California bill seeks to PUNISH doctors promoting COVID “misinformation”

02/25/2022 / By Ramon Tomey

A bill filed in the California State Legislature seeks to penalize doctors promoting “misinformation” about the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19). The proposal also urges the state’s medical board to go after such doctors and expedite any complaints filed against them.

Assembly Bill (AB) 2098, filed on Feb. 14 by lawmaker Evan Low of the California Assembly, would make it easier for the Medical Board of California (MBC) to punish physicians espousing misinformation by classifying the behavior as unprofessional conduct.

According to Low, AB 2098 will make it clear that the state medical board must go after physicians who advocate so-called misinformation about COVID-19. “The spreading of misinformation – of inaccurate COVID-19 information – contradicts the responsibility [of] doctors, threatens to further erode the public trust in the medical profession and puts all patients at risk,” he said.

The proposal defines unprofessional conduct as any actions by doctors “to disseminate or promote misinformation or disinformation related to COVID-19.” Examples of misinformation mentioned in AB 2098 include “false or misleading information regarding the nature and risks of the virus, its prevention and treatment” and “the development, safety and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines.”

Erring doctors could face disciplinary action for disseminating information that “resulted in an individual declining opportunities for COVID-19 treatment or prevention that was not justified by the individual’s medical history or condition.” This section of the bill appeared to target doctors refusing to recommend the antiviral drug remdesivir as a COVID-19 treatment due to its toxicity.

The bill came as a result of Low and other lawmakers expressing frustration with the MBC’s slow, complaint-driven process. In turn, this has allowed several doctors in the state to promote “conspiracy theories” and “unproven treatments” throughout the pandemic. (Related: The worst Covid MISINFORMATION SPREADERS on the planet.)

AB 2098 seeks to enforce a one and only truth

Emergency room doctor Nick Sawyer expressed support toward AB 2098. The founder of the group No License for Disinformation said it would affect a small group of doctors who spread “blatantly inaccurate and extreme misinformation” despite their medical training. Sawyer added that while the MBC is authorized to go after those doctors, the bill was necessary due to the board’s slow response.

“This isn’t a call for a policing of free speech. This is a call for protecting the public against dangerous misinformation, which patients are parroting back to us in our emergency room departments every day,” he said.

Vaccine injury and epidemiology expert Dr. Meryl Nass begged to differ, however. The member of Children’s Health Defense’s scientific advisory committee denounced the proposal as “an attempt to legislate … [the definition of] what is truth and what is misinformation,” with medical providers having to “follow lockstep with that definition.” She compared AB 2098’s intent to that of the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s novel “1984,” adding that it seeks “to enforce a one and only truth.”

“Nowhere does this [bill] define what is misinformation and disinformation. They do talk about contemporary scientific consensus; but as we know in the last two years, the so-called scientific consensus – or the public health agency consensus – on masks, vaccination, boosters, etc. has flip-flopped all over the place. We have adequate examples that the concept of ‘contemporary scientific consensus’ is basically meaningless in this context,” said Nass.

The Maine-based Nass also disagreed with Sawyer’s remarks in support of AB 2098. “The result is removing options from doctors and patients. The longer-term consequence is that doctors will become irrelevant if they are not needed to assess each individual’s personal risks and benefits from each type of medical care,” she explained.