British Universities have a public duty to immediately terminate the studies of any medical students refusing to attend lectures or answer exam questions on alcohol-related or sexually transmitted diseases. If a medic is not competent to deal with such diseases then there can be no question of that person ever becoming a doctor; it follows therefore that there is no point in training doctors with such critical gaps in their knowledge.

A healthy society cannot privilege religious belief. We do not allow vegetarian medics to turn their backs on mad-cow disease, or non-smokers on emphysema. This is an Islamist campaign to push boundaries, to undermine civil society and the universal right to health care and to discriminate on the basis of religion. It must be met with zero tolerance.

The General Medical Council and the British Medical Association should make clear that those who put their own personal beliefs before the health of patients and the public have no place in the medical profession.