{"id":1430587,"date":"2023-10-05T00:20:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-05T04:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1430587"},"modified":"2023-10-05T00:20:00","modified_gmt":"2023-10-05T04:20:00","slug":"newsom-neutered-repeals-californias-orwellian-covid-misinformation-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/newsom-neutered-repeals-californias-orwellian-covid-misinformation-law\/1430587\/","title":{"rendered":"Newsom Neutered – Repeals California’s Orwellian ‘COVID Misinformation’ Law"},"content":{"rendered":"

Newsom Neutered – Repeals California’s Orwellian ‘COVID Misinformation’ Law<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Brad Jones via The Epoch Times,<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed legislation to repeal a portion of the state\u2019s COVID-19 \u201cmisinformation\u201d and \u201cdisinformation\u201d\u00a0law<\/a>\u00a0intended to punish doctors who refused to comply with the government\u2019s narrative on masks, vaccines, and treatments during the pandemic.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

On Sept. 30, the governor signed\u00a0Senate Bill 815<\/a>\u00a0repealing provisions in the law\u2014under\u00a0Assembly Bill 2098<\/a>\u2014that \u201cexpressly designate the dissemination of misinformation or disinformation related to COVID-19 as unprofessional conduct,\u201d according to an\u00a0analysis<\/a>\u00a0by the bill\u2019s author, Assemblyman Richard Roth (D-Riverside).<\/p>\n

A year ago when Mr. Newsom\u00a0signed AB 2098<\/a>, introduced by Assemblyman Evan Low (D-Campbell) and co-authored by then-Sen. Richard Pan (D-Sacramento) into law, he warned of a \u201cchilling effect\u201d other potential laws could have on the freedom of physicians and surgeons to effectively talk to their patients about the risks and benefits of treatments for COVID-19 but said he was \u201cconfident\u201d the bill was \u201cnarrowly tailored\u201d to apply only to egregious instances in which a doctor was acting with malicious intent or clearly deviating from the \u201crequired standard of care.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just days later, the law, which vaguely defined \u201cmisinformation and disinformation\u201d as \u201cunprofessional conduct,\u201d was challenged in court.<\/strong> The law defined disinformation as \u201cmisinformation that the licensee deliberately disseminated with malicious intent or an intent to mislead\u201d and misinformation as \u201cfalse information that is contradicted by contemporary scientific consensus contrary to the standard of care.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Aaron Kheriaty, a former professor of psychiatry and human behavior at the University of California\u2013Irvine\u2019s School of Medicine and director of the medical ethics program, was fired on Dec. 16, 2021, for refusing to get a COVID-19 vaccine, claiming he had natural immunity after contracting the illness and recovering from it.<\/p>\n

He and four other doctors\u2014Tracy Hoeg, Ram Duriseti, Pete Mazolewski, and Azadeh Khatibi\u2014sued Mr. Newsom, state Attorney General Rob Bonta, and several administrators at the Medical Board of California.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were being discriminated against because we had a form of immunity that was equally good, in fact superior \u2026 compared to vaccine immunity,\u201d <\/strong>Dr. Kheriaty told The Epoch Times. <\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cPeople with vaccine immunity were allowed on campus, and I was not.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Judge William Shubb of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California granted a\u00a0preliminary injunction<\/a>\u00a0blocking the state from enforcing AB 2098, ruling that the statute\u2019s \u201cunclear phrasing and structure\u201d could have a \u201cchilling effect.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Kheriaty said he\u2019s glad SB 815 has negated the \u201cmisinformation\u201d and \u201cdisinformation\u201d provisions of AB 2098.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a good victory, but we can\u2019t rest on our laurels,\u201d <\/strong><\/em>he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got to be very vigilant because people who want to take control over medicine and intervene in the doctor-patient relationship are going to keep trying to find other angles.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Kheriaty suspects the governor and state legislators realized when the preliminary injunction was granted that the court would most likely rule against AB 2098 and ultimately declare it unconstitutional.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, rather than getting slapped down by the court in ways that would have probably made the newspapers, they decided to quietly shuffle the law off the stage as a kind of embarrassment and hope that no one really noticed,\u201d <\/em><\/strong>he said.<\/p>\n

Attorneys for the five doctors have filed a motion for a summary judgment from the court.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would like to see the government lawyers have to argue in court in our favor \u2026 because the law has been struck down,\u201d <\/strong>Dr. Kheriaty said.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cWe would like to hear them publicly say that in court.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Dr. Kheriaty said the case shows that because \u201cscientific consensus\u201d during the pandemic evolved quickly, doctors were punished for simply being ahead of the curve and expressing or endorsing ideas the rest of the medical community had not yet caught up with because they weren\u2019t paying as close attention to the available research.<\/p>\n

