Human Flourishing

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The Censorship of Medicine

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The Censorship of Medicine

My recent testimony at the California State Senate against SB 2098

Aaron Kheriaty, MD
Jul 18, 2022
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The Censorship of Medicine

aaronkheriaty.substack.com

In my last post I warned of the dangers of CA Assembly Bill 2098:

Human Flourishing
Punishing Dissident Physicians
I will be heading to Sacramento next Monday to testify at a Senate committee hearing on California Assembly Bill 2098. The bill, sponsored by Senator Pan—who has been in Pharma’s back pocket for years and the source of much legislative health policy mischief in my home state—would give the medical board the authority to punish any physicians who challen…
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7 months ago · 126 likes · 11 comments · Aaron Kheriaty, MD

Here’s my recent testimony against the bill at the CA State Senate:

Attorney Laura Powell also testified against the bill with some excellent remarks…

Twitter avatar for @ca4governance
Californians for Good Governance @ca4governance
We don’t need #AB2098 because there is no misinformation crisis. There’s a crisis of institutional credibility. The public has lost faith in the medical establishment, and censorship will not rebuild that trust. In fact, it’s the surest way to further erode that trust.
11:57 PM ∙ Jun 27, 2022
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The bill unfortunately passed the committed on a strict party-line vote, and will go to the state Assembly floor for a vote soon. Here is a link to information from The Unity Project on what you can do to oppose this bill—especially important if you happen to live in California. Please spread the word.

And here’s a transcript of a slightly longer version of my remarks. The Senate gave our side a total of 3 minutes to testify, which Laura and I had to share between us. Democracy!

I am Dr. Aaron Kheriaty, a physician licensed in the state of California. I direct the Health and Human Flourishing Program at the Zephyr Institute in Palo Alto and serve as Chief of Ethics at The Unity Project.

AB 2098 will harm patients, hamstring our pandemic response, destroy the trust necessary for the doctor-patient relationship, and worsen the physician shortage in California.

A physician with a gag order – a physician who cannot say what he or she thinks – is not a physician you can trust. Patients want to know that if they ask their physician a question, including a question about covid, they will get their doctor’s honest opinion—regardless of whether the patient follows that opinion, seeks a second opinion, or whatever. Patients will not trust physicians if they believe their doctor is simply parroting a consensus judgment that he or she may or may not endorse.

Science evolves constantly: the text of AB 2098 makes statements about covid and covid vaccines that are already outdated:

(1) The death count figures cited are overestimated by failing to distinguish dying from covid and dying with covid

(2) the efficacy of vaccines has declined with time and new variants, so the vaccine efficacy statistic cited in the law is no longer true of the vaccines against omicron

(3) new covid vaccine safety issues have come to light with emerging research.

Safety and efficacy findings are subject to change over time. My colleagues and I filed a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain the Pfizer clinical trials data from the FDA. These documents revealed concerning safety issues in the first three months of vaccine rollout. Last week, a study in the New England Journal of Medicine showed negative vaccine efficacy against omicron infection. A peer-reviewed study published two weeks ago found reduced sperm counts in men after vaccination. These findings were unavailable when this law was drafted.

Advances in science and medicine typically occur when doctors and scientists challenge conventional thinking or settled opinion. Fixating any current medical consensus as “unassailable” by physicians will stifle medical and scientific progress. As I testified in January at a U.S. Senate panel on Covid policy: “The scientific method suffered [during the pandemic] from a repressive academic and social climate of censorship and silencing of competing perspectives. This projected the false appearance of a scientific consensus—a ‘consensus’ often strongly influenced by economic and political interests.”

One need only look at the last two years to see how frequently public health recommendations and consensus thinking about Covid changed from one month to the next with the advent of new information. Frontline physicians played a key role here in advancing knowledge of covid treatments—including ventilating patients in the prone position, the use of high dose steroids in hospitalized patients, and safety issues with some novel antiviral therapies. Yesterday’s minority opinion often becomes today’s standard of care.

Good science is characterized by conjecture and refutation, lively deliberation, often fierce debate, and always openness to new data. The censorship of free inquiry and free speech in AB 2098 spells not only the demise of civil liberties and constitutional rights for physicians in CA, but the end of the scientific enterprise when it comes to dealing with Covid in our state. Physicians whose professional opinions are stifled will simply leave California.

This bill will not help us to address the pandemic. Doctors will be punished for practicing medicine according to their best judgment. Informed consent—the foundational principle of ethical medicine—will be seriously compromised. The trust necessary for the doctor-patient relationship will be shattered.

Our lawmakers need to oppose AB 2098. It will harm physicians and medical institutions in California; it will harm scientific progress; and most concerningly, it will harm our patients.

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The Censorship of Medicine

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Bean
Jul 19, 2022·edited Jul 19, 2022

Thank you, Dr. Aaron. Your argument was impeccable. If the bill passes and I were a medical professional, I would leave this state so fast for a state that values a critically-thinking doctor. I am sorry you and countless other physicians are having to deal with this. And that you only had three minutes to speak is unspeakable. I send you and your colleagues my prayers and my voiced opinion to the CA State Senate. This is not the California I moved to and for 32 years ago. I will move also.

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IamAfreePerson
Writes ...
Jul 19, 2022·edited Jul 19, 2022

Why is there a California-Communist love affair? Never will I understand this happening to that beautiful piece of America. It's happening in CO too though. Mtn towns masking again - REI store requiring all staff to mask as of last Tues. Forest workers in Silverton - a small historic town - young healthy outdoor staff, covered in dirt, while wearing masks. It's communism in full view. Surreal to the visitor for sure who was expecting to see badass Cowboys.

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