Charlie Teo cancels defamation lawsuit

Celebrated neurosurgeon Charlie Teo has quietly abandoned a defamation lawsuit he threatened to bring against a Sydney University professor over a series of tweets that he claimed portrayed him as a “greedy mercenary” who “disgracefully charged” $60,000 to perform brain surgery on a child. Dr Teo threatened to sue urologist Henry Woo in May after he publicly questioned why the high-profile neurosurgeon did not operate on seven-year-old Bella Howard’s brain tumour in the public system for free. Dr Woo agreed in September to delete the relevant tweets while Dr Teo agreed to withdraw a complaint he had made to the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons about Dr Woo’s “improper” and “unjustified” conduct.