Assemblyman Evan Low. (Photo: Kevin Sanders for California Globe)
AB 2098: CA Doctors Who Spread COVID ‘Misinformation’ Risk Losing License to Practice
Use of the stigmatizing label ‘misinformation’ in a medical disciplinary environment is anti-scientific and unethical
By Katy Grimes, June 28, 2022 8:16 am
According to Democrat Assemblyman Evan Low, his controversial bill, AB 2098, “helps to ensure we tackle misinformation and disinformation” doctors could be spreading to patients about COVID.
AB 2098 was heard Monday in the Senate Business, Professions and Economic Development Committee.
The definition of misinformation, according to the bill is chilling when applied to medical practices:
“‘Misinformation’ means false information that is contradicted by contemporary scientific consensus to an extent where its dissemination constitutes gross negligence by the licensee.”
Many medical professionals have called this definition “medical tyranny.” Imagine if cancer was treated the same by this Legislature. Is there “contemporary scientific consensus” on treatments, and are physicians threatened with the loss of their licenses if they try new treatments or medications for cancer patients?
Attorney Laura Powell and Dr. Aaron Kheriaty spoke briefly in opposition to AB 2098 – they had to share 3 minutes.
Powell addressed Assemblyman Low: “You can’t achieve your goals [in AB 2098] without violating the Constitution.” She also said “there is no misinformation crisis. The public has lost faith in the medical industry.”
Dr. Aaron Kheriaty said the text of AB 2098 makes statements about COVID that are already out of date, noting that the bill was written during the pandemic. “A physician with a gag order is not a doctor patients can trust.”
According to California Health Coalition Advocacy: “Top doctors in their field from UCSF, Stanford, and other well respected institutions are speaking out about their lack of support for COVID-19 vaccines for children. Would these respected doctors be disciplined if AB 2098 were to pass?”
The bill analysis from the Senate Business, Professions and Economic Development Committee summarizes AB 2098:
“Makes disseminating misinformation, as defined, or disinformation related to COVID-19, including 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, by a physician and surgeon unprofessional conduct.”
“The understanding of the data and science related to COVID-19 continues to change as more studies are done,” California Health Coalition Advocacy said. “Standards of care are being updated as new information and treatments emerge. Any attempt at determining ‘contemporary scientific consensus’ will be fleeting.”
Will this new law begin and end with COVID? Or will it spread to other medical conditions?
Under the bill, doctors cannot provide information and advice to patients about COVID unless it is in accordance with the “contemporary scientific consensus.”
That didn’t set well with Senator Melissa Melendez (R-Lake Elsinore). “We know things now that we didn’t know during the pandemic,” Melendez said. She suggested a scenario where a physician is disciplined on “yesterday’s settled science” which then became accepted information and/or treatment today.
Assemblyman Low (D-Campbell) insisted in the hearing Monday that “malicious intent” has to be at the root of the misinformation. But he admitted he is still working on the language in the bill.
Sen. Melendez asked how the medical board will prove “malicious intent. “The board is made up of one-half doctors and one-half attorneys. The attorneys are no more qualified than I am.”
An Emergency Room physician who provided testimony in favor of AB 2098 for Low told Sen. Melendez, “It’s a malicious regard for the truth.”
Melendez said her concerns remained, and added, “I am concerned it will be used as a cudgel to intimidate physicians.”
Sen. Richard Pan (D-Sacramento) who authored the sister bill to AB 2098, SB 1018, said with Medical Board and Medical Association support, “doctors of California say the medical board needs to have this authority.” He said there is a national call to address the misinformation problem. “We only want to help the medical board do its job.”
Senator Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh (R-Yucaipa) said in 2020, doctors made statements about what they knew, and months later that science changed. “Science is always evolving,” Ochoa Bogh said. “Doctors need space to try new things without a ‘disinformation’ label.” She said no doctor should be penalized for research or differing opinions. She then suggested to Low, where do doctors who do medical research outside of the medical board fit in. “Is that malicious intent?”
“Would that be considered under the malicious intent before it is scientific truth?”
“If there is harm to patients,” Low answered. “That’s gross negligence.”
“We do know people are getting COVID who are vaccinated and boosted three times,” noted Senator Pat Bates (R-Laguna Niguel).
Committee Chairman Sen. Richard Roth (D-Riverside) shared his skepticism over AB 2098. “In order to take action against a doctor, ‘contemporary scientific consensus is scientific agreement. Is there scientific agreement?”
The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, Inc. oppose AB 2098: “We believe it is unethical for physicians to participate in any process that impedes the free exchange of scientific and clinical ideas through public allegations of misconduct or threats of punishment. Use of the stigmatizing label ‘misinformation’ in a medical disciplinary environment is anti-scientific and unethical.”
The California Medical Association sponsored AB 2098.
Despite admitting the bill needs much more work, the committee Democrats passed Low’s AB 2098 with no Republican votes, 9-4. It heads to the Senate Appropriations Committee next.
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September 21, 2020
Thank you again, Katy Grimes, for your tremendous first-hand coverage of what’s actually important in California that most reporters in this state don’t want to touch. Or can’t be bothered to touch.
I wholeheartedly agree with Dr. Kheriaty and Laura Powell (they had to share 3 minutes? What the hell?), Sen Melissa Melendez, Sen Ochoa Bogh, and CA Health Coalition Advocacy.
Fat lot of good it does, though! My blood pressure went up reading this, I could feel it, so Sen Harm-to-Patients Evan Low might want to multiply that by a few million and file it away as the malicious author of this malicious bill that he is banging away at maliciously, in spite of solid facts and evidence that apparently only a minority of physicians in this state have the courage any longer to impart to their patients. Sen Evan Low might also want to look up the term “psychological projection,” because that is what he is engaging in and obviously targeting physicians with integrity who have been the ONLY ONES IN THIS STATE who have actually helped patients through the propagandized falsehoods that we have all had to endure since this farce of a joke of a response to Covid-19 began.
