Medical – Truth Based Media https://truthbasedmedia.com The truth is dangerous to those in charge. Mon, 27 May 2024 18:38:11 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.1 https://truthbasedmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/cropped-Favicon-32x32.jpg Medical – Truth Based Media https://truthbasedmedia.com 32 32 194150001 “I Risked My Life for This?”: Veterans Furious Over VA Doctor Shortages https://truthbasedmedia.com/i-risked-my-life-for-this-veterans-furious-over-va-doctor-shortages/ https://truthbasedmedia.com/i-risked-my-life-for-this-veterans-furious-over-va-doctor-shortages/#respond Mon, 27 May 2024 18:34:22 +0000 https://truthbasedmedia.com/?p=203679 (Based Underground Newsletter)—Veterans who have dedicated their lives to serving our nation are now facing an alarming crisis: the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is drastically reducing the number of doctors available to them. This troubling development has sparked outrage among veterans and their advocates, raising concerns about the quality and accessibility of healthcare for those who have served our country.

The Issue

Veterans across the country are experiencing increased wait times and reduced access to medical professionals due to the VA’s decision to cut back on doctors. This decision comes at a time when many veterans are already struggling to receive the care they need. The reduction in medical staff has been attributed to budget constraints and administrative decisions within the VA.

Impact on Veterans

Veterans like John Smith, who served two tours in Afghanistan, are feeling the brunt of these cutbacks. “I risked my life for this country, and now I can’t even get a timely appointment with a VA doctor,” Smith said. “This is not the way our nation should treat its heroes.”

The VA’s actions have led to longer wait times for appointments, reduced availability of specialized care, and increased frustration among veterans who rely on the VA for their healthcare needs.

Lawmaker Responses

Lawmakers have been vocal about their concerns regarding the VA’s decision. A spokesperson for a member of Congress who wished to remain anonymous said, “Our veterans deserve the best care possible, not bureaucratic cutbacks that put their health at risk. We need to ensure the VA is adequately funded and staffed to meet the needs of those who have served.”

Call to Action

Veterans and their advocates are calling on Congress to take immediate action to address the doctor shortages within the VA. They are urging lawmakers to allocate more resources to the VA and to hold the department accountable for its decisions that negatively impact veteran care.

Opinion

The VA’s reduction in medical staff is a disservice to the brave men and women who have sacrificed so much for our country. It is imperative that we prioritize the health and well-being of our veterans by ensuring they have access to the medical care they deserve. As this issue continues to unfold, it is crucial for both lawmakers and the public to advocate for better support and resources for our nation’s heroes.

By highlighting the urgent need for better care and increased resources, we can ensure that our veterans receive the medical attention they have earned and deserve.

Sound off about this article on the Based Underground Newsletter.

Article generated from corporate media reports.

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Chinese Scientists Implant First Pig Liver Into Brain-Dead Human https://truthbasedmedia.com/chinese-scientists-implant-first-pig-liver-into-brain-dead-human/ https://truthbasedmedia.com/chinese-scientists-implant-first-pig-liver-into-brain-dead-human/#respond Sun, 17 Mar 2024 13:47:16 +0000 https://truthbasedmedia.com/?p=201980 (Zero Hedge)—Who says nothing interesting ever happens in the world anymore? This week, in a “first of its kind” operation, a brain-dead human subject was implanted with the world’s first gene-edited pig liver transplant, according to SCMP.

In what could be a pioneering move, Chinese scientists have transplanted a gene-edited pig liver into a human, aiming to potentially mark a solution to organ shortages, the report says.

The liver was modified to reduce rejection risks and was implanted into a brain-dead recipient, showing no rejection signs four days post-operation, as per the Air Force Medical University. SCMP writes that this procedure could significantly aid those with end-stage liver disease, possibly revolutionizing liver transplants.

Gene editing advancements in China also promise to enhance efficiency and accessibility in plant modification, reflecting broader strides in medical innovation, the report continues.

SCMP notes that liver diseases annually claim 2 million lives globally, with China alone witnessing up to 500,000 new cases of liver failure yearly. Xenotransplantation, the process of transplanting organs across species, could be a hopeful strategy, especially for liver ailments, given the complexity and scarcity of human livers for transplantation.

While pig organs have been previously used in research, the liver’s complexity means there needs to be innovative surgical approaches, such as auxiliary transplants, to ensure effective integration and function within the body, according to SCMP.

