A lawsuit has been amended in California against this US state’s medical boards’ “misinformation powers” – based on a law that is soon to be repealed, and which critics – some of them legal plaintiffs – say allowed the government to prevent them from practicing medicine, the way they were trained to do.
It was one of the rules, called Assembly Bill 2098 (AB 2098), introduced to keep medical professionals in check, in case they felt like speaking their minds freely as insights into Covid were developing.
And since the world has now moved on to other crises, the “forgotten pandemic” censorship laws are getting “quietly” repealed.
But not really, the plaintiffs in this case claim – because of the nature of the repeal of the short-lived AB 2098, made null-and-void on September 14 via Senate Bill 815 (SB 815). California Senator Newsom got to sign all three documents.
However, the repeal – which will not be in effect before the start of 2024 – at the same time incorporates Democrat member of California Assembly Evan Low’s provision that doctors who get accused of “misinformation” can still be punished – “held accountable” – regardless of whether the controversial law was actually applicable.
“The Medical Board of California will continue to maintain the authority to hold medical licensees accountable for deviating from the standard of care and misinforming their patients about COVID-19 treatments,” Low said.
How in the world is this political, ideological, pre-election, and legal gymnastics even supposed to work?
The lawsuit against the bill, Hoang et al. v. Bonta et al., has the plaintiffs represented by California attorney Richard Jaffe.
He had this to say: “Because of the repeal of AB 2098, and the board’s position that it can still sanction the speech targeted by the soon-to-be-repealed law, we are pivoting in our lawsuit and arguing to the judge that they can’t do it under their general statute either because the speech does not change just because the legal theory/statute changes.”
The world clearly has moved to other crises – but it seems, not the California Democrats. And so the plaintiffs in the lawsuit’s amended format are also asking to add more to their ranks. One of the original ones is Children’s Health Defense (CHD).
However absurd the “standard of care” argument that supersedes a law may seem to a layperson, Jaffe is obviously taking it seriously.
The court will hear the arguments related to this new development on November 13.
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