn’t have fallen ill. Sure, some lifestyles are decidedly unhealthy, but healthy people still get sick, all the time, through no fault of their own. Telling people that they are responsible creates unnecessary guilt while scaring them away from treatment options that might save their lives. It’s awful.
Prendeville says he is not anti-vaccinatipn, yet he regularly promotes anti-vaccination views. He promotes a culture of suspicion around medicine and medical practitioners. On a regular basis, he lays into the medical profession while promoting some of the worst pseudoscience imaginable. Not to put too fine a point on it, but he’s endangering people’s health.
Sure, if you are fool enough to believe him, the argument could be made that it’s your fault. But what of your children or elderly and incapacitated adults that might depend on you? What of innocent bystanders whose kids you might be putting at risk because you won’t vaccinate your children?
But what to do about it?
Write a strongly worded letter to Red FM? Send a complaint to the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland? What will that do, exactly?
Complain to my local TDs? What will that achieve, exactly?
Blog away like I am doing, to the 20 or so people who read this blog?
Write to the Irish Medical council and other healthcare agencies to let them know what he’s up to?
Is it a free speech issue, so better off being left alone? Do I keep quiet and suck it up?
I don’t know. All I do know is that a radio personality is abusing his power and influence to scare people away from practical healthcare, and it feels like nobody cares about it, except for me and my army of one.
Update: here is a link to the show in question. The Gardasil / vaccine discussion starts about 50 minutes into the show.
Update 2: I have amended a statement that Prendeville tells people not to vaccinate their kids, which is not correct. I have also had feedback that he introduces O’Doherty as a healthcare professional. I have corrected this also.
Passive Impressions 
Reblogged this on Another Irishman's Diary and commented:
Perhaps it “big pharma” that was responsible for Prendeville’s infamous aeroplane episode…
Reblogged this on Cork Skeptics.
Stop stop stop please, don’t judge until you have been in a life and death situation. My daughter is 23 and at the age of 1 she was always getting sick- high temperature and lethargic. I went to the doctor and yet another antibiotic was prescribed. One weekend the same situation occurred and thankfully my usual GP was off. An another GP was taking his place and had the “courage to tell me she didn’t know what was wrong with my child” She took me to the hospital in her own car and thankfully they discovered that my daughter had a problem with her kidney. It was a simple but important procedure that saved my little girls life- so please respect and listen to not one but many options , all o will say Is that don’t judge
Too quickly please
Bernie, thank you very much for your comment. Your story could have been horrific but I’m really glad that common sense prevailed. I hope your daughter is still doing well. My point is not that doctors don’t make mistakes (they do), nor that medical science has all the answers (it doesn’t), or that we shouldn’t be encouraged to take second opinions (we should) but that, all things considered, we should always consider the medical approaches over non-medical ones. Medicine reflects the state of knowledge on what is the best approach at any time, but it is always possible that individual doctors may not be up to date with this, or to make dreadful diagnostic mistakes. The point I’m making is that, on the whole, the medical approach is to be preferred over non medical approaches. I hope this clarifies what I was trying, somewhat hamfistedly, to say.
I can Assure you Michael Doherty ain’t a quack .
He has years helping sick people get back on track
I thank this show very much my daughter has been injured by hpv vaccination.
This show saved hundreds of girls .
Look at the world stats it’s poison.
spend your time focusing on leaders who already have some credibilty, your local councillors and TDs and Senators, if they start indulging in this crap write to and about and challenge them.