This development signals a critical step toward more sustainable organ transplant solutions, addressing both the technical challenges and the dire need for viable organs.

The Air Force Medical University commented: “From this perspective, xenogenic liver transplantation has great clinical application value.”

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Next Cyberattack Target? Medical Devices https://truthbasedmedia.com/next-cyberattack-target-medical-devices/ https://truthbasedmedia.com/next-cyberattack-target-medical-devices/#respond Fri, 12 Jan 2024 10:57:04 +0000 https://truthbasedmedia.com/?p=200279 (Natural News)—Enemies of the United States who seek to take down the country in a cyberattack could soon target the health care industry.

New reports warn that, following a spate of localized cyberattacks against health care facilities, federal officials and health systems are concerned that the next cyberattack target will be medical devices, including those in hospital rooms, at imaging centers and even inside patients’ homes.

“Hackers have especially targeted health systems for their valuable troves of patient data and in some cases have temporarily knocked systems offline, disrupting patient care,” Axios reported about the matter.

“But there are also a range of medical devices – such as MRIs, ventilators and pacemakers – that are potential targets, particularly when it comes to aging devices with outdated software.”

Though the cyberattack threat to medical devices is still largely theoretical, experts like Toby Gouker, an executive at privacy and security firm First Health Advisory, believe that it is only a matter of time before hackers figure out a way to break them virtually.

“It’s a real Achilles’ heel and a blind spot for health systems,” Gouker is quoted as saying. “What makes more money in a hospital than anything else? If you bring an MRI down, you can take a lot of health systems to their knees.”

(Related: Some people believe that communist China is planning a cyberattack to take down America.)

Government watchdog calls on FDA to expand cybersecurity of medical devices

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is calling on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which oversees medical devices, to work more closely with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to coordinate cybersecurity and medical devices in advance of a potential attack.

Both agencies have responded to the GAO’s call positively, stating that they, too, believe more needs to be done to protect medical devices from hacking attempts.

The GAO produced a report that says the vulnerabilities inherent to medical devices “still pose risks to hospital networks – and patients.”

As of last March, a new law requires all medical device manufacturers to submit plans for how to address any cybersecurity vulnerabilities inherent to their products. That law does not, it is important to note, affect any connected devices that are already on the market.

“Everything from your hospital bed to your infusion pump next to the bed, to the monitor next to the bed that’s measuring, monitoring your vitals, they’re all connected,” said Chelsea Arnone, director of federal affairs for the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives.

“Everything is online … so they’re all ostensibly hackable.”

Because many medical devices incorporate off-the-shelf software that, like all other software, is vulnerable to threats like viruses and “worms,” it is important that medical device manufacturers pay mind to this threat early on to avoid potential hacking problems later on down the road.

Up until the new law took shape and was signed into law, most medical device manufacturers offered little to no support in providing patches or other cybersecurity solutions to their customers, especially for older medical devices that no longer hold “blockbuster” status.

The name of the game for the medical device industry, just like with the pharmaceutical industry, is profits. And providing constant software support for older products means fewer profits, hence the need for legislation to force these companies to do the right thing.

One recent incident that illustrates the problem occurred in Russia after a hacker found a backdoor into a hospital’s medical device. The hospital was unable to take the product offline in order to isolate the problem, and when its employees contacted the company for assistance, they were told there is no fix.

“It’s just old school,” Arnone said about the incident. “You’re calling someone on the phone and waiting and trying to get the right person who can help you. It’s like the worst kind of customer support.”

More related news coverage can be found at CyberWar.news.

Sources for this article include:

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The Incentivized Mass Murder of Children https://truthbasedmedia.com/the-incentivized-mass-murder-of-children/ https://truthbasedmedia.com/the-incentivized-mass-murder-of-children/#respond Thu, 26 Oct 2023 14:04:00 +0000 https://truthbasedmedia.com/?p=197963 (Greg Reese)—For many years doctors have received bonuses for adherence to the latest drug therapy protocol. Drugs that are known to be dangerous such as statins and anti-depressants. And now we know that insurance companies are paying doctors to fully vaccinate your children.

This incentive program for vaccinating babies can be found in the Blue Cross Blue Shield doctor incentives booklet. And specifies that every patient under the age of two that receives the currently prescribed twenty-four inoculations is worth a four-hundred dollar payout to that doctor.

