Stop Awarding Dr. Nasser Simforoosh the 2022 SIU Distinguished Career Award

Petition initiated by: Saeed Zavareh

July 14th, 2022
RE: The SIU 2022 Distinguished Award to Dr. Nasser Simforoosh

Dear SIU committee,

We are writing this letter to express our outrage about the news that Dr. Nasser Simforoosh will be one of the recipients of the 2022 SIU Distinguished Career Award. He has already shared this news with the Iranian mainstream and social media in advance of receiving the award stating that he was selected as the most accomplished urologist in the world by the SIU committee. As scientists and concerned Iranian citizens, we would like to urge the SIU committee to refrain from granting this award and reconsider this decision based on the reasons outlined below.

On January 12th, 2021, the contents of a letter1 signed by a group of Iranian physicians, professors and academics regarding the COVID-19 vaccines were widely publicized in the Iranian national media. This open letter was directed to the President of Iran and was timed carefully to be published a few days after an important speech2 made by the Supreme Leader of Iran in which he announced an all-out ban on the import of all types of COVID-19 vaccines especially those from the USA, UK and France. The letter was co-signed by over 2,500 scholars including Dr. Nasser Simforoosh (the 8th signatory on the list).

There are numerous statements in the letter that are very disturbing with a strong indication that the statements were politically motivated and devoid of scientific facts and evidence. Among the claims was a suggestion that the aforementioned vaccines may be used as biological weapons, claiming that such incidents have actually occurred in the past. It is important to note that this letter was written at the time when three major regulators in the world (the FDA, EMA, and WHO) had listed the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use. All the statements made by Dr. Simforoosh and his colleagues in the letter are scientifically unfounded. Such statements, particularly at the peak of the pandemic in early 2021, created a great deal of public mistrust toward vaccination campaigns intended to save lives both in Iran and abroad.

Dr. Simforoosh has also shown utter disregard for the principles of equity, diversity and inclusion during the time when some of us were trainees under his supervision. For example, we witnessed how he disallowed female urology residents to examine or operate on male patients. He was adamant about the segregation of male and female medical students preventing female trainees from learning the anatomy of the opposite sex. He often chose residents based on their affinity to religious beliefs rather than academic prowess. Some of us were present when he prevented female trainees from examining male patients with common urologic conditions preventing them from learning the fundamentals of a profession that they had worked so hard to qualify for.

Although Dr. Simfroosh has earned a few scientific accolades during his career, the damage that he has inflicted on our profession far outweighs these achievements. His behavior has led to a mass exodus of the best and brightest young physicians from Iran, many of which practice in prestigious institutions in North America today.

As such, our question to the SIU members is this.” Should a reputable international organization such as the SIU offer a prestigious award to a person who has not only been an exemplary leader of our profession but who has potentially led to the loss of thousands of lives by advocating false and disturbing statements on the safety of the COVID-19 vaccine?”.

We understand that the SIU presents this award to those who have made a significant and impactful contribution in the field of Urology and have potentially improved both patients’ lives and quality of life. However, Dr. Simfroosh’s actions and behavior have done the opposite. For one, they have disregarded the hypocritic oath, an oath taken by all physicians around the world, that states first do no harm. Dr. Simfroosh has indeed caused a lot of harm by advocating falsehoods about a scientific breakthrough that could have saved thousands of lives in Iran during the pandemic purely for political gains.

We sincerely hope that the SIU reconsiders this decision in memory of the thousands of innocent Iranian lives that were lost during the pandemic, thousands of patients whose lives were affected by his decisions and hundreds of physicians who ultimately left their homeland solely because of his behavior.

https://www.change.org/p/stop-awarding-dr-nasser-simforoosh-the-2022-siu-distinguished-career-award