Dr John Piesse: notorious anti-vax GP could face decade of disqualification

The nation’s top medical regulator has come to Melbourne, all guns blazing, for one of the city’s most notorious anti-vax doctors.

Dr John Piesse is facing 10 years of disqualification for helping families avoid federal vaccination laws. Picture: Nicole Gamston

A renowned Melbourne anti-vax doctor faces being disqualified for 10 years for assisting parents of unvaccinated children avoid ‘no jab, no play’ and ‘no jab, no pay’ legislation.

On Friday, VCAT heard that Dr John Piesse “misused” his status as a doctor by supplying “sympathetic” parents with a documents that allowed them to gain medical exemptions for their children until 2017 — the year Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency announced an investigation into him.

This “toolkit” allowed parents “to receive tax benefits and enrolment status they were not entitled to” the Australian Medical Board told VCAT on Friday.

But Dr Piesse was largely unrepentant, and told the tribunal that no-jab, no-play legislation was “coercive” and that he helped people escape “from vaccinations that are not truly safe … that we should be ashamed of,” and which “are not backed by good science”.

He described the board’s application for a 10-year disqualification as “disproportionate, unnecessary and unfair”.

Dr Piesse has not practised medicine since 2018 when allegations, which he now accepts, arose that he had helped hundreds of families avoid vaccinating their children on the grounds of contra-indicators, or medical exemptions, which were invalid.

In the same year, Dr Piesse sold his Natural Healing Centre clinic at Mitcham, one year after it had been raided by AHPRA.

The doctor, who had became the focus of an AHPRA investigation after a video emerged of him boasting about his work in helping hundreds of families avoid the legislation, opposed the disqualification because he wished to be involved in “useful” research and educational work.

He told the tribunal that his health had suffered significantly as a result of AHPRA’s investigation, and that the stress had led to the reoccurence of prostate cancer.

Emily Latif, for the board, said Dr Piesse had continually “failed to acknowledge the depth of his transgression” in allowing himself to be sought-out by hundreds of Victorians and interstate families for his exemptions.

Ms Latif said Dr Piesse’s conduct was “protracted” and that he presented a risk of repeating his conduct in the future.

In videos online, Dr Piesse can be seen addressing anti vax rallies in Melbourne in 2019, where he describes himself as “that notorious anti-vax doctor” to loud applause.

In the video he said there was a “dreadful cover-up” of the damage vaccines were causing.

The tribunal, which reserved its decision, is due to sit again on Monday.