For further motivation, they get paid by the hundred and they have to vaccinate a certain percentage of their total patients or they don’t get anything. Blue Cross Blue Shield rules say that a doctor needs to vaccinate sixty-three percent of their patients in order to qualify.

The average American pediatrician has about fifteen hundred patients and would have to have nine hundred and forty-five of them fully vaccinated in order to get paid. At forty-thousand for every hundred this works out to three-hundred and sixty thousand dollars.

This is why most pediatricians won’t provide care for families who don’t completely submit to the latest childhood vaccine schedule protocol. We are talking over a quarter million dollars which is more than the average pediatrician’s yearly salary.

Research shows that an unvaccinated child’s risk of death increases by over five thousand percent when they receive the current vaccine schedule.

And Doctors are now beginning to use virtual reality to help them administer these poisons to children who instinctively know better.

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Has the Western Medical System Turned Murderous? https://truthbasedmedia.com/has-the-western-medical-system-turned-murderous/ https://truthbasedmedia.com/has-the-western-medical-system-turned-murderous/#comments Thu, 07 Sep 2023 09:14:15 +0000 https://truthbasedmedia.com/?p=196416 On September 4, Labor Day, I reported on the conclusion of two Japanese scientists that Covid and its variants are manufactured viruses created by humans, and that they did not get into circulation by escaping from labs.  I explored the serious implications.  Clearly agendas are being served at the expense of the population.

Yesterday morning I had an opportunity to question a virologist and a doctor involved in clinical research. I asked them if there is any discussion among scientists of why viruses are being created and released.  They told me that some are aware that Covid-19 and Omicron are lab creations, and that Omicron was a disappointment to its creators because it turned out to be akin to a weaker vaccine strain.

One said that a minority of scientists understand that the release of man-made viruses indicates an agenda at work, but that the majority of scientists toe the line of the official narrative, fearful of being cut off from research grants or fired for “spreading misinformation.”  Once facts were replaced by untrue official narratives, scientists were left without a leg to stand on. Evidence is ignored, because it is a threat to the narrative.  Thus the medical establishment pretends that Covid “vaccine” injuries are rare and that the large number of unprecedented sudden deaths of athletes, physical trainers, entertainers, corporate doctors and nurses who were coerced into vaccination by appeals to celebrities to show the way or threats to be fired are merely “a coincidence.”

The other said that in clinical medicine open talk of engineered viruses and their release makes a person an immediate outcast.  Protocols are replacing independent scientific judgment.  The protocols are established by articles written with Big Pharma research grants and distributed through prestigious medical journals such  as The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine.  In American medicine, which is increasingly corporate, doctors are employees, not independent practitioners, and have no alternative to following protocols.  In this way, medical decisions are controlled for the purpose of the agenda. As FDA, CDC, and NIH have “revolving door” relationships and patent-sharing relationships with Big Pharma, the regulatory agencies are part of the protocol enforcement police.

This tells you how brave and public-spirited the whistleblowers are and why it is so costly to them to tell the truth.

Corporate medicine and insurance companies have turned “health care’ into a murder machine.  A year or so ago I witnessed, I think, a hospital murder, or I should say it raised questions in my mind at the time.  A woman in denial of her breast cancer had kept it under wraps, but when the bouts of pain became too much to hide, it was noticed and a relative managed to get her to a hospital.  The woman was able to look after herself, but was dead in less than 40 minutes after arriving at the hospital. I wondered if the hospital, seeing a hopeless case, elected to send her on her way instead of providing her with pain relief while she lived out her life in her home.

This disturbing thought was resurrected just the other day when a friend told me that a hospital was killing his father in advance of his death by cutting him off IVs and dehydrating him to death, and this in absence of an agreement to permit him to die.  My friend said he had been warned by a friend whose father went into hospital for a kidney stone.  The opioid addiction crisis was used to deny him pain meds, but the massive pain prevented him from eating, and he was allowed to die.

As my friend sees it, health care in the USA has become “herd health care” vs individualized.  Everything is protocol. There is no independent thinking allowed by any corporate doctor, and if a doctor does think independently or try to treat a patient as an individual, he is fired.

