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Canadian Thyroid Expert Doctor David Derry's Medical License Suspended | |
Source: Breast Iodine Thyroid Effectiveness Society (BITES)
June 2002 -- On June 11, 2002, the College of Physicians & Surgeons of British Columbia removed the medical license of Dr. David Derry, a popular physician well-known for his success with thyroid patients.
The Victoria, British Columbia doctor has been practicing for 30 years, helping thyroid patients mainly via prescribing desiccated thyroid at doses he determined to be appropriate for relief of symptoms in each patient. His ability to help patients with hypothyroidism after other doctors had failed has earned him an international reputation, and patients traveled from all over North America to see him, and patients and doctors from various countries consulted him for thyroid treatment advice.
Dr. Derry has also been featured here at the About.com thyroid site numerous times:
- Breast Iodine Thyroid Effectiveness Society (BITES) Group and Site Launched
- Dr. Derry Re: TSH Tests
- Canadian Dr. Derry Under Attack
- Dr. Derry Fights Back
In July 2001, an endocrinologist whose patient had left him and gotten better on Dr. Derry's treatment complained to the College about Dr. Derry. The patient complained about the endocrinologist, but the College investigated only the complaint against Dr. Derry.
The College gave Dr. Derry one week's notice to prepare for an October 31, 2001 hearing. In the week prior to the hearing, the College received numerous letters supporting Dr. Derry's treatment. About 50 supporters came to attend the hearing, but the College would not admit them, or talk to the patients whose medical records they were examining. The College Executive Committee rejected the evidence that Dr. Derry presented supporting his treatment protocol, and on November 2, 2001, they removed his thyroid prescribing privileges.
-- David Derry, MD |
Dr. Derry sought to have the ban lifted at a December 18, 2001 Supreme Court hearing. The lawyer for the College, David Martin, assured the judge at the hearing that early the next year, the College would hold an inquiry into Dr. Derry's approach to treating hypothyroidism. He also promised that the College would allow Dr. Derry to call expert witnesses to defend his approach. In part because of this promise, the court declined to lift the temporary ban. This inquiry has not taken place, however.
In addition, though Dr. Derry presented 18 volumes of material in support of his position, the College failed to present even a single medical study or expert to counteract this evidence. The 18 volumes included classic medical literature from all over the world showing that Dr. Derry's treatment is backed by medical expertise, and that it works.
"Desiccated thyroid was used by all clinicians for the first eighty years of thyroid treatment," says Dr. Derry. "It is cheap, effective, and well standardized. Old treatments that are replaced by new approaches should have clinical studies to prove that the new methods are better."
Instead of investigating Dr. Derry's treatment protocol, the College went through medical files of Dr. Derry's patients, suggested correlations between his treatment and the deaths of two patients not related to thyroid medication, and suspended his medical license on June 11, 2002. His lawyer, Kevin Doyle, has filed an appeal, which is scheduled to be heard in Supreme Court in Victoria on June 24 and 25. 2002.
For more information on Dr. Derry's current situation, see the following links at the Breast Iodine Thyroid Effectiveness Society (BITES) site: For more on Dr. Derry's activities and BITES, see: Breast Iodine Thyroid Effectiveness Society (BITES) Group and Site Launched