While AB 2098 attempted \u201cto fixate a particular scientific consensus,\u201d the court found scientific consensus to be an ill-defined legal concept, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that this law was struck down is obviously meaningful to me \u2026 but it\u2019s also concerning that this law was passed in the first place,\u201d <\/strong><\/em>he said.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has since indicated that it should not discriminate between vaccinated and unvaccinated because vaccines don\u2019t stop infection and transmission.<\/p>\n

Natural immunity is \u201crobust, durable, and long-lasting,\u201d Dr. Kheriaty said. \u201cSo, I guess I lost my job for being nine months ahead of the curve.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mixing Politics With Science<\/h2>\n

In his book, \u201cThe New Abnormal: The Rise of the Biomedical Security State<\/a>,\u201d Dr. Kheriaty examines the \u201cage-old problem\u201d of mixing politics with science.<\/p>\n

The book, he said, is about the biomedical security state melding an increasingly militarized public health apparatus with the use of digital technologies of surveillance and control, such as vaccine passports, and backing those two elements with police powers of the state and the declared state of emergency which allowed governors and the president to accrue additional extra-constitutional powers and \u201cwield tremendous authority\u201d effectively \u201cmicromanaging the lives of citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEspecially today, when science has a certain authority or prestige, political power wants to commandeer and weaponize science to achieve its aims, and that\u2019s what you saw during the pandemic,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s what I call scientism.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Scientism, he explained, tries to monopolize science and claim that it is the only valid form of knowledge and then appoints its preferred \u201cso-called experts\u201d to speak in the name of science.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat has nothing to do with science. That\u2019s a power move. In fact, it\u2019s a totalitarian move because that\u2019s what totalitarian regimes do: They monopolize what counts as knowledge and rationality, and they exclude anyone who doesn\u2019t endorse their ideology,\u201d <\/strong>Dr. Kheriaty said. <\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThat was done with science during the pandemic. Science was weaponized.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Scientism is \u201ctotally antithetical to science,\u201d which relies on open-ended inquiry, hypothesis, conjecture and debate, evidence, reputation and the willingness to change one\u2019s mind, he said. \u201cAnd so, trying to fix a particular \u2018consensus\u2019 as unassailable completely contradicts the whole ethos of scientific investigation. Science advances precisely by challenging conventional thinking or consensus or what we take to be common sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prior to the lawsuit, Dr. Kheriaty challenged the University of California system\u2019s vaccine policies in an\u00a0opinion article<\/a>\u00a0published in the\u00a0Wall Street Journal<\/a>\u00a0\u201cjust to try to get a conversation going,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But the UC Irvine authorities weren\u2019t interested in discussion or debate and fired him for allegedly refusing to comply with the vaccine mandate after they twice declined a medical exemption signed by his physician and accused him of unprofessional conduct.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was a threat,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, it was easier just to shut down the debate.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The state then used him as an example to send a message to other doctors who dared to step out of line, he suggested.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t have to fire too many people before it has a real chilling effect on everyone else,\u201d <\/strong><\/em>he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, other people could look at what happened to me, and it was very clear: \u2018OK, this is one issue that you just don\u2019t touch. You don\u2019t open your mouth and speak your mind unless it\u2019s to endorse the position that the university wants to take.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Kheriaty now runs a private practice in Orange County. He is also a scholar at the\u00a0Ethics and Public Policy Center<\/a>, a Judeo-Christian based group in Washington, D.C., the chief of medical ethics at The Unity Project, a non-profit medical freedom and parental rights group, and the Brownstone Institute has supported his work in public health.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, I\u2019m very happy,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve landed on my feet. I don’t really have a desire to go back to the university.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Dr. Kheriaty is also a plaintiff in the\u00a0Missouri v. Biden<\/a>\u00a0case, alleging the federal government violated the First Amendment by pressuring social media companies to censor disfavored speech.<\/p>\n

‘Legislative Power Grab’<\/h2>\n

Dr. Robert Malone<\/a>, who helped invent the technology used in the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, told The Epoch Times on Oct. 2 that AB 2098 would not likely have survived a legal challenge and is \u201can embarrassment for Newsom\u201d and his presidential ambitions.<\/p>\n

Dr. Malone called AB 2098 a \u201clegislative power grab\u201d from the state medical board to the legislature and criticized state lawmakers for interfering in the practice of medicine.<\/strong><\/p>\n

