Should We Censor Doctors?

Legislation entered in California’s state legislature has gone where President Biden’s “disinformation bureau” couldn’t. Bill AB-2098 gives power to the state’s medical board to investigate and punish doctors whose advice and treatment regarding COVID-19 varies from the “applicable standard of care.” The medical establishment now has “disinformation” authority over others who dare to voice alternative options to their patients. Consequences include actions that can take away a medical license.

Doctors on the West Coast should be dismayed (but I am not surprised) by AB-2098. California’s attempt to reign in “misinformation” goes against everything a young physician should be taught in medical school. The importance of teaching the next medical generation to be objective with regard to the current conventional wisdom can't be overstated. Even more importantly, each medical generation should question prevailing thought when appropriate. If medical professionals didn’t have this freedom in the past, medical progress wouldn’t have moved at the pace needed to meet today’s challenges. California is making an effort to “cancel” a healthcare professional’s right to think freely by creating a censor, but worse than that, a censor with the power to ruin careers.

If today’s practicing physicians on the West Coast fail to follow conventional dogma, they will suffer the penalty. In leftist communities (of which there are plenty), complaints will be entered by activists against competent and caring practitioners. Defending themselves against such complaints is risky for young doctors, many of whom have spouses and children to support. They’ll feel forced to follow a very narrow path, even if it’s not in their patients’ best interests.

At present, Bill AB-2098 refers specifically to advice and treatment relating to COVID-19. A bill can be easily amended, however, to include another medical issue, then another, and another. Eventually, there will be an infallible set of standards that cannot be violated. If there’s a definition of a slippery slope in a medical dictionary, this is it.

The bill is meant to protect the community against dangerous doctors. Yes, some doctors may be incompetent, even negligent. Some may have opinions that aren’t supported by hard data. Others may offer questionable options as a cure-all. Sweeping medical claims should always be viewed with a skeptical eye by doctors and by ordinary citizens. Medical boards should scrutinize practitioners who make wild claims and take action when necessary.

What’s going on in California, however, is different. The bill will have implications that are far-reaching; before long, there will be one way to deal with a particular health issue and one way only. If the accepted treatment doesn’t work, what are physicians to do? Just walk away?

The steamroller of censorship has already started. The Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) has passed a “misinformation” policy of its own. They recommend that its members crack down on errant physicians. The FSMB’s CEO has been quoted in the L.A. Times as saying: “…it’s incumbent upon physicians to keep up with what’s permissible, what’s approved, what’s authorized and what’s not.”  The FSMB wants to exert an iron fist authority over the entire country’s physicians. You can bet that some states will institute punishments for heretics that equate to much more than a slap on the wrist.

Many media outlets like the LA Times would actually welcome a 1984-style medical “Ministry of Truth.” I don’t. I’m a retired physician who writes about strategies that might save lives in long-term disasters. In these situations, the caregiver’s options are limited, so you must be flexible and think outside the box. This means crossing into difficult territory but, in survival, something is better than nothing. Theodore Roosevelt once said: “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” I wonder what the medical board in California would say about that?

“There’s more than one way to skin a cat.” There might - surprise! - even be more than one way to treat an illness. Developing different ways to handle infections, injuries, and chronic illness is the way medicine moves forward. With COVID, that might mean letting physicians prescribe medicines that are politically out-of-favor like ivermectin (for which, by the way, there is a lot of hard data available). Heart disease, cancer, diabetes, thyroid disease…what if we didn’t allow new ways of diagnosis and treatment? We’d be stuck in a previous medical era and lives would be lost.

Discouraging free thought in our healthcare providers is a mistake. California makes mistakes on policy regularly, but this is the kind that, one day down the road, may cost its citizens dearly.