Posted on 08/19/2023 2:26:33 PM PDT by nickcarraway
— Meryl Nass, MD, of Maine, filed a legal complaint against the state's medical board
A Maine physician who had her medical license suspended for spreading false information related to COVID-19 has filed a legal complaint against the Maine Board of Licensure in Medicine and its board members for allegedly violating her First Amendment rights, according to a complaint documentopens in a new tab or window.
Meryl J. Nass, MD, an internist based in the city of Ellsworth, filed the complaint with the U.S. District Court for the District of Maine on Wednesday. The complaint claimed that the medical board and its board members violated her freedom of speech by suspending her medical license in January 2022opens in a new tab or window and ordering her to submit to a neuropsychological evaluation by a board-selected psychologist after she made a number of false COVID claims in a video interview and on her website.
According to Nass's complaint, these disciplinary actions were "retaliatory conduct in violation of the First Amendment," and they were intended to have a "chilling" effect on her efforts to publicly share her views on the COVID vaccines and alternative treatments.
Nick Sawyer, MD, MBAopens in a new tab or window, an emergency physician in Sacramento, California, told MedPage Today that Nass's approach to this lawsuit is part of a playbook being used by physicians who have been disciplined for similar allegations.
"The bigger picture here is what Meryl Nass is claiming is that the medical board has no authority over her," he said.
"What they are doing is using the same exact playbook that [was] used to convince people that global warming wasn't real," he added. "It's all based on conspiracy theories, and what's called conspiracist ideology."
Sawyer emphasized that this is not about free speech, as Nass's complaint claims. He said that physicians who have spread misinformation about COVID-19 are trying to change the rules, so they can say or do anything they want without facing disciplinary actions.
"They are basically claiming that lies are perfectly acceptable," he said. "Even if it causes material harm to people -- whether it's in terms of their personal health or finances -- you're not allowed to call out their lies, otherwise you are in violation of their First Amendment rights."
Sawyer noted that this strategy could create a constitutional crisis around the First Amendment, pointing out that the fundamental argument in Nass's complaint is she should not have to answer to the medical board for any actions at all, even if she is spreading false information about medical treatments.
"There are limits to free speech, and fraud is one of them," he said.
Nass Versus the Medical Board
In Nass's January 2022 disciplinary case, the state medical board decided to suspend her license because she "constitutes an immediate jeopardy to the health and physical safety of the public who might receive her medical services."
The medical board also stated that Nass reportedly lied about a patient having Lyme diseaseopens in a new tab or window in order to prescribe them hydroxychloroquine for COVID. Nass also allegedly said at the time that she did not intend to comply with masking and vaccine orders during the pandemic, according to the disciplinary documents.
The investigation that led to the suspension started in December 2021opens in a new tab or window, after a hospitalist reported her to the board.
Nass's complaint focused less on specific allegations and more on the board's recommendation that she undergo a neuropsychological evaluation. The complaint claimed this recommendation was not based on Nass having a mental illness or substance use disorder, and also asserted that the board could not justify the need for such an evaluation.
Nass alleged in her complaint that even the suggestion that she receive such an evaluation "tarnished her reputation." She also claimed that the state medical board's 2021 position statementopens in a new tab or window on COVID misinformation violated her First Amendment rights.
Nass said that the board's actions were "motivated by evil motive or intent" and that the board's conduct was "malicious, oppressive, outrageous, reckless, wanton, and willful, and demonstrated actual or implied malice."
In total, the complaint contained six counts, including alleged violations of the First Amendment, the state's constitution, and the state's Civil Rights Act.
Nass has requested compensation for punitive damages, and that the Maine lawopens in a new tab or window that established the state medical board's authority to issue disciplinary actions be declared in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution as it was applied to Nass's case and the board's position statement.
She also requested that the court force the medical board to retract its position statement and permanently prevent the board from enforcing the law against physicians, including Nass.
In addition, Nass is asking for financial compensation for her legal fees and for a jury trial to hear all of the stated complaints.
Throughout much of her legal fight with the state board, Nass's legal fees have been paid by an anti-vaccine advocacy group connected to presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., according to reporting from The Maine Monitoropens in a new tab or window.
author['full_name'] