Doctors Without Voices?
AB 2098 may be ‘enjoined,’ but its chilling effect is real
By Thomas Buckley, February 10, 2023 10:22 am
In California, it seems now, everything is legal.
Take $949 worth of stuff from the CVS? Have a nice day!
Use the subway as a bathroom? That’s okay!
Be a doctor and tell a patient you may have misgivings about the response to the COVID pandemic? Verboten!
Last year, Governor Gavin Newsom signed AB 2098, a law that could cost doctors their licenses if they treated COVID in a manner at odds with “scientific consensus,” i.e. essentially whatever happened to be coming out the CDC that particular day (remember, it changed a lot.)
The law was immediately challenged in court and in one of the cases, filed on behalf of five California doctors by the DC-based New Civil Liberties Alliance and is being handled in the California courts by attorney Laura Powell. In that case an injunction against the five doctors was ordered by United States District Court Judge William Shubb (the other cases are at varying procedural levels), as the Globe reported.
Shubb, in his ruling, called the law far far too vague, noting that terms like “contemporary scientific consensus,” the impossible to define, ever-shifting “standard” in the law for example, “does not have an established technical meaning in the medical community” and the state’s “expert declarations they offer are notably silent on the topic.”
The judge noted that “At oral argument, defense (state) counsel declined to explain what specific conduct the law may prohibit” and that “Because the term “scientific consensus” is so ill-defined, physician plaintiffs are unable to determine if their intended conduct contradicts the scientific consensus, and accordingly ‘what is prohibited by the law.’”
Finally, Shubb found that “The provision of AB 2098 stating that (actionable) misinformation or disinformation must be conveyed “in the form of treatment or advice” is confusing for the same reason … A doctor’s advice might suggest a particular course of action or treatment (e.g., “you should not get the vaccine”). This advice is distinct from any information that might be conveyed to a patient in conjunction with the advice (e.g., “scientific studies show that the vaccine carries a risk of health complications for patients in your situation”). The statute improperly conflates “information” with “advice” or “treatment.”
The vagueness of the law and its legal limbo standing raises concerns about exactly what doctors can say about COVID. Take, for example, this week’s report of the Norfolk Group, a group of eight doctors – some based in California, all experts in their fields – on the COVID response and the need for tough questions to be asked – and answered – publicly by those in charge, hopefully, like in other countries, by a government-empaneled commission with subpoena powers.
Raising the question that if the law were in full force, would it be legal to create and distribute?
The report, in part written by two of the three doctors behind the Great Barrington Declaration which called for a response more targeted to those most at-risk like the elderly or infirm rather than the destructive blanket response of Dr. Anthony Fauci, et. al., raises serious questions about COVID, serious enough if a doctor said them in California they may run afoul of AB 2098.
From the report’s introduction:
America’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic failed on many levels of government and in many aspects. Certainly, deaths are unavoidable during a pandemic. However, too many U.S. policy makers concentrated efforts on ineffective or actively harmful and divisive measures such as school closures that generated enormous societal damage without significantly lowering COVID-19 mortality, while failing to protect high-risk Americans. As a result, Americans were hard hit both by the disease and by collateral damage generated by misguided pandemic strategies and decisions that ignored years of pandemic preparation guidance crafted by numerous public health agencies, nationally and internationally.
And the questions include:
1. What could have been done to better protect older high-risk Americans, so that fewer of them died or were hospitalized due to COVID-19?
2. Why was there widespread questioning of infection-acquired immunity by government officials and some prominent scientists? How did this hinder our fight against the virus?
3. Why were schools and universities closed despite early evidence about the enormous age-gradient in COVID-19 mortality, early data showing that schools were not major sources of spread, and early evidence that school closures would cause enormous collateral damage to the education and mental health of children and young adults?
4. Why was there an almost exclusive focus on COVID-19 to the detriment of recognizing and mitigating collateral damage on other aspects of public health, including but not limited to, cancer screening and treatment, diabetes, cardio-vascular diseases, childhood vaccinations, and mental health?
