The World Medical Association — just installed an allegedly egregiously corrupt president — business as usual, we can infer

21 October 2016

Drug cartels are bad compared to what?

Perhaps they are more representative than not, of how powerful organizations work.

Take the following cynical deliciousness:

Based in France, the WMA [World Medical Association] sets ethical standards [see here] for physicians worldwide and represents millions of doctors.

Known for its pioneering work in ethics, its members include the American Medical Association and the British Medical Association.

[O]n Friday [WMA] installed an Indian doctor facing corruption charges as its president, despite controversy surrounding his appointment while legal cases are pending.

After he was first selected in 2009 as a future president of the WMA, [Dr. Ketan] Desai faced conspiracy and corruption allegations. Desai has denied any wrongdoing in connection with the pending cases.

In one case filed in New Delhi in 2010, Desai faces charges of corruption and criminal conspiracy for allegedly being involved in a conspiracy to obtain a bribe of 20 million rupees ($450,000 at the time) from a medical college.

In return, investigators allege Desai helped the school get permission from the Medical Council to add more students.

Proceedings in a separate case, alleging Desai was involved in a conspiracy to have the Medical Council of India allow a private medical school to add more students, were put on hold last year by a district court in northern Uttar Pradesh state until investigators obtain government permission to prosecute.

A mistaken allegation against a great man, you say?

Apparently Dr. Desai is notorious in India:

It may be noted that in 2001, Dr. Desai, then MCI president, was removed by Delhi High Court which dubbed MCI [Medical Council of India] as a “den of corruption” and directed CBI [Central Bureau of Investigation] to investigate and prosecute Dr. Desai and his cronies in MCI.

But after a long-drawn botched investigation, CBI gave a clean chit to Dr. Desai which prompted him to return to MCI and elected “unopposed” as the MCI president again in 2009.

But within a year, he was again trapped through a sting operation for taking bribe as the entire MCI was dissolved in 2010.

While Dr. Desai is still roaming free on bail and already managed to put many of his known cronies at top positions in the newly formed MCI, we now know that he is not sitting idle as he repeatedly met with the top boss in CBI seemingly in order to obtain another clean chit from the highest law-enforcing agency in the country.

© 2014 PBTIndia, CBI director privately met five times with disgraced ex-MCI president Ketan Desai as corruption case against Desai still lingers in CBI court, People for Better Treatment - India] (06 September 2014) (paragraph split)

If you google the "good" doctor, you will more articles of the same kind. Here is one such, including the hoard of gold and silver that he might need (one presumes) to leave the country in a hurry.

Incidentally, the focus of Desai's alleged criminality —India's privately owned medical school system — is itself seen as a fount of corrupt and dangerous quackitude.

How do these purulent slugs get to where they are?

Surgical gastroenterologist Sanjay Nagral had a hypothesis:

Individuals like Desai can survive and thrive only due to a certain permissiveness and complicity on the part of their constituency, subordinates and peers.

The Indian medical establishment and the profession (which includes all of us) have therefore to take part of the blame for Desai being allowed to run amok all these years. In the case of the Medical Council of India, one can argue that he could have bulldozed or bought people; but what about organisations like the Indian Medical Association, whose national president he was for three years?

As a large, democratically-run body of professionals from the entire country, how did it accept Desai as its president when it was common knowledge that he had a tainted past?

It is also a reflection of a certain tolerance that we, as a society, have developed towards corruption as an issue.

It is also a reflection of a certain ambivalence that many medical professionals have towards mainstream medical associations and their activities, with the result that they are prone to easy capture by vested interests.

Many senior professionals who have the capacity and credibility to take on such elements have chosen to remain silent or to work outside the sphere of mainstream organisations.

Should we care?

I think so.

Medical ethicist Arthur Caplan said:

“The whole force of the WMA is its moral authority,” Caplan said.

“You can’t have a compromised leader, you just can’t….

"If you push against torture, if you try to defend doctors in jeopardy from totalitarian regimes, if you try to speak up about getting more care for the poor, people will just point toward your president and say: ‘Why should we care?

"You have a leader who is morally suspect. You’re not in a position to lecture us about anything.'”

The moral? — This is why "ordinary" people get so angry

If we leave it to the bigwigs, it pretty reliably becomes a Leech-Maggot Orgy.

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The World Medical Association — just installed an allegedly egregiously corrupt president — business as usual, we can infer