To have COVID-specific legislation on regulating medical standards is \u201cbizarre\u201d in the first place because there is already \u201cperfectly adequate\u201d legislation regulating medical standards, he said.<\/p>\n

He said Mr. Low\u2019s Sept. 12 statement that the \u201cupdate\u201d will still hold doctors accountable suggests the new law is \u201ca wolf in sheep\u2019s clothing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFortunately, with this update, 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,\u201d Mr. Low said in the statement emailed to The Epoch Times.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

A doctor with an adverse finding or even a pending investigation against their medical license cannot transfer their licenses to another state, so physicians in this situation are forced to decide whether to leave the state before it has an opportunity to impose an action against their license or run the risk of losing it, \u201cwhich would make it impossible for them to leave the state,\u201d said Dr. Malone.<\/p>\n

\u201cIndependent thinkers\u2014the very people that you most want to have medicine\u2014are being run out by the state legislative policies,\u201d he said. \u201cIt means that people with no qualifications to practice medicine are mandating how medicine must be practiced directly.<\/p>\n

Dr. Malone, the chief medical officer at The Unity Project, is known for expressing concerns about the possibility of\u00a0immune imprinting<\/a>. He claimed vaccines provide poor protection over time, with some indications the shielding turns\u00a0negative<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The \u201cpoliticization of medicine,\u201d during the pandemic years was \u201cbad medicine,\u201d he said, noting that recent\u00a0reports<\/a>\u00a0about\u00a0myocarditis<\/a>\u00a0are \u201cstunning.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

For more than a year-and-a-half, news reports have documented that the CDC \u201chas been withholding critical information from the medical community relating to COVID-19 vaccines and their safety, Dr. Malone said.<\/p>\n

Laura Sextro, CEO of The Unity Project, told the Epoch Times there was no need for SB 815 or AB 2098.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe writing is on the wall,\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s a temporary injunction right now against AB 2098, and I think the authors of this terrible legislation knew that they had to do something to modify this because it\u2019s so horrendous.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Ms. Sextro said a doctor who owns an urgent care clinic with seven practitioners in California told her on Oct. 2 the clinic would be shuttered because of legislation like AB 2098 and SB 815.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve made the decision to close the clinic,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that bills like AB 2098 are actually designed to penalize the sole proprietor doctors\u2014the single-practice doctors who are not associated with \u2026 big box medical groups,\u201d she said.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Other Legal Challenges<\/h2>\n

AB 2098 has since met other legal challenges, including complaints from Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the American Civil Liberties Union and two California doctors, Dr. Mark McDonald and Dr. Jeff Barke.<\/p>\n

Shubb’s ruling runs contrary to Judge Fred W. Slaughter\u2019s earlier decision to deny a preliminary injunction in the case involving Dr. Barke and Dr. McDonald, who sued the medical board, Mr. Newsom, and AG Bonta in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California last year. The lawsuit, which is still pending, asked the court to declare AB 2098 unconstitutional and sought a preliminary injunction to prevent its enforcement.<\/p>\n

Dr. Simone Gold<\/a>, a Beverly Hills physician who founded America\u2019s Frontline Doctors, called AB 2098 an \u201cunconstitutional, Orwellian gag-order,\u201d that attempts to mandate a new and undefined standard known as \u2018contemporary scientific consensus\u2019 and illegally suppress dissenting professional medical opinions.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Eric Hintz, legislative director for Assemblyman Bill Essayli (R-Corona) told The Epoch Times several Republicans\u00a0voted<\/a>\u00a0against SB 815 because they knew the Democratic majority would pass it to remove the \u201cmisinformation\u201d and \u201cdisinformation\u201d provisions in AB 2098 and because Republicans wanted to voice opposition to fee increases for medical licenses in the state.<\/p>\n

The bill increases medical license fees for all physicians by $288, from $863 to $1,151.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, I think that\u2019s the reason why a lot of Republicans decided to vote against it,\u201d Mr. Hintz said.<\/p>\n

The bill would also extend the regulatory powers of the medical board by two more years from a Jan. 1, 2026, sunset clause to Jan. 1, 2028.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat would be another reason why someone might oppose the bill,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nWed, 10\/04\/2023 – 20:20<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bhttps:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/political\/newsom-neutered-repeals-californias-orwellian-covid-misinformation-law<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Newsom Neutered – Repeals California’s Orwellian ‘COVID Misinformation’ Law Authored by Brad Jones via The Epoch Times, California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed legislation to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1430587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1430587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1430587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1430587\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1430587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1430587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1430587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}