A letter was submitted for publication in which a general practitioner described how he treated patients with vitiligo “simultaneously with an anti-fungal and anti-bacterial medicament over a prolonged period.”He has done this because:“As is now known,a fungus resembles the human being genetically and there is a possibility that a fungus can hide in the melanocyte (analogically as is being done by the HIV virus) and therefore cannot easily be diagnosed by laboratory means.”The research seems to have been done without controls. The editor wrote to the general practitioner asking whether his patients had given fully informed consent and whether he had obtained ethics committee approval. What should be done, if he has neither?
Write to the GMC.
The doctor did not have ethics committee approval. A complaint was made to the GMC, but the doctor was no longer on the register.