Don’t Question the Consensus
To the list of doctors’ worries, now add the fear that their opinions will lead to them losing their licenses. Disagreeing with the common wisdom is now physician misconduct.
“The California legislature has approved a bill that will allow the state medical board to discipline physicians who spread misinformation about COVID-19. The legislation, AB 2098, finds “the dissemination of misinformation or disinformation related to the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, or ‘COVID-19,’ as ‘unprofessional conduct.’ ” The directive covers “misleading information regarding the nature and risks of the virus, its prevention and treatment; and the development, safety, and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines.”
Misinformation is defined by the bill to mean “false information that is contradicted by contemporary scientific consensus.”
There are many problems with this bill. First, scientific consensus is often wrong. I know it is hard for half-witted politicians to comprehend, but today’s scientific consensus is tomorrow’s foolishness. For instance, let’s look back at the Yellow Fever outbreak in New Orleans in the 1800’s. Yellow Jack, as it was known, sets the back drop for the movie Jezebel with Bette Davis and Henry Fonda.
When explosions are heard at a distance, a local explains to a startled Northerner, “It’s a fever cannon down in the city…Yes, at night, they set tar barrels blazin’ at every street corner. And the Washington artillery fire cannon to fight the plague…. Everybody knows it starts air currents to carry the fever away.” When the Northerner recommends the new practice of draining swamps near the city, the local responds with annoyance, “Is that what they do in Yankeeland?”
Even recent events show how consensus can turn 360 degrees within a career. When I started to practice the consensus was to avoid prescribing opiates for chronic pain due to the problem of addiction. Then, experts reached a new consensus that prescribing large doses of opioids was safe. Medical Boards, politicians, and regulators compounded by error, and prescribing oxycontin by the bushel practically became mandatory. Now, we’re back to where we were 40 years ago—avoid prescribing opiates.
It used to take decades for consensus to change, but in the covid era, it just takes months. I am old enough to remember when Dr. Fauci said wearing a mask might make you feel better, but wouldn’t protect you from covid. Within months, anyone repeating that belief was thrown off Twitter. Vaccines, we were told, would prevent transmission of the virus. Now, that idea is laughable.
Politicians know very little about science. After all, if they had done better in their science courses, they would have been doctors—or at least have gotten a real job in the private sector. It’s past time for them to stop telling us what to do and look at their own behavior. Unfortunately, they can’t. Because if politicians who lied were removed from office, a quorum would never be present in the legislature.
Time to leave Authentic Medicine.
I’m a physician and now you are contributing to the misinformation
If you truly support this, then buh-bye. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out. My professional opinion should carry more weight than Fauci’s. He hasn’t seen a patient in 50 years! They can not and will not control my speech. I think the first license they pull will sue and win. I know who they had in mind when they wrote this law and she is a MD/JD with balls of steel that will take it to the Supreme Court, if necessary. It is an absolute violation of the First Amendment and nothing short of tyranny!
Very important post. Physicians should be 100% in supporting free speech in our profession, no exceptions. The bureaucrats with “MD” behind their names like Fauci, Birx, and Walensky, etc who seek to forcibly limit “misinformation” are camp guards for the tyrants.
At one time washing your hands was a crazy idea, crazy enough to drive it’s chief proponent to die in an insane asylum. When dissenting opinions are silenced everyone loses. Controlling speech and words and their meanings was the part of 1984 that never resonated with me. It does now.