Health care professionals from Australia across the globe are expanding grassroots efforts to end censorship in the practice of medicine.
In Australia, freedom-seeking physicians and health care professionals formed the Cape Byron Lighthouse Declaration in response to what they characterize as tyrannical measures in the name of disease control, such as those implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Seventeen thousand people have signed onto the declaration in two years, with the founders also forming multiple global partnerships.
World’s Lockdown Capitol
Few countries exceeded the draconian measures that Australia took after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic. Melbourne, Australia surpassed Buenos Aires, Argentina for the world’s longest big-city lockdown.
Physicians Paul Oosterhuis and Robert Brennan, and Ros Nealon-Cook, a psychologist, were working as health professionals when their licenses were suspended for publicly questioning lockdown measures.
“All of us of the Lighthouse Declaration were very early anti-lockdown dissidents,” said Brennan. “One of the frightening things about the COVID-19 response was just how global and swift the lockdowns came down. Different countries had different flavors of lockdown, with Australia being one of the worst.”
‘The Horror Stories Were Endless’
Curfews in the state of Victoria gained worldwide attention when the government restricted residents to their homes for all but one hour of the day. Travel was limited to within a few miles of one’s home.
“The mandates and government controls in Australia were among the most authoritarian in the world,” said Oosterhuis. “I called it ‘medical martial law.’”
Brennan says police subjected his wife to violence over lockdown resistance.
“In my own city, Gold Coast, my wife was violently arrested and spent a few hours in a police station for violating lockdown,” said Brennan. “We were prohibited from public gatherings at all or visiting venues without a QR code and vaccine passport.
“For essentially 18 months, international travel was near-impossible,” said Brennan. “Long before the vaccine rollout, our governments made clear the un-jabbed would be last to be permitted travel, if ever. The horror stories were endless.”
Suspended for Facebook Posts
Oosterhuis, a senior specialist in anesthesiology and critical care medicine for 32 years, was the first Australian doctor to have his license suspended for speaking out.
“I was subjected to an emergency suspension hearing in September 2021 on the claimed basis that my Facebook posts breached a March 2021 gag order by [the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency] on speech critical of the COVID-19 jabs and government policies,” said Oosterhuis. “At the emergency suspension hearing, I defended my speech and used it as an opportunity to get my views on the public record.”
Ending censorship, upholding informed consent, stopping mandates and other unethical forms of coercion, and protecting bodily autonomy were central points of Oosterhuis’ testimony to Australia’s medical council and formed the basis for the Cape Byron tenets.
“The four points were agreed on because they are something every health professional should be 100 percent aligned with by virtue of their codes of ethics,” said Nealon-Cook.
A series of interviews on the Cape Byron website further expands on those points.
Global Outreach
The Lighthouse Declaration founders have created a list of “Lighthouse Keepers”—physicians and other health professionals who suffered professional retaliation for questioning government pandemic policy.
American physician Peter McCullough, M.D. is one of the newest keepers. McCullough’s medical specialty board tried to revoke his certification after he testified to state and federal legislators his skepticism about the safety, efficacy, and longevity of the COVID-19 jabs.
“I joined Cape Byron Lighthouse because like the founders, I too, suffered from professional reprisals for my best efforts in saving lives from the infection and mitigating damage from vaccination,” said McCullough.
“Never did I ever think I would be punished for abiding in the Hippocratic Oath,” said McCullough. “I vowed to fight disease, preserve life, and above all do no harm. The Lighthouse symbolizes light over darkness and the eventuality of true vindication.”
Reform Push
The organization’s founders say they are now focused on building a strong coalition to protect medical integrity, creating a library of evidence-based resources, and conducting roundtable discussions on key issues.
“Any rebuilding of trust with the public needs to have the bedrock of transparency and the core ethical principles described in the declaration,” said Oosterhuis. “I would like to see a constitutional amendment [in Australia] protecting medical freedom, and I hope to be of service in guiding the discussions of the future of health care.”
“Until checks are placed on the power of the U.S. CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] and whatever might replace the WHO, how can Americans feel safe?” said Brennan.
“It’s worth noting that Australia is hedging its bets, both setting up its own CDC on American lines whilst remaining a loyal member of the WHO,” said Brennan. “Australia will probably get the worst of both worlds.”
Nealon-Cook says she is awaiting steps the Trump administration will take to stop medical tyranny and will focus on the bigger picture until then.
“The last years, however brutal, have given us an incredible opportunity for healing the collective consciousness and raising awareness,” said Nealon-Cook. “That requires a really deep understanding of how we ended up here in the first place.”
Ashley Bateman ([email protected]) writes from Virginia.
