Dr Jayne Donegan - GP and homeopath talk on vaccination in Galway, 25 March 2020

Dr Jayne Donegan (a GP and homeopath) has been in the news recently (in November 2019 and again in February 2020) after undercover reporting by Times journalists found that she was giving harmful advice about vaccination to parents at her public talks. She has advised parents not to vaccinate their children, and also how to falsify their child's vaccination records.

She is due to give another talk in Galway on 25th March and I've contacted the venue and Eventbrite ticketing to ask them to consider cancelling it.

November 2019
Antivax GP shows parents how to avoid jabs The Times - Saturday 16 November 2019
Parents pay £15 for antivax talk on health ‘propaganda’ The Times - Saturday 16 November 2019
The Times view on Jayne Donegan: Dangerous Talk The Times - Saturday 16 November 2019
No British doctor should be advising parents on how to avoid the MMR vaccine

Because of her antivaccination pronouncements and reckless advice she is currently under investigation by the GMC (General Medical Council) which placed her GP-registration under interim conditions in early January 2020, reported in The Times (see below). She is not allowed to offer advice on vaccinations (condition 4: "She must not prescribe, administer, advise upon or have primary responsibility for childhood vaccinations").

January 2020
Antivax GP at risk of being struck off The Times - Wednesday 8 January 2020
(I couldn't find a copy available online but the relevant quote is "Last night the General Medical Council said it had begun an investigation into Dr Donegan, a freelance GP in London, and placed her under interim conditions to limit her practice. If the GMC finds against her, she could be struck off the medical register. The GMC would not comment while the investigation was under way.")

In February 2020 she gave another talk about vaccination to parents in Wexford and this too was attended by an undercover reporter who found that she was continuing to give confusing information.

February 2020
Anti-vaccine doctor Jayne Donegan says World Health Organisation uses ‘Nazi techniques’ The Times - Friday 21 February 2020
I don’t give advice at talks, claims anti-vax doctor The Times - Saturday 22 February 2020
Jayne Donegan told Irish parent to give her child ‘fresh air’

March 2020
Dr Donegan has another event due to take place in Galway on 25th March 2020. The ticket page (Eventbrite) had the address as the Loughrea Hotel & Spa and on 26 Feb I wrote to them with an outline of this blog post outlining the contentious nature of her talks and asking if it was definitely going ahead. I didn't hear back but spotted a day later that the Eventbrite page no longer named the hotel but instead said 'TBC' for the venue. Apparently the post code is the same though, and the text of the information highlights that material will be on sale for cash only and that "The closest ATM is in Supervalue a 5 minute walk from the hotel". So nnperhaps the venue is unchanged and it's just that the public nature of that information has been withdrawn.

I also wrote to Eventbrite (27 Feb) with the information in this post and asked them to consider removing the listing but have not heard back and the Eventbrite page is still up and listing ticket buying options.

Above: screenshot taken on 27 Feb showing a different event organiser and name of venue compared with the screenshot taken on 28 Feb (below).

The reasons I think the event shouldn't go ahead
It's concerning that anyone is promoting an anti-vaccination stance to parents, or suggesting that homeopathy (aka 'homeoprophylaxis') could be used as an alternative (leaving children unprotected), or giving advice on how to tweak a child's vaccination records so that it looks as if they've been vaccinated.

It's additionally concerning that a GP is offering this information and while her views are her own (even if I disagree with them) her promotion of them is surely incompatible with GMC registration. It's bad enough that homeopaths are coming out with this nonsense but being a GP may lend legitimacy.

Although I don't have a great deal of sympathy for her (as she persistently repeats the same actions that have got her noticed by newspapers and the GMC) I think the event organisers are also putting her (and her continued GMC registration) at risk by giving her another opportunity to say these things publicly, again.

It's fairly likely that the event will go ahead and despite the event organiser's precautions* I'd be amazed if at least one person attending wasn't there to report on it critically.


*requiring the names of everyone attending presumably to weed out known scientists, doctors, skeptic activists and journalists ;)