My friend has concluded that if you are a doctor in a hospital, you pull the protocol, read from the protocol, and that’s it. Apparently it is protocol to just kill people, without saying you are killing people. So euthanasia is in effect as a result of protocol.

Hopefully all hospitals are not like this, but once it starts it spreads. As our society is being brutalized in every way, it is unsurprising that hospitals are becoming execution centers.

I remember when people died at home cared for by their family. Over the course of my life I have watched civilization, family, morality, integrity, respect for truth fade away.

What are we left with?

Sound off about this article on the End Medical Tyranny Substack.

About the Author

Paul Craig Roberts, a former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury and former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal, has been reporting shocking cases of prosecutorial abuse for two decades. A new edition of his book, The Tyranny of Good Intentions, co-authored with Lawrence Stratton, a documented account of how Americans lost the protection of law, has been released by Random House. Article cross-posted from his blog.

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mRNA Covid-19 “Vaccines” Linked to Increased Risk of Vaginal Bleeding: Study https://truthbasedmedia.com/mrna-covid-19-vaccines-linked-to-increased-risk-of-vaginal-bleeding-study/ https://truthbasedmedia.com/mrna-covid-19-vaccines-linked-to-increased-risk-of-vaginal-bleeding-study/#respond Thu, 25 May 2023 00:41:27 +0000 https://truthbasedmedia.com/?p=192927 Women vaccinated with the Pfizer or Moderna COVID-19 vaccines are at higher risk of vaginal bleeding, according to a new study.

One or more doses of the messenger RNA shots increased the risk of the bleeding in women aged 12 to 74, Swedish researchers reported in the study, published on May 3 by the British Medical Journal.

Adjustments to the data resulted in the removal of some of the heightened risks, but even after adjustments, younger women were still more likely to experience bleeding after the first and third doses and older women were more likely to suffer from the issue after the first, second, and third doses.

A number of studies, primarily based on self-reporting of symptoms, have identified menstrual irregularities and bleeding as potential side effects of the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines. People have also filed reports to various reporting systems, such as the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, and Israeli officials found signs that Pfizer’s vaccine causes menstrual issues.

The Swedish researchers sought to examine the risks among the vaccinated by examining national data that covers every woman aged 12 to 74 in the country. After excluding women who had a history of certain conditions such as menstruation disorders and women living at special care facilities, the study population was 2.94 million. Cases were only included if they were diagnosed at a hospital or another health care facility.

Researchers plugged the data into a model that compared the person-time among the unvaccinated, including individuals who later received a vaccine, to the vaccinated. The top-level results were reported, as were numbers broken down by dose and age group, with the population divided into younger women (aged 12 to 49) and older women (50 to 74).

The study covered Dec. 27, 2020, to Feb. 28, 2022.

Increased Risks

Prior to adjustment, women of all ages in the population were found to be at higher risk of vaginal bleeding following vaccination. The younger women were also at a heightened risk of menstrual disturbance, defined as being diagnosed with “absent, scanty and rare menstruation” or “excessive, frequent and irregular menstruation.”

After adjusting for covariates such as marital status and days in the hospital, the risks were removed for some doses and diminished for others.

Adjustments almost entirely removed the menstrual disturbance risk, for example, though women were still found at increased risk within seven days of dose one. The risks of bleeding for the younger women were also reduced, though still present within seven days of doses one and three.

An increased risk of bleeding was still present for older women following the adjustments, with a hazard ratio of 1.28 within seven days of a third shot and 1.25 between eight and 90 days following a third dose.

Hazard ratios of one mean there’s no evidence of a negative effect or benefit, while ratios above one indicate an increased risk of an adverse effect. The adjusted results mean vaccinated older women were about 25 percent more likely to experience the bleeding after a third dose, and about 15 percent more likely after any dose.

The increased risk was seen with both Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccine, according to a stratified analysis of the data.

Pfizer and Moderna did not respond to requests for comment.

Conclusions

Dr. Rickard Ljung of the Swedish Medical Products Agency and his co-authors acknowledged the increased risks among the vaccinated but downplayed the findings.

“We observed weak and inconsistent associations between SARS-CoV-2 vaccination and healthcare contacts for postmenopausal bleeding, and even less consistent for menstrual disturbance, and premenstrual bleeding,” they wrote. SARS-CoV-2 is a name for the COVID-19 virus.

