An Australian doctor who is a member of the Exclusive Brethren Christian sect has been banned from practising as a General Practitioner after he prescribed chemical castration to a gay teen who sought a "cure" for homosexuality, according to Australian media reports on Wednesday.
Dr Mark Christopher James Craddock, 75, wrote the 18-year-old patient, who was at the time a member of the same Exclusive Brethren church the doctor attended, a prescription for the anti-androgen drug cyproterone acetate (sold under the brand name Cyprostat) during a 10-minute consultation in his home in February 2008. Dr Craddock gave the New Zealander teen a prescription for Cyprostat as well as five repeats. The drug, which lowers libido by reducing the amount of testosterone, is used to treat prostate cancer and to chemically castrate violent sex offenders.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, in a letter of complaint to the Health Care Complaints Commission, the patient said when he came out as gay, a church leader told him, "there's medication you can go on".
"He recommended that I speak to Dr Craddock on the matter with a view to my being placed on medication to help me with my 'problem'," said the man.
Now 23, Craig Hoyle said in a recent TV interview says he had sought help from the church leaders when he realised he was gay at the age of 16.
“I believed homosexuality was a sin, that the church could help me cure, so for the next few months they did everything they could to try and change me,” he was quoted as saying on 3news.
“There were prayers, and I was told I had demons, and none of it worked.”
But it wasn't until he left the church in 2009 that he plucked up the courage to lay a complaint against the doctor.
“To know that he's not going to be able to do this to anyone else is a significant step,” he says. “I’ve known all along what he did was wrong, but to have that acknowledged by the medical board is important to me.”
In a hearing before the professional standards committee of the Medical Council of New South Wales in June, Dr Craddock admitted he did not obtain a medical history, conduct a physical examination, take an adequate sexual history or arrange a follow-up appointment. Nor did he refer the patient to a counsellor or a psychologist, despite the drug manufacturer's recommendation, and did not order a liver test or discuss the side effects, which include impotence.
Dr Craddock conceded it was potentially dangerous for a patient to have that much medication unsupervised. He said, in hindsight, he should not have prescribed it at all.
Last month the committee found him guilty of unsatisfactory professional conduct. In its decision of 23 August 2012, the Medical Professional Standards Committee ordered that Dr Craddock be severely reprimanded and that conditions be placed on his registration, including that he only practices in the field of radiology; and only prescribes medication in his place of practice as part of radiology treatment, other than in emergency situations.
The full decision is available on the Medical Council of NSW website.
Reader's Comments
Wrong. Religion is ALWAYS a license to kill. Dr Craddock, shame on you, you nasty old fuck.
People who put their personal religious beliefs before ethical medical practise are all quacks.
All those so called Christians that feel the need to so publicly assert that they are Christians are obviously not!!
All those so called Christians that feel the need to so publicly assert that they are Christians are obviously not!!
Someone get this doctor the mental health care he needs.
This is a quote from
MODERN ASTRONOMY, THE BIBLE, AND CREATION
a website by Martin Gaskell, Astronomy Department, University of Texas, Austin
http://incolor.inetnebr.com/gaskell/Martin_Gaskell_Bible_Astronomy.html
“(my) loving duty to seek the truth in all things, in so far as God has granted that to human reason.” - Copernicus
“I believe Divine Providence intervened so that by chance I found what I could never obtain by my own efforts. I believe this all the more because I have constantly prayed to God that I might succeed if what Copernicus said was true.” “[my salvation lies] only and alone on the services of Jesus Christ.” - Kepler
"The Holy Bible and the phenomena of nature proceed alike from the Divine Word...God is known...by Nature in His works and by doctrine in His revealed word.” “The Bible teaches how one goes to Heaven, not how the heavens go.” - Galileo
“There are more sure marks of authenticity in the Bible than in any profane history.” [Biblical prophecy was not intended by God to] “gratify men's curiosities by enabling them to foretell things” but rather that: “after they are fulfilled, they might be interpreted by events...The events of things predicted many ages before, will then be a convincing argument that the world is governed by Providence.” - Sir Isaac Newton
“All human discoveries seem to be made only for the purpose of confirming more and more strongly the truths in the sacred scriptures.” [Quoted by H.H. Halley 1965, “Halley's Bible Handbook” 24th ed., p.19] - Herschel
“science without religion is lame” Einstein
"If you take the outstanding physicists, the ones who have done the most to advance modern physics, especially Heisenberg, Schrödinger, Dirac, you will find them all interested in religion. All these men were intensely interested in religion.” [In “The Intellectuals Speak out about God”, Chpt. 3, ed. R. A. Varghese, 1984, p. 45] - Margenau
Like Islam Judaism, and other religions, Christianity is full of charlatans who have their own ungodly agenda. It is far more accomplished a feat to recognize them and reject their heresy, than to condemn an enitire body of believers. Otherwise it is like being a lazy doctor, who would rather kill the patient, than treat them.
I Kings 7:23-26 gives the diameter of a giant bowl as 10 units and the circumference as 30, in other words making pi =3 .
The writer of I Kings was probably just giving the nearest whole number, an approximation, but that idea is unacceptable to biblical literalists, because it means they are wrong to take absolutely everything literally. But either the passage is mistaken, or it was meant as an approximation.
This discussion led me back to another thought...how did the Romans add, subtract, multiply and divide, and use decimal points? Fractions? You indicated it was a world of integers back then, but it would be rather interesting to experience the part of a Roman schoolboy whose magister was teaching him arithmetic.
Oh, and "cubit" antother interesting term...the approximate length of a man's arm from the fingertips to the elbow, but whose arm? Caesar's I guess. But the Old Testament uses the word, in the dimensions of Noah's Ark for example. How did they get by with no apparent or accurate standard of measurement?
The literalists forget the Bible is a guide for everyone to live happily, not some sort of weapon to pound on someone's head.
Thanks again for your comment.
Wish there was more compassion than punishment for those coming to terms with homosexuality.
The Bible brings more answers to those who read it, not to those who use it as a "handy door stop". Few seem to remember it got translated through several iterations and languages, which can introduce problems with the message.
Hmmmm revisiting history here...
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