Ken Walker (physician)
Kenneth Francis Walker (born 1924) is a medical writer, celebrity doctor, and retired Canadian obstetrician and gynecologist. He writes a weekly medical column under the pseudonym W. Gifford-Jones, M.D., "The Doctor Game", which debuted in the "Globe and Mail" in 1975 and was syndicated to over 40 newspapers by the end of the 1970s. It is currently syndicated to over 70 newspapers in Canada, the United States and Europe. He has also written nine books, has been a senior editor of "Canadian Doctor" magazine, and a regular contributor to "Fifty Plus" magazine. Walker was born in  1924 in Croydon, England. His family moved to Canada when he was 4, settling in Niagara Falls, Ontario. Walker earned his undergraduate degree from University of Toronto and graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1950. He adopted the Gifford-Jones pseudonym when he wrote his first book in 1961, "Hysterectomy: A Book for the Patient", due to the College of Physicians and Surgeons which ruled he could not publish a medical book under his own name as this would constitute advertising for patients and was not permitted under the college's rules. He went on to publish several more books  under his pen name and used it when he launched his column in 1975. While practicing in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Walker was an advocate of women's right to choose abortion and was an abortion practitioner in the area after the procedure became legal in 1969, resulting in death threats from abortion opponents. In 1979, he began campaigning for the legalization of heroin as a painkiller for terminal cancer patients through his column, by creating the Gifford-Jones Foundation to raise money for the campaign and through newspaper advertisements and collecting 30,000 names on a petition and soliciting 20,000 letters  from his readers in support of his efforts. Walker has also advocated the right to assisted suicide and euthanasia and is a member of the physicians advisory council of Dying with Dignity Canada. In 1986, Walker participated in a "fact finding" tour of South Africa sponsored by the apartheid government. Upon his return he wrote an op ed in the "Globe and Mail" titled "The good side of white South Africa" which opposed sanctions against or disinvestment from South Africa and also opposed the prospect of ending white minority rule in the country. In 2018, the "Toronto Sun" pulled a  Gifford-Jones column from its website following an outcry over its urging readers to consider "both sides of the vaccine debate". "Sun" editor Adrienne Batra said it was removed from the newspaper's website after medical professionals pointed out inaccuracies in the column. Walker retired from his practice at the age of 87 and currently lives in Toronto's Harbourfront neighbourhood with his wife of more than 60 years.