“Extensive adjustment for confounding attenuated most risk estimates. The patterns of association are not consistent with a causal effect. These findings do not provide any substantial support for a causal association between SARS-CoV-2 vaccination and healthcare contacts related to menstrual or bleeding disorders,” the researchers added.

Ljung told The Epoch Times in an email that the increased risk of vaginal bleeding within seven days was “most likely an already prevalent bleeding where the woman got vaccinated before appointment” with a health care professional.

Dr. Shelley Cole, an obstetrician-gynecologist in Texas, told The Epoch Times via email after reviewing the paper: “There was a 26% increase in menstrual disturbances in the 1-7 day timeframe. Yet, they cannot draw any conclusions about a causal relationship with the vaccine? Maybe they need to think just a little bit harder.”

Dr. Harvey Risch, professor emeritus of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health, who was also not involved in the research, said that the study did not include enough events “to provide definitive conclusions about increased risks of menstrual disturbances or unexpected menstrual bleeding.”

“Too many variables were examined with respect to risks, in comparison to the limited amount of data. That having been said, the rates of bleeding events do not seem dramatically larger for vaccinated than for unvaccinated women,” Risch told The Epoch Times via email. “However, some caution in interpretation is warranted, because the degree to which menstrual disorders were detected by the medical care system in Sweden during this period is unclear, as the authors note.”

Limitations of the paper included its reliance on observational data. The research received funding from the Swedish government and researchers, including Ljung, reported conflicts of interest such as funding from Pfizer.

Article cross-posted from our premium news partners at The Epoch Times.

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Sperm Counts Rapidly Declining on All Continents, Meta-Analysis Finds https://truthbasedmedia.com/sperm-counts-rapidly-declining-on-all-continents-meta-analysis-finds/ https://truthbasedmedia.com/sperm-counts-rapidly-declining-on-all-continents-meta-analysis-finds/#respond Thu, 09 Mar 2023 14:42:37 +0000 https://truthbasedmedia.com/?p=190961 Over the past 50 years, male populations have been emasculated by endocrine-disrupting chemicals. According to a newly updated meta-analysis, which includes 2,936 abstracts and 868 full articles, total sperm count and sperm concentration have fallen steadily every year since 1972. Overall, sperm counts have decreased by more than 50% over a 50-year period. Male infertility rates are becoming a public health crisis.

The new meta-analysis, published in the journal Human Reproduction Update, analyzes sperm count data from 38 studies conducted on six continents. From 1972 to year 2000, sperm counts have decreased by an average of 1.16% every year. Since 2000, infertility rates have continued, at over twice that rate. Total sperm count has declined by 2.64% annually over the past 22 years! The male infertility epidemic spans North America, Europe, and Australia, and also South and Central America, Asia, and Africa.

“The aim of this study was to examine trends in sperm count among men from all continents. The broader implications of a global decline in sperm count, the knowledge gaps left unfilled by our prior analysis, and the controversies surrounding this issue warranted an up-to-date meta-analysis,” said the authors.

Endocrine disruption and malnutrition have weakened the modern male and female

Endocrine disruptors interfere with the body’s hormones — the chemical messages that are vital to male and female development. Endocrine disrupters may compete with normal testosterone, estrogen, androgen and progesterone levels. They may directly interfere with the function of the glands, such as the thyroid, testes, and ovaries. Over time, these disruptions can lead to: dysmenorrhea (painful menstruation), uterine fibroids, thyroid problems, insulin resistance and Type-2 diabetes, weight gain, metabolism issues, premature breast development, less masculine behavior in boys, inhibition, low sperm count, abnormal sexual development of fetuses, miscarriage, mood swings and behavioral issues, endometriosis and ovarian cysts, compromised immune function, and infertility.

Endocrine disruptors are ingested, absorbed through the skin, and inhaled in the air. They are derived from everyday household items, such as plastic bottles and containers, metal food can liners, detergents, flame retardants, toys, receipts, and pesticides.

Common endocrine disruptors include herbicides and pesticides such as glyphosate, atrazine, organophosphates, DEET, DDT, 2, 4-D pesticide, and the inert ingredients in Roundup. Heavy metals such as mercury, lead, arsenic, and aluminum also compete with nutrients, negatively affecting proper hormone signaling. Plastic chemicals are pervasive endocrine disruptors. These include BPA, styrene, parabens, toluene, phthalates, (diethylhexyl phthalate) dioxins, and PCBs. Common household scented products contain fragrance chemicals that disrupt hormones. Products like laundry detergent, scented plugins, sunscreens, chlorine, fluoride, and polyfluoroalkyl and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) are all toxic to fertility.

