A landmark event has resulted in a ruling from an appellate court judge stating that doctors who are being investigated by credentialing board for speaking out against Covid plans and contraception have ample standing in court.
A year after the case was dismissed by a district court, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons ( AAPS) Educational Foundation filed an appeal for the right to sue the American Board of Internal Medicine, the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology, the American Board of Family Medicine, and the secretary of the U. S. Department of Homeland Security for” coordinated” attempts to “censor and chill the speech of physicians”, especially those” who spoke critically of positions taken by Dr. Anthony Fauci, lockdowns, mask mandates, Covid vaccination, and abortion”.
A district court judge had dissuaded AAPS’s try to update the claim after ruling that it lacked standing. However, the United States Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit overturned the departure in a ruling made on June 3, and the case has since been moved to a lower court for discovery and possibly a whole trial.
Censorship, Challenges
The AAPS Educational Foundation brought the case because a number of doctors were facing board certification suspension because they had made remarks that either criticized the Covid vaccines or supported the use of refurbished drugs as early treatment, according to Jane Orient, AAPS professional producer. The three domestic board members who were also engaged in threats against physicians who supported the overturning of Roe v. Wade or had anything to say about pregnancy and its side effects were particularly bad.
The claims also identified immoral behavior by Homeland Security’s Disinformation Governance Board.
” The DGB was devoted to seeking up and finding’ disinformation,’ ‘ malinformation,’ and, or pressuring individuals, including those on specialist boards and social media companies, to take action”, Orient said.
AAPS wants the government held responsible, but the government has since disbanded the table and says it has no control over its behavior. They may simply separate the performance over their organizations, according to Orient, or they can relocate and start one up again.
Doctors were particularly threatened based on their common comments, hearing stories, media comments, and letters to the editor, Orient said. Additionally, doctors were targeted for prescribing completely legitimate treatments that contravened the tale.
Ongoing Strikes
Strikes by these accreditation boards continue, the coat reads, as they label “dissenting views as misinformation, propaganda, and malinformation” and threaten to withdraw the accreditation of “otherwise qualified physicians who express for views”.
Dr. Peter McCullough, a professor of medicine and academic physician for more than three decades, established independent practice two years ago after being brutally forced to leave academic work.
McCullough, one of the first doctors to publish an at-home treatment protocol for Covid-19 in 2020 in the peer-reviewed literature, played a crucial role in creating a global standard and treatment guide for AAPS.
However, the board retroactively accused McCullough of misinformation after ABIM implemented a Covid- 19 misinformation policy in 2021 on the basis of a Texas Senate testimony from March 2021 when he began to openly question the vaccine’s safety, efficacy, and durability.
” They came out with the policy with no teaching modules, no updates, without equal protection, without any type of due process and they accused me of’ spreading misinformation,'” McCullough told me. ” I then provided documentation and evidence]to the board ] supporting all of my points. The board stated in a closed meeting that nothing I said in my response document had persuaded them. McCullough said he was given 10 days to appeal the process, he did. His case has been the subject of a very lengthy appeal process since the fall of 2022.  ,
” I was very productive, I was previously one of the most published in my field of cardiorenal medicine, and I have become one of the most published in Covid- 19,” McCullough said. ” I was officially fired from two jobs at a significant medical facility without any reason.”
Viewpoint-Based Censorship: A Case Study
The controversy surrounding the specialty boards is crucial to the freedom of physicians to practice. The majority of physicians work in hospitals and are on numerous insurance boards, and they need credentials from ABIM-certified organizations.
” These boards practically have a monopoly on physicians ‘ ability to make a living from their jobs,” Orient said. ” They may have a medical license and private practice, but insurance companies will not reimburse for their practices, or the hospital will boot them off the staff ]if they are n’t credentialed]. Therefore, physicians can effectively disincent themselves to disagree with the narrative.
Before 2021, censorship of this magnitude was unheard of, Orient said. ” Doctors could always have open discussions.” They could always be critical, and they might have their critics on their side. But this is just the specialty board attacking them, no patient complaints. Richard Baron, former head of ABIM, instigated many of the letters that went to physicians”, Orient stated. He had numerous conflicts of interest, including medical firms receiving funding from Pfizer and Moderna. A request for a comment from Baron was not responded to by ABIM.
” To this day, ABIM maintains this posture that they can essentially convict anyone of spreading misinformation,” McCullough said”. They do n’t define “information” or “misinformation” and use vague terms like consensus-driven statements. “
Attorney Andrew Schlafly, a well-known litigator, represented AAPS.
According to Schlafly,” Viewpoint-based censorship of freedom of speech is one of the most crucial issues today, and it is crucial to the future of our country and the ability of patients to obtain quality medical care.” It is crucial that we reinstate the right to free speech and stop improperly ingested speech. Without fear of reprisal, doctors must be able to address issues of public concern.
Matters of Public Concern
Years later, government controls on information continue. The Supreme Court upheld the federal government’s authority to control Covid information on social media in an opinion released just last week.  ,
In their opinion, Schlafly and AAPS are still confident that their case will establish a new medical precedent.
A victory, according to Orient, could reverse the deferential treatment that has historically been given to these boards and hospitals in the courts. Some of these boards might come to terms with the fact that they are not regarded as infallible authorities and could potentially be held accountable.
” More freedom of speech, not less, is essential to a future of quality medical care and a prosperous country,” Schlafly said”. When organizations retaliate against physicians based on their remarks about matters of public concern, it is very harmful to patients and everyone else. All of us should work tirelessly to protect and promote the freedom of speech without censorship, based on our opinions.
Ashley Bateman blogs for Ascension Press and writes for The Heartland Institute about policy. Her work has been featured in The Washington Times, The Daily Caller, The New York Post, The American Thinker and numerous other publications. She previously held positions as an adjunct scholar for The Lexington Institute and as an editor, writer, and photographer for The Warner Weekly, a publication for the German-speaking American military community in Bamberg. Ashley serves on the board of a Virginia-based Catholic homeschool cooperative. Along with her brilliant engineer/scientist husband, she educates four incredible children at home.