EVERYTHING from the state and county public health officers and agencies has been WRONG. They threw out the book of epidemiology, virology, and immunology and a hundred other time-tested books in their effort to control people and hurt them. There is no such thing as ‘social distancing,’ they made it up. Masks don’t work. Vaccines have no provable efficacy, are decidedly risky WHILE ineffective, and for God’s sake do not inject your toddler! Or your teenager, or most everyone else now when risks completely outweigh even falsely TOUTED benefits.
This IS unconstitutional, so we need to dump this garbage now. Clearly Sen Low and Pan and their ilk are malevolent creatures whose motives average people cannot even wrap their heads around. I pray to God this bill doesn’t pass. If it does it will drive the only decent, truth-telling physicians with integrity out of our state. That is its purpose. They are the ones being targeted here. Unbelievable.
Thank you for stand up for the Doctors in California. We thank you we don’t need more control by the government telling our Doctors what they are aloud to tell their Patients.
Thank you for stand up for the Doctors in California. We thank you we don’t need more control by the government telling our Doctors what they are aloud to tell their Patients.
Why do slantys hate the USA so much? If it’s not this garbage, then it’s a never-ending assault on property ownership and rental housing management. Near gut-wrenching to be a good landlord anymore (you don’t have to pay rent, they say). Now selectively targeting doctors? I have no idea why anyone would choose to be a doctor or a teacher in this state anymore…no idea, I say.
The wire transfers from the CCP keep them instigating for disruption of the economy and healthcare delivery system???
From outward appearances, it would appear that Pan & Low are like Swallwell’s Fang-Fang – fifth column insurgents & spies that are advancing an enemy’s agenda via their legislation and distractions….
Two years ago, I would have labeled my idea as complete whack-job tinfoil hat conspiracy-theories – after the last two years, this is completely plausible….
The Ministry of Truth has spoken!!! Dissent WILL NOT be tolerated!!!
Are you Bay Area snowflakes going to allow your “elected representatives” to lead this formerly great state over the cliff of medical tyranny???
Probably – I went to an event at The Rose Bowl at Pasadena last weekend and many in the crowd were dutifully wearing their virtue-signaling, N-95 face diaper OUTSIDE…
The FEAR is STRONG here…
California tends to have a lack of involved, critical thinkers….lotta emotion-driven FEELERS, though…they’re the perfect targets for these power-mad, central planners & controllers….
Again, another unconstitutional bill being fast tracked because why? Because they can with a democrat supermajority. The objective is to intimidate and rule over this state.
Low claims it will prevent deaths, by decreasing malpractice with “bad” information! Seriously! We have a personal injury lawyers chomping at the bit to bring malpractice suits. The only reason for this bill is to force doctors to go along with Fauci’s corrupt, deadly protocols, that actually have maimed and killed.
With all we that we now know about COVID along with how unsafe and ineffective that the experimental mRNA shots are, it’s unbelievable that Democrat Assemblyman Evan Low is still pushing his un-Constitutional bill AB 2098 that would penalize doctors who don’t reguritate the propaganda about COVID and the mRNA shots that Evan Low’s masters have dictated? Many of us wonder if Democrat Assemblyman Evan Low might be getting payoffs to push this insane legislation? Democrat Assemblyman Evan Low is an evil man who needs to be brought before a tribunal and be held accountable for crimes against humanity?
Fascists’ -fornia makes me sick. The Demonic Party is party of destruction and all that is decent.
If I were malicious I would love for AB 2098 to pass and then wait for the class action lawsuits to roll in using the wording of AB 2098 to sue various deep pocket medical target for the fact that the official “medical advice” for SARs CoV 2 since Feb 2020 in no way even meets the most liberal legal interpretation of “contemporary scientific consensus”. Of the previous four or five generations of medical science and public health science.
There was a good 50 years of “scientific consensus” on corona viruses. One of the most common causes if respiratory infections. With the same pathology and (IFR/CFR) risk as SARs CoV 2. It was mostly ignored clinically. Then there is the deliberate misrepresentation of analytical accuracy for clinical accuracy in screening tests. And there was the complete abandonment of previous clinical differential diagnostic practice in place for many decades. And so on and so on.
A good medical malpractice lawyer could have a field day with AB 2098. But not in the way that the not very bright Evan Low imagined. But unlike Richard Pan, who is a MD, at least Low does not have to worry about future lawsuits when Medical Malpractice law is expanded to cover those acting in a medical role in the public health area. That’s when its going to get very interesting. Very very interesting.
Oooh. I love it. You mean expansion of medical malpractice law would mean certain bureaucrat pretender fake doctors’ heads are gonna roll? In that case, I cannot wait until it gets “very, very interesting.”
The people who are pushing the Great Reset and depopulation want you to believe they are wise, benevolent and you are complete idiots who should never believe what you see and hear first hand.
Their “science” is a weapon as is their “truth”. They are failing and this is the dying gasp of people headed for GITMO.
What they wish for you and me will be their demise, not ours!
If AB 2098 becomes law, then patients will be better off going to witch doctors for the treatment
of Covid-19 rather than from the state approved medical doctors, and their institutions.
I’m happy to learn that you are sharing information from CHCA. I was involved in parental rights and vaccine risk awareness advocacy for over 10 years in California and met many interesting people and characters during that time. The leaders of CHCA understand what is at stake and are doing work that needs to be done consistently. They often work quietly behind the scenes. They don’t have a big budget and big names. I’ve learned that some of those big names unfortunately care a lot about advancing their own name. Not that those bigger orgs don’t do anything good. They do some good things, but we can’t depend on them to save us.