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Careful with that Karol Sikora guy.<br />
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Notorious for made-up institutions and qualifications. More of a quack than an actual professor.<br />
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Also has copious links to private healthcare providers and advocates the breaking up of the NHS.<br />
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Blocks anyone and everyone who challenges anything he says.<br />
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Famously got the Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi released on compassionate grounds saying he had less than three months to live. He lived for nearly three years.<br />
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Also calls the NHS the 'last bastion of Communism', so I hope you've all got your private healthcare insurance premiums at the ready and, y'know, don't suffer from any pre-existing conditions.<br />
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<a href="https://www.casinomeister.com/forums/attachments/142162/" target="_blank">View attachment 142162</a><br />
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Oh yes and Imperial College London had to threaten him with legal action to stop him associating himself with them.<br />
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<a href="https://www.casinomeister.com/forums/attachments/142164/" target="_blank">View attachment 142164</a>
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Nothing like a good bit of casual character assassination eh chop, rather than debating or discussing the merits or not of the letter, any ammunition against the other people involved with the letter?<br />
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<i>"Karol Sikora was born in 1948. His father was a captain<b> in the Polish Army</b> who arrived in Great Britain during World War II[8] and his mother was a Scottish schoolteacher.[9] His childhood was spent in Edinburgh, Stafford and London.<br />
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He attended Dulwich College <b>on a London County Council scholarship</b> <b>before going to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge</b> where <b>he became a Foundation Scholar and obtained a double first</b>.[10] He received his PhD at Stanford University, where he also served a clinical fellowship.[11]"<br />
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"From 1985 to 1997, he served as the clinical director for cancer services at Hammersmith Hospital in London, where he established a cancer research laboratory, <b>and was Professor of International Cancer Medicine at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, <u>later the Imperial College School of Medicine</u></b>.[13] During the 1990s Sikora was also deputy director of clinical research at charity the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, the predecessor to Cancer Research UK "</i><br />
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<b><i>NB The Royal Postgraduate Medical School (RPMS) was an independent medical school, based primarily at Hammersmith Hospital in west London</i></b><i>. In 1988, the school merged with the Institute of Obstetrics & Gynaecology, <b>and in 1997 became part of Imperial College School of Medicine.</b></i><br />
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<span style="color: rgb(41, 105, 176)">So the claim he has been fraudently making a link to imperial college is a distortion in the way you presented it, and the description "<b>notorious for made-up qualifications and institutions</b>" sounds a bit far fetched to me.</span><br />
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<i>In 1997 he became the Chief of the Cancer Program of the World Health Organization<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karol_Sikora#cite_note-murray-9" target="_blank" class="link link--external" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">[9]</a> before resigning in 1999 over a disagreement with the UN regarding their proposals to restructure work on non-communicable diseases, <b>stating this would create a "top-heavy bureaucracy </b></i><br />
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<span style="color: rgb(41, 105, 176)">The more I read the more based and principled he sounds, this is likely his beef with the NHS too if you think about it. Doctors want to treat patients with the least interference from overpaid pen pushers.</span><br />
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<i><b>Sikora has published over 300 papers and written or edited 20 books,<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karol_Sikora#cite_note-uob-16" target="_blank" class="link link--external" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">[16]</a> <u>notably the "standard" UK postgraduate textbook Treatment of Cancer </u></b></i><br />
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<b><i>In a 2017 Newsnight opinion piece, he described the NHS as "the last bastion of communism - it is a monolithic, unmanageable and inefficient system [...] the staff are great but the system is not" </i></b><br />
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<span style="color: rgb(41, 105, 176)">^ so that is the context to that comment, and many would agree the NHS needs reform, if the german french, and other health systems etc are routinely achieving better results in outcomes and waiting times. </span><br />
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<i><b>The Scottish government confirmed Sikora's report</b> <b>was not used by the Scottish Justice Minister in making the decision to release Megrahi,</b> which was instead based on their own medical reports and input from the parole board and governor.</i><br />
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<span style="color: rgb(41, 105, 176)">It was likely a political decision, but the man had a terminal illness.</span><br /></div>
