You may remember New Zealand Doctors Speaking Out on Science (NZDSOS) – a fringe group of doctors and health professionals that took up opposition to almost every government intervention during the early stages of the Covid pandemic. They came to public attention in 2021 with some outlandish claims that Covid vaccines were killing millions, and that governments were falsifying test results to cover this up.

One prominent early member of the group, Auckland University academic Dr Simon Thornley was forced to retract a paper falsely claiming the Covid vaccination increased the risk of miscarriage. In reality the opposite was true. Ultimately, due to numerous complaints, the Medical Council investigated a number of NZDSOS members and some had their registration cancelled.

Needless to say, none of their claims have been substantiated in the following years.

Now NZDSOS are back, with a campaign aimed at undermining New Zealand’s membership of the World Health Organisation. In a recent campaign on X (formerly know as Twitter) promoted tweets have been encouraging people to submit their feedback on the International Health Regulations currently under review.

While suggesting people use one of the NZDSOS templates (created with help from “the legal team at Voices for Freedom”) to make their submission, their bottom line is:

…the most important action is getting as many people to provide feedback as possible. It could be as simple as a sentence saying “NZ needs to exit the WHO”.

The tweet also links to a web site with more information on using their templated responses, but emphasises “It is important that your feedback is written autonomously and mirrors your personal (or group) perspective.”

Not content with spreading misinformation to undermine our response to the Covid pandemic, they now appear to want to hamper any future response to a global health crisis by astroturfing a mandate to remove New Zealand from the WHO.