January 18, 2013

(JTA) — Belgium’s medical ethics committee summoned a doctor who participated in a campaign to boycott Israeli pharmaceuticals producer Teva.

Dr. Guido Gorissen arrived at the offices of the committee, the Belgian Order of Physicians, on Wednesday in Antwerp accompanied by a few dozen supporters who picketed outside. 

Guido Joris, a Belgian journalist, filed a complaint after Gorissen published calls to boycott Teva, which he described as complicit in “Israeli occupation.” 

Joris said the physician acted unethically and abused his medical credentials to campaign for a political cause, to the potential detriment of patients.

The committee is expected to rule on the complaint in the coming months.

Gorissen, a veteran boycott Israel activist, is a member of GVHV, a group providing free medicine services as part of an initiative started by the Marxist Belgian PvDA party. 

Joris, an editor of the Belgian monthly Joods Actueel, told JTA he encountered Gorissen’s call for a boycott on a website.  A blood-stained logo of Teva has since been removed from the website. 

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