California approves bill to punish doctors who spread false information
51–60 of 108 posts
Re: California approves bill to punish doctors who spread false information
#52Democracy dies in darkness...
Re: California approves bill to punish doctors who spread false information
#5320 years Atkins diet was vilified. Now ketogenic diet is widely considered safe and even prescribed by doctor for various condition.
And was, and still is, frequently mischaracterized by critics as “all the bacon you want”, failing to mention the core tenant of “healthy natural greens and unprocessed meats”. I wonder if the people spreading what may have been deliberate misinformation about the diet would fair better under such a law, than the author of the diet information itself?
tenet
Re: California approves bill to punish doctors who spread false information
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The law would designate spreading false or misleading medical information to patients as “unprofessional conduct,” subject to punishment by the agency that licenses doctors, the Medical Board of California. That could include suspending or revoking a doctor’s license to practice medicine in the state. You are discussing a completely different situation compared to the one that the news reports is addressed by the b…
All laws are subject to interpretation. Didn't you just appoint a judge to your Supreme Court who openly admitted that she couldn't define "a woman" because she "wasn't a biologist?" When you have such people interpreting laws, good luck to you with this one. It's clearly designed to suppress dissent, given the disastrous events of the last two years.
[deleted]
Re: California approves bill to punish doctors who spread false information
#55> While the legislation has raised concerns over freedom of speech, the bill’s sponsors said the extensive harm caused by false information required holding incompetent or ill-intentioned doctors accountable. There was no addressing the actual issue in this statement. If you're arguing an issue falls under free speech, then the response of "OK, but it's really bad" doesn't change the free-ness of the speech.
False statements of fact are not protected under free speech. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...
Ummm... yeah they are.
You're referencing defamation law and contract law. In the case of defamation, you can't be defamed if what the person said is true. And in case of contract law or fraud, lies impact the integrity of a transaction.
In the US, you can lie as much as you want with general speech.
Re: California approves bill to punish doctors who spread false information
#56How can we have all just gone through the same pandemic and have anyone come out the other side thinking "You know what that needed? More authoritarian control of information."
While you ask that indignantly, I would encourage you to try to steel man (rather than straw man) that very question, particularly without the use of loaded words like "authoritarian."
If you want to be less surprised, replace the word authoritarian with "expert" or "merit based."
You might not agree. You might not agree for very reasonable and well thought out reasons, but it will at least make sense without demonizing a person who thinks differently. Then there might be a chance of understanding, reconciliation, and eventually compromise.
The people who developed the bill probably weren't evil fascists thinking about how to control peoples lives. They were probably thinking "how could we have had better outcomes in regards to this pandemic?"
Re: California approves bill to punish doctors who spread false information
#57A licensing board has to have a mandate from the doctors it licenses, people who have spent years of pain and study becoming an expert on health. If this bill is as fascist as many seem to think it is, then the doctors themselves will walk away or not tolerate it. They will move to a "more enlightened, less fascist" state and be licensed there instead. On the other hand, if doctors think some of their peers were creating chaos and not acting in patients best interest by entertaining medicine they don't believe to be evidence based, then the licensing board will have the permission if not blessing of the doctor community to improve public health care by getting rid of those who detract from it.
My money says more doctors will be happy with this bill than upset by it, but if we start seeing articles to the contrary I'll be happy to admit I was wrong.
I am quite confident the vast majority of doctors would be very happy to have a doctor that says "vaccines cause autism" to a patient (not to the medical or academic community) lose their license. Incredible numbers of medical hours and wages are wasted assuring parents that vaccines are not harming their children because it's been politicized by entities that profit from fear and engagement or the destruction of public trust.
Re: California approves bill to punish doctors who spread false information
#58How can we have all just gone through the same pandemic and have anyone come out the other side thinking "You know what that needed? More authoritarian control of information."
While you ask that indignantly, I would encourage you to try to steel man (rather than straw man) that very question, particularly without the use of loaded words like "authoritarian." If you want to be less surprised, replace the word authoritarian with "expert" or "merit based." You might not agree. You might not agree for very reasonable and well thought out reasons, but it will at least make sense without demoniz…
> it will at least make sense without demonizing a person who thinks differently.
I specifically do NOT demonize people who think differently, hence why I don't find it appropriate to leverage the authority of the state in order to prevent them from thinking differently.
Re: California approves bill to punish doctors who spread false information
#59This will not end well. Say this law was in place when COVID-19 started and a doctor said "hey, this looks like a new virus causing this pneumonia." This is exactly what is supposed to have happened in Wuhan and those doctors were, surprise surprise, punished by their government. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/07/world/asia/chinese-doctor...
There's a bit of a 'boy who cried wolf' situation here, since every sensible thing that Californian lawmakers do, is described as civilization ending stupidity and/or authoritarian fascism.
So, my prior is that this is perfectly fine, and the people complaining about it are lying and intentionally misunderstanding this. But I've not read anything about the specific law, so this is entirely based on the way people react to Californian laws generally.
Which is a bad precedent for when/if California does pass a bad law (say something like prop 13) because ... well see the end of the boy who cried wolf. story.
Re: California approves bill to punish doctors who spread false information
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
While you ask that indignantly, I would encourage you to try to steel man (rather than straw man) that very question, particularly without the use of loaded words like "authoritarian." If you want to be less surprised, replace the word authoritarian with "expert" or "merit based." You might not agree. You might not agree for very reasonable and well thought out reasons, but it will at least make sense without demoniz…
> it will at least make sense without demonizing a person who thinks differently. I specifically do NOT demonize people who think differently, hence why I don't find it appropriate to leverage the authority of the state in order to prevent them from thinking differently.
I think this is a fair re-statement of what you said:
> "How can anyone believe we need more authoritarian control of information?"
The direct implication of this statement is "it's unreasonable to want more authoritarian control of information", stated differently, "only an unreasonable person would support this bill because this bill increases authoritarian control of information."
That is demonization. You've defined support as unreasonable with the presupposition of support for "authortarianism." The language you've used denies alternative explanations or that a reasonable person might support the bill. It denies curiosity for why someone would support it. They support it because they are unreasonable, clearly. If there was a good reason for support, it wouldn't flabbergast you that someone might support it.
If I asked you "would you like your doctor to be vetted for competence by an authority?" You would probably say no, but many many people, myself included, would like to trust that our doctors have been vetted for competence by some authority so I'm not getting a snake oil salesperson or someone selling their expertise while having none. I don't want a lawyer who hasn't passed the bar. I don't want an electrician that has "unconventional" beliefs about how to wire things. I don't want to share the road with driver's who "think differently" about what lane they should drive in.
Licensed positions have a level of authority and are given a level of trust. Licenses exist to protect that trust from abuse. I definitely think some doctors have been abusing trust for political purposes. We saw doctors falsifying vaccination records.
I think a doctor can tell fellow doctors or the academics that do the research that informs treatment whatever they want because there's not a level of trust enforced by an authority, but a doctor patient relationship must be protected because a patient is fundamentally unable to evaluate what the doctor says and must rely on trust.