SPERANZA LIES KNOWING FULL WELL HE IS LYING

The former minister Speranza, holding no official office, has for some time been presenting to the public his little book on the handling of the pandemic. On one of these occasions, at the PD headquarters in Villafranca, Angela Camuso managed to infiltrate the small group of sycophants attending the event (to read the report, click here) to ask Speranza the reasons behind the notorious “paracetamol and watchful waiting” protocol. Speranza replied that the protocol in question had never existed and that it was an invention of the infamous anti-vaxxers.

This is an incredible lie!

On 30 November 2020, the Ministry of Health published a circular signed by the Director-General Giovanni Rezza (to read the circular, click here). For asymptomatic or pauci-symptomatic patients managed at home, the circular recommended: - watchful waiting; - periodic measurement of oxygen saturation; - symptomatic treatments (for example paracetamol, i.e. Tachipirina). Furthermore, the zealous ministerial bureaucrat recommended not using corticosteroids, except for patients already receiving supplementary oxygen therapy, not administering antibiotics until fever had lasted for more than 72 hours, not using hydroxychloroquine, and avoiding heparin.

It is well known that the ministry’s recommendations conflicted with the treatments that many proficient doctors had identified and disseminated from the earliest stages of the spread of Covid-19. The therapeutic indications of Andrea Stramezzi, Mariano Amici, Maria Grazia Dondini, Fabio Milani, and many other doctors who achieved a recovery rate close to one hundred per cent among their patients were very different from those of the ministry and included the use of antibiotics such as azithromycin alongside hydroxychloroquine, corticosteroids, and heparin, combined with ivermectin. In the very first days, these doctors recommended the immediate use of ibuprofen and acetylsalicylic acid. Quite the opposite, therefore, of the watchful waiting recommended in the ministerial paperwork. Yet, these doctors were officially mocked, singled out as charlatans (here is the link regarding the clash between Sileri and Amici), and frequently subjected to disciplinary suspension or even struck off the medical register. Meanwhile, the unfortunate patients who had trusted the ministerial instructions ended up in hospital, where intubation delivered the coup de grâce, and vast numbers (probably more than one hundred thousand people) did not survive the official “treatments”. Furthermore, the ministry advised against carrying out autopsies (to read the circular, click here), preventing an understanding of the pathological mechanisms of the disease.

The circular of 30 November 2020 was quashed by the Regional Administrative Court (TAR) of Lazio, which, in judgment no. 419/2022 (to read the judgment, click here), stated that: “it is the fundamental duty of every healthcare professional to act according to science and conscience, assuming responsibility for the outcome of the prescribed therapy as a consequence of their professional competence and the specialist qualifications obtained. The AIFA prescription, as adopted by the Ministry of Health, therefore conflicts with the professional standards required of the doctor and with their professional code of conduct, by imposing, or rather preventing, the use of therapies that the latter may deem appropriate and effective in countering COVID-19 disease, as applies to any therapeutic activity.”
The Ministry of Health, however, decided to appeal against the ruling of the Lazio TAR before the Council of State, which overturned the TAR’s judgment and held that the circular ought not to have been quashed because it was not binding on doctors, who remained free to treat their patients as they deemed most appropriate (to read the Council of State judgment, click here).

It is a pity that the Gelli-Bianco Law (No. 24/2017), under Article 5, obliges doctors to adhere to official guidelines and introduces Article 590-sexies of the Criminal Code, which excludes criminal liability for doctors in respect of manslaughter and bodily harm caused by negligence provided that clinicians adhere to official guidelines, such as the circular of 30 November 2020. The “paracetamol and watchful waiting” protocol was, therefore, not only binding, but doctors who, in applying it, had finished off a patient could have shielded themselves behind the statutory defence provided by the ministerial guidelines.

Speranza, therefore, lied, knowing full well he was lying.

Alessandro Fusillo