Endocrine disruptors compete with testosterone and androgens, convert testosterone to estrogen

Most of these endocrine disrupting chemicals take a long time to degrade in the environment, and many embed in the fatty tissues of the body, exerting their toxic effects over time. Most importantly, these disruptors affect fetal maturation and sexual differentiation in the early stages of pregnancy. The chemicals can stop the production of testosterone in utero, negatively affecting the sexual development of the male fetus. Phthalates will occupy the androgen and testosterone receptors, telling the body to produce less testosterone.

“The proliferation of estrogenic chemicals is a major concern,” says Robin Bernhoft, M.D., former president of the American Academy of Environmental Medicine. “Research has shown that 80 percent of male trout in Colorado had intersex genitalia, a high percentage of male crocodiles in Florida lack penises, and so forth. This is happening on many levels: Direct toxicity from PCBs, direct estrogenic effects from plastics, pesticides, and mercury among other toxins—but also a secondary effect—the stimulation of aromatase, a hormone which then converts testosterone to estrogen independently of the other factors. Pollution in general … stimulates aromatase which then converts available testosterone to estrogen. It is quite scary.”

Sources include:

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The Dystopian Vision of the Health-Information Police https://truthbasedmedia.com/the-dystopian-vision-of-the-health-information-police/ https://truthbasedmedia.com/the-dystopian-vision-of-the-health-information-police/#respond Sat, 24 Sep 2022 16:55:18 +0000 https://truthbasedmedia.com/?p=181609 When Assemblymember Evan Low, the principal author of California Assembly Bill 2098, told the California Senate Committee that his bill was “really straightforward, very straightforward,” many of us in the gallery failed to restrain ourselves from expressing our incredulity.

He delivered this statement at the conclusion of a hearing that had lasted over an hour, during which it seemed no two Senators on the committee had the same idea of how the law would operate. Assemblymember Low had struggled to respond to questions from the committee and had often resorted to simply reading the text of the bill. That June 26 hearing presented the only time any legislators questioned the bill during its entire passage through the legislative process.

Assembly Bill 2098 would empower the Medical Board of California to go after the licenses of physicians who disseminate “misinformation” or “disinformation” regarding Covid-19. The bill in its latest iteration defines misinformation as “false information that is contradicted by contemporary scientific consensus contrary to the standard of care.” The inscrutability of this definition lies at the core of the bill’s opponents concerns.

No clear scientific consensus exists with respect to this novel virus, and even if it did, it may be proven incorrect later. Without clear guidance regarding what would constitute “misinformation,” physicians can only guess if they risk losing their licenses for expressing their good-faith disagreements with positions of public health officials. Even if in practice, the Medical Board only applied the law to speech that the First Amendment does not protect, the law’s vagueness would render it unconstitutional, because it would tend to cause doctors to censor themselves.

The million-dollar question remains unanswered: Who would be targeted by Assembly Bill 2098? On one hand, the California Medical Association, the bill’s sponsor, cites the example of doctors who call “into question public health efforts such as masking” as creating the need for this bill. Likewise, the taxpayer-funded lobbying group County Health Executives Association of California decries “a small minority of medical professionals” who have led some Californians to “reject public health measures such as masking and physical distancing.”

The analysis of the bill from the Senate committee, in discussing the need for this bill, cited the example of the state of Florida refusing to take action against the license of Florida Surgeon General for, among other things, “question[ing] the value of face masks in preventing the spread of the pandemic.” The idea that the effectiveness of masks in preventing the spread of Covid is part of the “contemporary scientific consensus” confirms physicians’ fears that they would risk discipline for questioning any edict from public health on Covid.

On the other hand, when critics of Assembly Bill 2098 argue that questioning the effectiveness of masks falls well within the bounds of legitimate difference of opinions, proponents poo-poo their concerns about the law being applied in an overly broad way and insist that the law would only be used against truly “bad doctors.” But imbuing bureaucrats with power while trusting they will not exercise it would be incredibly foolish.

