CORONA Federal Court Halts California Law Punishing Doctors for COVID ‘Misinformation’

[Intestinal Fortitude]

Federal Court Halts California Law Punishing Doctors for COVID 'Misinformation'

A federal court has issued a stay against a California law that would punish doctors for providing alleged "misinformation" about COVID-19.

www.breitbart.com

Federal Court Halts California Law Punishing Doctors for COVID ‘Misinformation’​

126 PhotoAlto/Michele Constantini/Getty Images
Joel B. Pollak26 Jan 2023361

3:05


A federal court has issued a temporary stay against a California law that would punish doctors for providing alleged “misinformation” about COVID-19 — though even experts have been wrong about the pandemic.
As Breitbart News reported last year:

The bill, AB 2098, introduced in February, “would designate the dissemination or promotion of misinformation or disinformation related to the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, or ‘COVID-19,’ as unprofessional conduct. The bill would require the board to consider specified factors prior to bringing a disciplinary action against a physician and surgeon. The bill would also make findings and declarations in this regard.”
…
According to one law firm that represents physicians in disciplinary proceedings in California, if a doctor is found to have committed professional misconduct, “the minimum penalty is a stayed revocation with 5 years of license probation, with a maximum penalty of revocation.”

As the San Francisco Chronicle reported, a federal judge halted the implementation of the law on Wednesday because the scientific consensus on “misinformation” is simply too vague:

Judge William B. Schubb of the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of California granted the motion filed by a group of doctors for a preliminary injunction. Schubb said that, because the “scientific consensus” (on COVID, in this case) is ill-defined and vague, the physician plaintiffs in the lawsuitare “unable to determine if their intended conduct contradicts the scientific consensus, and accordingly ‘what is prohibited by the law.”
The New Civil Liberties Alliance, a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group, represents five physicians licensed by the Medical Board of California. The five doctors alleged the law, AB 2098, would be in violation of their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights.
…
Schubb said that it would be hard to determine which scientific conclusions are false, given that COVID-19 is “such a new and evolving area of scientific study.”

In the early stages of the pandemic, experts advised against wearing masks — then demanded that they be mandatory. Public health officials in California, including Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), urged the closing of beaches to deter crowds — then urged residents to take to the streets in large crowds for “Black Lives Matter” protests.

 

[Intestinal Fortitude]

Judge trashes, blocks California COVID-19 misinformation law

The judge wrote that the law's definition of what classifies as "misinformation" is...

www.sfgate.com

Judge trashes, blocks California COVID-19 misinformation law​

Eric Ting, SFGATE
Jan. 26, 2023


In this file photo, a pedestrian wearing a mask walks past a mural during the coronavirus outbreak in San Francisco.
Jeff Chiu/Associated Press

A federal judge has halted enforcement of California's controversial COVID-19 "misinformation" law, which would punish doctors for straying from “the contemporary scientific consensus" on the pandemic.


Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 2098 in Sept. 2022, stating he believed it was "narrowly tailored to apply only to those egregious instances in which a licensee is acting with malicious intent or clearly deviating from the required standard of care while interacting directly with a patient under their care."


In an SFGATE op-ed last year, California physician Dr. Tracy Beth Høeg argued that AB 2098's definition of "misinformation" was too broad and that “the contemporary scientific consensus" is always changing. Høeg and other doctors sued the state, alleging that the law violates the First Amendment's free speech protections and 14th Amendment's due process protections. They were granted that request on Wednesday by Judge William B. Shubb, who was not kind to AB 2098 in his opinion.

"Defendants argue that while the scientific consensus may sometimes be difficult to define, there is a clear scientific consensus on certain issues — for example, that apples contain sugar, that measles is caused by a virus, or that Down’s syndrome is caused by a chromosomal abnormality," Shubb wrote of California's arguments. "However, AB 2098 does not apply the term 'scientific consensus' to such basic facts, but rather to COVID-19 — a disease that scientists have only been studying for a few years, and about which scientific conclusions have been hotly contested. COVID-19 is a quickly evolving area of science that in many aspects eludes consensus."

Shubb, an appointee of former President George H.W. Bush, also wrote that the law's definition of what classifies as "misinformation" is "grammatically incoherent" and thus unconstitutionally vague. He had signaled he would grant the doctors' request at a Monday hearing, in which he told California's lawyers that their definition of "misinformation" was "nonsense."

The ruling was not a final judgment on the constitutionality of the law but rather a temporary halt against enforcement while litigation continues. California can appeal to have the injunction lifted.