A RETIRED West Somerset GP who was an Extinction Rebellion climate change protester died of neurotoxicity while undergoing treatment for a form of cancer.

Dr Bob Rivett, aged 75, developed immune effector cell associated neurotoxicity syndrome (ICANS) as doctors were attempting to cure his lymphoma.

He died in Williton Community Hospital on November 5 last year, just two months after treatment started.

Dr Rivett, who was born in Napton, near Stratford-on-Avon, lived in Washford, near Watchet, with his wife Anne, who was also a GP and Extinction Rebellion activist.

Five years ago in 2019, he was one of a number of protesters who were arrested by police after sitting and blocking Waterloo Bridge, in London, as part of a mass protest.

He said at the time he had been aware for many years of the growing threat to life on Earth due to over consumption of the planet’s finite resources and pollution of land, air, and sea.

Dr Rivett said he feared the planet was reaching a tipping point and it would soon be too late to avoid ‘the extinction of life as we know it’.

He accepted ‘the guilt and responsibility’ of his own contribution to the crisis and shared the frustration of people who had warned of it for decades.

Dr Rivett said he welcomed the creation of Extinction Rebellion, shared its aims, wanted to join its actions, and was ‘gratified’ by its results.

Senior Somerset Coroner Samantha Marsh, holding an inquest in Taunton into Dr Rivett’s death, heard he underwent CAR T-cell therapy in September of last year in an attempt to cure his recurrent lymphoma.

Mrs Marsh was told he then developed ICANS following the attempted curative treatment and died nine weeks later from the neurotoxicity that resulted.

She recorded three causes of death, immune effector cell associated neurotoxicity syndrome, CAR T-cell therapy, and relapsed high grade lymphoma.

Dr Rivett was well known across much of West Somerset as he had been a GP in Watchet and Williton for many years before his retirement, including working for a long time in the community hospital where he died.