Physicians struck-off the professional registers during COVID-19 pandemic: is their reinstatement risk-free?

On July 14, 2026, in the course of its examination of a bill concerning healthcare professions, the 12th Social Affairs Committee of the Italian Chamber of Deputies adopted an amendment providing for the reinstatement of physicians removed from the relevant professional registers by the competent medical boards during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. The measure was introduced on the grounds that these physicians have breached the rules of the Italian Code of Medical Ethics (ICME) by disseminating vaccine misinformation denying its effectiveness, promoting unsupported therapies, and issuing false certifications. The article highlights three relevant risks arising from this amendment.First, it violates some universally shared principles of clinical ethics as well as the provisions of the ICME in which they are embodied. In doing so, the amendment threatens the role that medical ethics plays in safeguarding the health of both individuals and the wider community. At the same time, it challenges the statutory autonomy of medical boards, which serve as subsidiary state bodies, charged, among other duties, with disciplining registrants. Second, reinstating these physicians would place an unacceptable primacy of politics over science, undermining latter's independence and blurring the distinction between evidence-based medicine (EBM) and misinformation. Third, the reinstatement of these physicians would jeopardise public health by undermining the Italian citizens' trust in medicine.From a moral perspective, this amendment also disrespects the memory of pandemic victims, including hundreds of physicians and nurses who died in service. The article concludes by urging health-care professionals to sustain transparent public dialogue with a view to preserve trust in medicine, warning that its erosion could severely compromise the management of future health crises, and calls on Parliament to reject the amendment in order to prevent political interests from jeopardising public health.