Dr. Phlip McMillan,  John McMillan

In April 2021, Dr. Charles Hoffe of Lytton, Canada wrote a letter to Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry expressing serious concerns about COVID-19 vaccine injuries he was observing in his patients. Instead of investigating these reported adverse events, internal emails reveal that Dr. Henry instructed her staff to report Dr. Hoffe to his medical licensing board. “Thanks for following up. I believe we should report this person to the college,” wrote Dr. Henry, followed by confirmation that a complaint had been submitted.

Within days, Dr. Hoffe’s hospital privileges were revoked, and he faced disciplinary charges from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia (CPSBC). The disciplinary process against Dr. Hoffe dragged on for years before the CPSBC finally dropped the case in February 2025, claiming “the circumstances around his citation have materially changed” because “the emergency phase of COVID-19 has passed.” By then, the damage to his practice, reputation, and personal life was substantial.

As the dust settles from the global COVID-19 vaccination campaign, Dr. Hoffe’s experience raises a critical question: Who bears responsibility when patients experience adverse effects? Is it the individual who consented, the manufacturers granted liability shields, government officials who promoted these interventions, or the physicians themselves?

The bitter irony of Dr. Hoffe’s case has now been compounded by a recent European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruling. While he was professionally punished for raising concerns about vaccine injuries, this ruling now suggests that physicians themselves may bear primary liability for those same injuries. The very doctors who were silenced when attempting to protect patients could now be held responsible for adverse outcomes they were prevented from warning about.

The European Court of Justice Ruling: A Turning Point?

The ECJ ruling came in response to a case brought by Professor Christian Fichi, an Italian academic who challenged the marketing authorizations for COVID vaccines on several grounds, including concerns about safety data and the emergency approval process. While the court ultimately refused to withdraw these authorizations, its justification has created a precarious position for physicians worldwide.

The court asserted that marketing authorizations could remain in place because doctors were always free to advise against COVID vaccination based on individual clinical judgment and should have been providing individual prescriptions for each vaccine. This rationale effectively places the responsibility for vaccine outcomes on the clinical decision-making of individual doctors.

The ruling creates a troubling disconnect between legal theory and pandemic reality. While suggesting that doctors had complete autonomy in making vaccine recommendations, it ignores the mass vaccination approach that dominated the early pandemic response. Many people received vaccines at dedicated clinics or pharmacies without any meaningful doctor involvement or individualized risk assessment. These vaccination sites operated more like assembly lines than medical practices, with patients rarely having any substantive interaction with physicians who could assess their individual risk factors.

This discrepancy between how vaccines were actually administered and the ECJ’s characterization of the process as physician-directed potentially exposes countless doctors to liability claims they had little practical ability to prevent.

The Doctor’s Dilemma: Caught Between Mandates, Patients, and Professional Risk

The situation becomes particularly concerning when examining doctor-patient interactions during the pandemic. While early mass vaccination often bypassed traditional medical consultation, many physicians later found themselves directly advising patients about boosters during routine appointments. Under the ECJ ruling, doctors who recommended vaccination during regular check-ups, pregnancy visits, or other medical consultations may now face greater liability exposure, as these interactions could be interpreted as individual medical decisions carrying full liability.

Physicians operated under extraordinary constraints during the pandemic:

• Many faced vaccine mandates themselves, with non-compliance resulting in job loss
• Financial incentives often rewarded high vaccination rates
• Speaking out about observed adverse events risked professional sanctions
• Medical boards around the world investigated and disciplined doctors who questioned vaccine safety
• Media coverage amplified accusations against dissenting doctors while largely ignoring vindications

Many legal experts argue that liability should rest with the system that created these conditions, rather than with individual physicians.

Systemic Failures vs. Individual Accountability

The ECJ ruling raises profound questions about where responsibility should ultimately rest. While individual doctors may technically have had the authority to advise against vaccination, the practical reality was far different. There seems to be an expectation that physicians should have collectively stood against problematic policies, yet the system was deliberately structured to make such dissent professionally dangerous.

The emails regarding Dr. Hoffe illustrate a troubling pattern where officials showed no interest in investigating reported injuries but instead focused on silencing the messenger. This approach created an environment where reporting adverse events became professionally hazardous, potentially compromising patient safety. When physicians attempted to bring evidence to authorities who could prevent further injuries, the system responded not with scientific curiosity but with punitive measures.

Some legal analysts have suggested that the healthcare system appears structured to minimize investigation of injuries while maximizing profits. This perspective gains credibility when examining the behavior of healthcare workers themselves. Despite official booster recommendations, vaccine uptake among nurses reportedly fell to around 15% in some regions. These frontline workers, who regularly triage patients and observe outcomes, apparently drew conclusions that differed from official narratives.

Emerging Evidence, Unanswered Questions, and the Path Forward

As the pandemic evolves, many clinicians are privately acknowledging unusual patterns in patient health. As Dr. McMillan noted, “Many physicians are privately acknowledging they’re seeing unusual health patterns they’ve never encountered before, but don’t know whether to attribute them to COVID, vaccines, or other causes.”

The challenge remains: what constitutes sufficient evidence, especially in a climate where reporting concerns can trigger professional sanctions? The question becomes particularly pressing around emerging issues like reports of unusual blood clots that have been discussed in medical circles since 2021. Some scientists have finally begun investigating these atypical clotting patterns that were previously not recognized in medical literature.

Legal experts advising physicians in this situation suggest they may need to take on the system directly, challenging the professional bodies that have imposed speech restrictions.

This pattern of professional silencing extends beyond medicine to other fields including law, politics, and mental health counseling. It represents a broader societal challenge where institutional powers can effectively mute dissenting voices across multiple professions.

The ECJ ruling has opened the door to doctor liability in a way that fails to account for the immense systemic pressures and silencing mechanisms that constrained physician autonomy during the pandemic. The conflict is stark: while legally “free” to advise against vaccines, doctors still faced (and continue to face) professional risks under “misinformation” frameworks.

“I predicted in 2021 that if things went wrong, they would blame the doctors,” reflected Dr. McMillan. “Politicians would claim they were ‘following the science,’ while scientists would say their studies didn’t show injuries. In that environment, how could physicians effectively challenge the system?”

Moving forward requires addressing the suppression of concerns, re-evaluating systemic failures, and potentially reforming professional oversight. The stakes extend beyond the current pandemic to the foundation of medical ethics itself: the ability of physicians to prioritize patient welfare above institutional directives when necessary.

This watershed moment in medicine calls for serious reflection on where true responsibility lies and how physicians can reclaim their professional autonomy to speak out when patients’ welfare is at stake—without fear of becoming sacrificial lambs for systemic failures.