Some, such as Assemblymember Low, bill co-author Assemblymember Akilah Weber, and a representative of the California Medical Association, imply that this bill would only apply in cases of intentional harm. There is nothing in the letter of the law that limits the bill’s reach to situations where someone was harmed or where the information was disseminated knowing it was false. (Intentionally misleading would fall under the definition of “disinformation” as opposed to “misinformation.” An earlier draft of the bill mentioned harm to a patient as a factor for the Medical Board to consider.)

Members of the Medical Board of California itself have expressed confusion about how the law would be applied and withheld its support initially. MBC President Kristina Lawson, an attorney who has been a driving force behind this bill, claims to have clarity about how it would be applied but apparently is only willing to discuss the matter in private.

While most proponents say as little as possible regarding Assembly Bill 2098’s implications, one group is more vocal and less guarded in its statements. Two self-described “frontline” California doctors, Nick Sawyer and Taylor Nichols, formed No License for Disinformation (NLFD) in September 2021.

As its name suggests, the organization’s purpose is to promote policies that use the threat of medical license revocation to discourage doctors from spreading information it believes to be false. Sawyer has twice testified before legislative committees in favor of Assembly Bill 2098. NLFD’s prolific tweets and other public statements paint a dystopian picture that reflects opponents’ worst fears of the type of authoritarian regime proponents wish to impose.

NLFD pushes the idea that there is, as Sawyer described it his testimony before the Assembly committee on April 19, a “well-coordinated and well-funded network of doctors” who promote “anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, sow distrust in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the federal government, and ultimately the Covid-19 vaccines.”

At the outset, note the irony that NLFD frequently criticizes “conspiracy theorists” while promoting its own conspiracy theories. And NLFD not only wants to silence those who undermine faith in public health measures, but anyone who “sows distrust” in the government. Let that sink in.

NLFD’s tweets elaborate on its conspiracy theories, which are, like most conspiracy theories, built on weak evidence that magnify tenuous connections. A recent tweet shared a long thread posted by one of its founders that purports to uncover a web of right-wing “disinformation” purveyors funded by oil money. It implicates, among others, anyone associated with the Great Barrington Declaration or Brownstone Institute and specifically names UCSF professor and doctor Vinay Prasadjournalist and author David Zweig, and Johns Hopkins epidemiologist Stefan Baral as part of this cabal.

An August 13, 2022 tweet promotes a Substack article, written by NLFD “Research Consultant” Allison Neitzel, which calls America’s Frontline PhysiciansFront Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance, the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, and The Unity Project the “Big 4” responsible for a “physician-led attack on public health.” NLFD has often identified these four as its primary targets, sometimes adding the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons and Urgency of Normal to its hit list. NLFD asserts, without any basis, that these groups work together.

Some of NLFD’s targets, such as the Urgency of Normal’s leadership, are mainstream physicians. NLFD dismisses them as ranging from “formerly well respected immunologists to outright frauds.” It links to a long thread from one of its founders that accuses Urgency of Normal of being part of a right-wing operation to promote an “anti-mask narrative.”

It complains that CNN gave Dr. Jeanne Noble, Associate Professor at UCSF, a platform. It retweeted a tweet calling for Dr. Lucy McBride to be reported to the medical board for opposing mask mandates in schools and responded with a link directing the public on how to do so.

It dismissed every doctor who participated in a roundtable hosted by Florida Governor DeSantis, which included Dr. Tracy Høeg, as “Covid deniers” and “disinformation doctors” and warned that no one should accept medical advice from any of them. These attacks contradict any claim that NLFD claims only wants to silence doctors who peddle dangerously false medical advice rather than those who have good-faith disagreements with official Covid policy.

The inclusion of the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration—Sunetra GuptaMartin Kulldorff, and Jay Bhattacharya—at the top of NLFD’s hit list is puzzling. Not only does the declaration espouse a conventional viewpoint, none of the Great Barrington Declaration’s authors is a practicing physician and therefore law like Assembly Bill 2098 would not affect them.

NLFD has called out the Great Barrington Declaration around a dozen times and frequently targets Stanford professor Bhattacharya in particular (he earned a medical degree but does not practice medicine or hold a medical license). NLFD doesn’t just accuse Bhattacharya of being wrong, it accuses him of intentionally lying, calling him a “disinformation doctor” and a “prominent purveyor of Covid-19 disinformation,” accusing him of telling lies that have killed people (along with Vinay Prasad), and insinuating he should be reported for perjury. In addition to its direct attacks, NLFD has retweeted dozens of criticisms of Bhattacharya and seemed to delight in a journalist getting Twitter to temporarily suspend his account for a minor oversight.

