A judge has given California doctors a reprieve from an anti-medical-speech law produced by lawmakers and Governor Newsom. The judge has blocked the law until a lawsuit challenging it on First Amendment grounds can be resolved.
AB 2098 says that it “shall constitute unprofessional conduct” for doctors to spread “false or misleading information” about the COVID-19 virus, how to prevent and treat it, and the efficacy of alleged vaccines. (By using the word “alleged,” I’ve lost my medical license right there.)
What constitutes “misinformation”?
Government-empowered medical boards would make these judgments in light of “contemporary scientific consensus.”
Why is “scientific consensus” so sacred? Does it never err? Aren’t facts and logic, which discourse helps to establish and convey, the proper arbiters, not a designated “consensus”? How does one actually arrive at a “scientific consensus” of any legitimate value? By divine revelation?
And if there are doctors, scientists and other researchers who dissent, especially in great number, doesn’t that make “consensus” entirely mythical, non-existent? The word misapplied?
Of course, despite the issuance of government-approved dogmas and revised dogmas about these matters, every aspect of the pandemic has been the subject of intensive investigation and controversy for over three years.
As Judge William Shubb notes, “COVID-19 is a quickly evolving area of science that in many aspects eludes consensus.”
It’s a shame Shubb couldn’t simply have shut down the law permanently. Do we really need a lengthy legal process while California doctors wait to learn whether they may still fully participate in professional discussions?
But it seems that the agents of repression must have their day in court too.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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4 replies on “The California Non-Consensus”
Once a body of doctrine cannot be challenged, it is removed from the realm of scientific thought.
Of course, the state of California does not seek to ossify all thinking about medicine, but to empower itself to appoint high priests, who will determine ostensible medical science, wary of not offending those who appoint them.
Shouldn’t we just give shots of disinfectant to everyone and eliminate Covid forever?
Pam, the only person known to give a shot of disinfectant to anyone during the pandemic was a Democrat who killed her husband that way. Whether the woman was sincere or a psychopath playing stupid, I don’t know. But, given how the media deceptively editted Trump’s remarks, we’re lucky that the death toll wasn’t higher.
What Trump asked was whether the virus could be treated with an anti-viral injection. Essentially, he was asking whether something like an antiobiotic could be used against a virus.
Had he been better informed — which he would have been were he not so incurious — then he would have known that we didn’t have such a thing.
In any case, if you favor the replacement of science with protected doctrine, then you ought to say as much, and to explain how you imagine that the truth will be better approximated.
Thanks for putting that canard to bed.