A CANCER specialist who was a key adviser in the controversial Lockerbie bomber affair has launched a new career as an author.
And Edinburgh-based Grahame Howard, who was the Scottish government’s adviser on clinical oncology, has revealed he “was surprised as everyone else” when Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was released from prison on compassionate grounds in 2009 after being diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer the year before.
He was convicted in 2001 of the bomb attack on Pan Am Flight 103 in December 1988 which killed 259 people after it exploded over Lockerbie. But the decision by the Scottish government to allow him to go home to Libya to die caused widespread outrage.
Kenny MacAskill, then justice secretary, made the decision using a 1993 Scottish law which allows the release of a prisoner judged by competent medical authority to have three months or less to live.
But, says Howard: “I was as surprised as everyone else when I saw Kenny McAskill on TV say he was released on this basis as I had never advised that the prognosis was less than three months.”
The freeing of Megrahi unleashed an uproar, particularly in the US from many relatives of victims of the disaster. Megrahi was allowed home in 2009 but lived far longer than three months, eventually dying in May 2012.
Howard told The National: “As a result of his release there were understandable questions asked of his expert oncology medical advisers, including myself, who maintained that they had never advised that a less-than-three-month prognosis was appropriate.
“Although a subsequent investigation by a delegation led by Senator Bob Menendez – with whom we were instructed not to communicate – vindicated the Scottish experts, this episode reflected badly on Scottish medicine.”
Howard, formerly clinical director of the Edinburgh Cancer Centre, has now launched a career as an author after taking early retirement from the NHS in 2011.
He has written two memoirs – The Tales Of Dod and Spoz And Friends: Tales of a London Medical Student. His first novel, The Euthanasia Protocol, was published year.
“It is not about the NHS and is not a memoir but it is my take on a number of issues which have increasingly concerned me over the years,” said Howard.
In the book, he satirises some of the most pressing problems he feels society is facing today. These include the escalation of faith-based violence, an ageing population and burgeoning rules and regulations which, along with the increasing dependency on technology, have resulted, Howard believes, in an unquestioning, box-ticking culture.
His book is set in an independent Scotland after apocalyptic religious wars where the state is managed by a series of secular Life Protocols.
Drawn up by a young and idealistic civil servant called Giles, the Protocols soon become grossly misinterpreted as an end in themselves, rather than being an aid to government. Among the Protocols is one addressing the problem of an ageing population, and this Euthanasia Protocol is implemented throughout the country as an income-generating, yet socially acceptable, method of age control.
Giles rapidly becomes disillusioned by the way in which his concept has been abused. However, when he attempts to rectify the situation, he falls foul of the system.
“The negative effect of religion in the world and the resultant sectarian violence show no sign of succumbing to rational thought while our increasingly unthinking reliance on technology has resulted in an unquestioning box-ticking culture,” said Howard. “In The Euthanasia Protocol I have attempted to highlight these threats to our society using allegory and humour.”
The book has drawn acclaim and comparisons with George Orwell’s Animal Farm.
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