NLFD’s messaging has an unquestionably partisan slant, despite claiming to be nonpartisan. It has posted dozens of tweets critical of the Republican Party. Some of these criticisms do not clearly relate to the organization’s mission of combating misinformation.

For example, this August 8, 2022 thread attacks Republican lawmakers for opposing a drug pricing control provision in a bill. The same day, another tweet alleges that the GOP Doctors Caucus is allied with “Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli. They attempt to tie this issue in with their mission by asserting that Republicans in general are “affiliated with licensed physicians” spreading Covid misinformation.

In another recent example, NLFD posted a clip from 2017 accusing Rand Paul of being in cahoots with Putin. It had previously suggested that Paul should be reported to the medical board for reasons it doesn’t identify. NLFD has even branched out to opine on political issues totally unrelated to the practice of medicine, encouraging the public to report “harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence” against school board members or staff to the FBI.

NLFD has numerous posts elaborating on its idea of a right-wing, Republican-led conspiracy to spread disinformation. It uses the phrase “disinformation pipeline” to describe an alleged process by which Republicans in state legislatures deliberately harm public health by “institutionalizing disinformation” through, for example, passing laws that shield doctors from discipline for controversial Covid treatments. It claims that the overall Republican agenda is to “create fear/animosity/victimhood amongst supporters, whipping up anti-science/anti-government sentiment making them more likely to take up arms against the government.” It has asserted that “[a]ll COVID disinformation doctors are inextricably tied to Trump.”

Many of NLFD’s conspiracy theories are quite dark and disturbing. It recently retweeted a thread from its own Nick Sawyer, which argues that the United States is currently in the midst of a civil war, which goes unrecognized because it is an information war. Another recent tweet exhorts: “This is an information war, a battle for the truth, and [every] American is a soldier. Get up to speed and start fighting for evidence based reality. No one is going to do this for us.”

NLFD’s primary weapon in this imagined information war is censorship, but it also advocates for criminal prosecution for expressing the wrong ideas. It frequently encourages its followers to report physicians to their medical boards, even if they have no relationship with them. It also frequently calls on Twitter to deplatform accounts it feels say things that are untrue. But it goes even further, tagging the FBI and posting a link to the FBI tip line, asking its followers to report people for alleged misinformation.

It tags the United States Department of Justice’s Criminal Division in its tweets. It calls its targets a “threat to national security.” NLFD erroneously claims that under current California law, a physician can be criminally prosecuted for any untrue statement. NLFD wants to go far beyond having medical boards discipline licensed physicians—they want to see their enemies in jail.

Against this backdrop of NLFD’s other public statements, it’s hard to imagine how Sawyer managed to sound sincere when he told the Senate committee:

“This bill is not supposed to cause problems with physicians’ free speech around academic discussion. This bill will allow the medical board to discipline doctors who say things like the vaccines cause AIDS or that the vaccines are killing more patients than Covid, using manipulated data or that the vaccines are implanting microchips so the government can track you. I’m all for academic debate—in fact, we wouldn’t be where we are today without robust academic debate, but that’s not what this is about.”

Make no mistake—Assembly Bill 2098 is not just about protecting patient safety. That is why one member of the Medical Board of California warned that the bill would be counterproductive to the Board’s mission.

Assembly Bill 2098 was not the brainchild of Assemblymember Low or any other California lawmakers. It’s part of an effort to enact similar policies around the country, sparked in large part by a declaration from the Federation of State Medical Boards in July 2021.

California is often described as a bellwether: “As California goes, so goes the nation.” That saying rings especially true with respect to Assembly Bill 2098, given that this is a test case for a national movement and that Governor Gavin Newsom has obvious presidential aspirations.

The bill will become law on January 1 unless the governor vetoes by September 30, and even then, the Democrats who voted for the bill have sufficient numbers to override a veto. Then we will discover whether our high courts still uphold the principle of free speech or whether they will allow themselves to be co-opted by the soldiers fighting to be the arbiters of Truth.

Article cross-posted from Brownstone Institute.

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