The entire report can be found in PDF at the end of this article or you can visit https://www.norfolkgroup.org/ .
In part due to its vagueness and, obviously, in part due to its grossly anti-free speech First Amendment issues (which Shubb didn’t see as necessary to rule on yet because it was vague,) the law, even with its current legality uncertainly, may not have to spark any direct enforcement actions against doctors.
“It is the chilling effect that it manifests that has already done harm, even if it is never used to actually discipline a doctor,” Powell said.
And that effort to muzzle professional speech, it seems, was the point of the law all along.
QUESTIONS FOR A COVID-19 COMMISSION by the Norfolk Group- Illegal and Local: The Influx of Illegal Aliens Impacting Community Functions - November 3, 2024
- The Globe’s Gascon Interview - November 2, 2024
- Rancho Palos Verdes Gets Some Help – Finally - November 1, 2024
AB 2098 is a ridiculous violation of the 1st Amendment violating free speech. Democrat Gov. Newsom should be brought before a tribunal and be held accountable for crimes against humanity for locking healthy Californians and small businesses down (while excluding himself and his cronies) during the scamdemic and for mandating experimental mRNA shots that have injured and killed thousands of innocent Californians. He and his soul have a lot to answer for?
Dr David Martin, fullyliveacademy.com (under AG document) has accounted for every patent, and criminal element of this plandemic, first of many lawsuits filed. Soon the UN, WHO, and WEF will cease to exist. God has given a sign of His covenant with His creation = Genesis 9:12-15, visible Friday over San Francisco. This will not end well for Newsom and his shills. It is well-known, reported by Kary Mullis himself R.I.P., PCR testing was
calibrated to produce false positives; 1st vax depletes 20% immunity, 2nd an additional 20%, booster contains 3 strands of HIV to further wipe out immunity; spike proteins position in the veins creating blood clots (egg yolks contain an enzyme that prevents them adhering…get it?); graphene oxide responds to 5G; self-assembling circuitry in vax; ungodly parasites (hence the narrative against ivermectin); the vaxx was never intended to cure anything. Let’s investigate payment made to hospitals: $$ for positive test; $$ for covid treatment; $$ for
remdesivir (velklury) and ventilator; and bonus $$ for C19 death ($48k-$148k). Now they’ve authorized 3-shot
program for children??? This whole thing was pre-meditated murder and maiming…unconscionable and criminal. While there are doctors who honor their hypocratic Oath to do no harm, there are those in government
who violate their Oath of Office to defend the Constitution and Amendments. Good vs Evil…. God Wins (Looking Glass (their AI Science) predicted it long ago… Trust the Science!
You may want to follow the Attorney General in Switzerland… currently investigating, indicting, and prosecuting the President and Health Minister for Crimes Against Humanity with regard to the jab. The government of Thailand is preparing to null and void their pharmaceutical contract, as the President’s daughter went into coma following the shot…. The Swiss lawsuit has legs and can universally convict any President in absentia….
WATCH: ‘Doctors/Pilots Warning!! Do Not Take The Vaccine! -Media Hiding Millions of Vaxx Deaths’ (bitchute.com) These are highly qualified doctors who will not ‘Sit Down’ and will not ‘Shut up’ !!!
With all that we now know about the ineffective and often deadly experimental mRNA shots, those in positions of governmental authority who are still mandating and promoting the shots need to be hauled before tribunals and be held accountable for heinous crimes against humanity.
I am not vaccinated I have become an out cast to society I have been banned to see family lose my position in a few groups been advised by my Church to get the Jab my government has proclaimed others as myself we are a danger to those around us.I cannot see a Doctor without a lecture on the dangers of not being vaccinated I am 82 years old and love my country I am a retired nurse and dark field blood evaluator for live blood.this test has been done in Europe. I am a person who got Covid recovered not going to hospital. I choose alternate therapy recover well.What has happened to my country?