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Author: Richard Jaffe

Digging into the the Recent Possible Future Changes to AB 2098: Color Me Sceptical/AND MY OWN REVISION WHICH FIXES EVERYTHING!

Digging into the the Recent Possible Future Changes to AB 2098: Color Me Sceptical/AND MY OWN REVISION WHICH FIXES EVERYTHING!

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Let me try to set out where we are today, before the hearing on SB 2098 which bill originally made sanctionable physicians who publically spread covid misinformation. The original bill The bill was dropped on February 14th. It created a new form of misconduct that the medical board could prosecute and that being a physician providing information to the public via social media or any other public forum information which the board thought was false or misleading, i.e., contrary to…

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AB 2098, The Cali. Bill Disciplining Physicians for “Covid Misinformation”: Some Context and Predictions

AB 2098, The Cali. Bill Disciplining Physicians for “Covid Misinformation”: Some Context and Predictions

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Tomorrow, April 19th is the first hearing on AB 2098 which would subject physicians to disciplinary action for “spreading covid misinformation”, and that misinformation being opinions, facts and even publicizing scientific studies which are inconsistent with the position of the public health officials and infectious disease specialists. Here is the bill if you haven’t seen it. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB2098 This bill comes from the Federation of State Medical Board’s (“FSMB”) position statement in July 2021 that physicians who disagree with the conventional…

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Really Good News for Californians Opposed to Mandatory COVID School Vaccination

Really Good News for Californians Opposed to Mandatory COVID School Vaccination

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Parents had been contacting me about the effect of all these new California vaccine mandates. I was reluctant to respond for many reasons, not the least of which is that I had heard some rumblings that the usually legislatively effective Senator Pan was having trouble with his bill to add the COVID vaccine to the list of in-person school mandated vaccinations. I knew that all the lobbying groups against mandatory vaccination were hard at work working behind the scenes and…

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My Interview on the Paul Thomas, MD CHD Podcast “Against the Wind”

My Interview on the Paul Thomas, MD CHD Podcast “Against the Wind”

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Recently, Paul Thomas contacted me about one of my posts. He wanted to interview me for his show about some of the current vaccine issues and where we should go from here. I think it was a pretty good discussion. (Here is the post which caught his eye: https://rickjaffeesq.com/2022/03/09/some-big-picture-thinking-as-covid-mandates-wind-down-around-the-world/) As most of you know, Paul Thomas is an outspoken Oregon pediatrician who has had his run-ins with the Oregon Medical Board on the vaccine issue. His biggest crime is that…

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Cali. SB 920 Bites the Dust! (For now at least)

Cali. SB 920 Bites the Dust! (For now at least)

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Yesterday, SB 920’s bill sponsor pulled the bill. Here is her statement. https://sd14.senate.ca.gov/news/press-release/hurtado-releases-statement-her-decision-pull-senate-bill-920 To recap, SB 920 is (was) a bill that would have allowed medical board investigators and consultants to show up at a physician’s office unannounced, execute a de facto, informal search warrant (without a judicial order) an give them a sneak peek at patient medical records to see if the Board wanted to subpoena the records. It is (was) a crazy and unconstitutional idea as I explained…

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The Cali. Medical Board is Trying the Get the Power to Conduct Warrantless Searches, but I don’t think that dog will hunt

The Cali. Medical Board is Trying the Get the Power to Conduct Warrantless Searches, but I don’t think that dog will hunt

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At the Medical Board of California’s behest, the Senate has introduced SB 920 which grants the Board power to conduct warrantless searches of a physician’s office including medical records without the patient’s prior knowledge or consent. This bill is a radical departure from current practice, and I happen to think the bill is unconstitutional. This is just one of many bills which have been introduced which target physicians and patients as a result of the pandemic. I know that activist…

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Solving the Ivermectin Access Problem

Solving the Ivermectin Access Problem

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My last post suggested that it was very risky for physicians to prescribe Ivermectin and HCQ because the standard of care is against their use for covid, and pharmacists can and are reporting physicians who so prescribe to the medical boards. The conceptually simple but practically hard solution to this problem is to bar the medical board from disciplining (or investigating) a physician for this conduct and 2. allowing pharmacies to dispense these drugs without a prescription. And that is…

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Some Informal Advice for Docs writing Ivermectin and HCQ Scripts

Some Informal Advice for Docs writing Ivermectin and HCQ Scripts

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I have worked on medical board cases around the country for a long time. My particular specialty is unconventional therapies, either not FDA approved/cleared, or off-label use of FDA approved therapies (and diagnostics). I also spent a couple of decades advocating for expanded access to investigational drugs. We are two years into the COVID pandemic. We have vaccines, and we’re starting to have EUA drugs for treating the virus. Right now, we are in a covid lull, at least in…

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Some Big Picture Thinking as COVID Mandates Wind Down Around the World

Some Big Picture Thinking as COVID Mandates Wind Down Around the World

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We are about to begin the third year of the COVID pandemic. Restrictions are rapidly winding down throughout the country (and the world). It is the hope and expectation that we are entering the endemic stage of the disease and normalcy will return. Therefore, it is a good time to reflect on things in a big picture way and think about lessons learned from the last two years. The Upside of COVID Polarization America is a big country that is…

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New Cali AB 2098 Seeks to Make Public Speech by Physicians Board Sanctionable

New Cali AB 2098 Seeks to Make Public Speech by Physicians Board Sanctionable

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Yesterday, February 14th, AB 2098 was dropped by Assembly Member Law and two others Assembly folk, and co-authored by, you guessed it, Senator Richard Pan. The bill makes physicians who publicly speak about COVID subject to professional discipline for providing misinformation. The bill has some (4 for now) requirements for a finding of misconduct. The first is whether the licensee “deviated from the standard of care.” I have done a little medical board work, but I don’t know what it…

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