The head of Ghent University, Rector Rik Van de Walle, has distanced himself from what Ghent professor Mattias Desmet said on Alex Jones’s American talk show. Jones is famous for supporting conspiracy theories and was recently convicted by an American court for denying the Sandy Hook massacre. Prof Desmet told US TV viewers that he had seen open heart surgery in Belgium conducted under hypnosis and without sedation. The lecturer now says that’s something he never witnessed and has apologised.
Prof Desmet is a clinical psychologist, who has criticised government measures during the pandemic and has been interviewed by Fox News and Alex Jones.
Pepijn Van Erp, a mathematician, whose Dutch organisation Skepsis is critical of pseudoscience, says it has become clear Desmet pimped up his story: hypnosis is sometimes used as an addition to local anaesthetics but never in open heart surgery”.
Ghent University Rector Rik Van de Walle told VRT that the general rule was that UGent academics could say and think what they like, but added “I have to state explicitly that the words Desmet spoke on the talk show hosted by a convicted conspiracy thinker were made in his own name and do not commit UGent or any of our academics. I wish to personally and explicitly distance myself from these utterances”.
A court recently ordered Jones to pay nearly 50 million dollars in compensation to families affected by the Sandy Hook school shooting after he denied it had ever taken place.
Writing on Facebook Prof Mattias Desmet strikes a mea culpa. He says he needs to correct an erroneous impression triggered by the interview. When quizzed by Jones he affirmed he had seen an open-heart operation conducted under hypnosis and without anaesthetic. He now says that was not the case and on reflection wonders why he answered as he did.