One of the oldest tropes favored by quacks of all stripes, including antivaxxers, is to portray any attempt at regulating their quackery as an assault on freedom of speech. It’s therefore not surprising that after its passage by the California legislature prominent spreaders of COVID-19 misinformation are labeling AB 2098, which seeks clarify and codify the power of the Medical Board of California to discipline physicians for spreading COVID-19 misinformation, as creating “thoughtcrimes.”
Antivaxxers have increasingly been showing themselves to be transphobic bigots as well. The latest example is “TransTopia,” where, thanks to mRNA vaccines, transgender is a “stepping stone” to transhumanism.
Formerly respectable academics John Ioannidis and Vinay Prasad published a complaint about “obsessive criticism” on social media. Hilarity ensued, and many irony meters were reduced to sparking, smoking, sputtering ruin.
The crank fake medical professional society Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) filed a lawsuit this week against medical specialty boards seeking to rein in COVID-19 misinformation. Coupled with previous suits, I can’t help but see this legal thuggery as increasingly coordinated with prior lawsuits by right wing groups.
The Supreme Court’s striking down Roe v. Wade and the subsequent abortion bans it enabled remind me very much of naturopathic licensure laws. They’re both based on pseudoscience and ideology.
