California is trying to enact a law that will penalize doctors for giving their patients misleading information. This sprung out of Covid 19 and the uproar it caused. The offending doctors would face fines and possibly be no longer allowed to practice medicine in California. Opponents to the law worry it will infringe on free speech.
You know the old commercials that say four out of 5 doctors recommend blah, blah, blah. Before viruses became politicized the vast majority would listen to the four and not the five. Sure some folks would try alternative treatments. Some religions won’t even let you seek medical treatment. It generally fell under an individuals freedom of choice. An infectious disease does affect others than yourself so it could be argued that may hamper your freedom to choose. Doing nothing may harm others. Many of the people who want freedom of choice do not want women to have the right to an abortion as they claim that decision affects an “unborn child.”
Covid 19 was a virus we had never seen before. The science was changing seemingly by the day. Get the vaccine to protect yourself and others turned into get the vaccine to protect just yourself turned into get the vaccine to lessen the severity of the virus. The changes were frustrating but understandable. I mean they started with don’t get masks to everyone should wear a mask. You can forgive people if they did not trust the medical profession. But it did get politicized which exacerbated everything.
People have gotten butt implants from people who put cement in their butt. True story. So we don’t always make sound medical decisions. Still do we need doctors worrying about the government coming down on them?
I don’t think so. We have civil law suits called torts. If a doctor does something that is so egregious their will be a legion of lawyers lined up to sue them for everything they are worth. They will lose their medical license. It seems like this is a redundant law.
Sometimes going against the grain in medicine is the correct thing to do. Not often but it happens. If we limit a doctors ability to think outside of the box we may be limiting our chances of getting healthy.
Will I choose the four out of five doctors? Almost always. It doesn’t mean I want the one doctor to have to worry about the government coming down on him. If he screws me I’ll choose 4 out of five lawyers that will sue his ass.