Michael Fitzpatrick

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Michael Fitzpatrick in 2008

Dr Michael Fitzpatrick is a GP in Stoke Newington, London. He trained at Oxford and the Middlesex Fitzpatrick was a leading member of the now defunct Revolutionary Communist Party and is an associate of the libertarian anti-environmental LM network. He has a regular column in The Lancet.

Michael Fitzpatrick, like his brother John, was a leading member of the RCP. He frequently contributed to its monthly review Living Marxism under the alias Mike Freeman. Living Marxism later became LM, in which Fitzpatrick had a regular column. Fitzpatrick has since contributed regularly to Spiked and has spoken at events organised by both Spiked and the Institute of Ideas (IoI), such as its Genes & Society Festival, organised in association with Pfizer. Spiked and IoI both developed out of LM. Fitzpatrick has also contributed to the work of the Progress Educational Trust, another body with links to the LM network.

As of May 2010 he is a Trustee of the controversial lobby group Sense About Science. Sense About Science shares its telephone number with an organisation called Global Futures of which Fitzpatrick is also a Trustee and to which Sense about Science's director, Tracey Brown, and its assistant director, Ellen Raphael, also belong.

SAS contact page showing phone no., web archive version of Oct 29 2003

Global Futures contact page showing phone no., web archive version of 2002

Tracey Brown and Ellen Raphael both contributed to the magazine LM, which developed out of the monthly review of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), Living Marxism. Global Futures appears to be one of a series of front groups generated by the political network of individuals involved with LM and the RCP to forward their political agenda.

He was a member of the the joint Forum of the Social Issues Research Centre and the Royal Institution which drew up the Guidelines on Science and Health to try and 'improve' the reporting of controversial scientific issues like GM foods by the media. Other members of the Forum included Professor Sir John Krebs FRS, the chairman of the Food Standards Agency, Lord Dick Taverne QC, the Co-Directors of The Social Issues Research Centre, and Baroness Susan Greenfield, former Director of The Royal Institution.

MMR

Fitzpatrick led the Medical Research Council team that concluded in 1998 that there was no risk from the MMR vaccine after Dr Andrew Wakefield claimed that patients had suffered adverse reactions from it.

Affiliations

The Progress Club (Company number 04331329, created 29 November 2001) Directors along with: Geoff Kidder and Para Mullan

Publications

As Michael Fitzpatrick

2009

• Michael Fitzpatrick, 'The MMR scare: from foolishness to fraud?', Spiked, 10 February 2009.
• Michael Fitzpatrick, 'MMR-autism scare: the truth is out at last', Spiked, 23 February 2009.
• Michael Fitzpatrick, 'Jade and the dangers of smear testing', Spiked, 23 March 2009.
• Michael Fitzpatrick, 'It’s time to stop this ‘miracle cure’ madness', Spiked, 6 April 2009.
• Michael Fitzpatrick, 'An open letter to Gordon Brown', Spiked, 14 April 2009.
• Michael Fitzpatrick, 'Asking questions is not an ‘Inquisition’, Spiked, 11 May 2009.
• Michael Fitzpatrick, 'Neither Leveller nor statist', Spiked, 29 May 2009.
• Michael Fitzpatrick, 'An unlimited appetite for past obscenities', Spiked, 3 June 2009.
• Michael Fitzpatrick, 'In praise of Engels', Spiked, 19 June 2009.
• Michael Fitzpatrick, 'When public health becomes a public nuisance', Spiked, 6 July 2009.
• Michael Fitzpatrick, 'Childish jibes are no substitute for serious debate', Spiked, 25 September 2009.
• Michael Fitzpatrick, Stop this witch hunt against ‘evil deniers’, Spiked, 9 October 2009.
• Michael Fitzpatrick, 'Making a pig’s ear of the vaccination debate', Spiked, 27 October 2009.
• Michael Fitzpatrick, 'The anti-smoking ‘truth regime’ that cannot be questioned', Spiked, 30 October 2009.
• Michael Fitzpatrick, 'Autism: moving beyond the quest for a cure', Spiked, 5 November 2009.
• Michael Fitzpatrick, 'The ‘McCarthyism’ of the anti-smoking lobby', Spiked, 13 November 2009.
• Michael Fitzpatrick, 'The drift towards professional parenting must be resisted', Community Care, 25 November 200
• Michael Fitzpatrick, 'A pandemic of fantasy flu', Spiked, 22 December 2009.

2010

• Michael Fitzpatrick, 'The war on Dr Wakefield: only 12 years too late', Spiked, 2 February 2010.
• Michael Fitzpatrick, 'Turning a blind Eye to the truth', Spiked, 1 March 2010.
• Michael Fitzpatrick, 'Public health and the obsession with behaviour', Spiked, 5 May 2010.
• Michael Fitzpatrick, 'Censorship is not the answer to health scares', Spiked, 25 May 2010.
• Michael Fitzpatrick, 'Apocalypse looms – again', Spiked, 16 August 2010.
• Michael Fitzpatrick, 'A futile intervention into our drinking habits', Spiked, 15 November 2010.

2011

• Michael Fitzpatrick, 'The real lessons of the MMR debacle', Spiked, 25 January 2011.
• Michael Fitzpatrick, 'The rise and rise of anti‑vaccine agitators', Spiked, 25 February 2011.
• Michael Fitzpatrick, 'Meet the new breed of anti‑vaccine agitator', Spiked, 4 March 2011.
• Michael Fitzpatrick, ‘There's never been a better time to be autistic’, Spiked, 25 March 2011.
• Michael Fitzpatrick, 'Save our National Health Service? Why, exactly?', Spiked, 7 April 2011.
• Michael Fitzpatrick, 'Don’t tinker with the NHS. Completely rethink it', Spiked, 20 June 2011.
• Michael Fitzpatrick, 'Note to NHS: stop treating the public with contempt', Spiked, 18 October 2011.
• Michael Fitzpatrick, 'Our society is hooked on harm reduction', Spiked, 10 November 2011.
• Michael Fitzpatrick, 'Social democracy is dead. Now let’s move on', Spiked, 14 November 2011.
• Michael Fitzpatrick, 'From revolutionary student to Byronic celebrity', Spiked, 20 December 2011.
• Michael Fitzpatrick, 'Saving medical practice from the tyranny of health', Spiked, 23 December 2011.

As Mike Freeman

• Mike Freeman, Malvinas are Argentina’s Revolutionary Communist Party, Junius Publications, 1982.
• Mike Freeman, The Empire Strikes Back: Why We Need A New Anti-Imperialist Movement, Revolutionary Communist Party, Junius Publications, 1993.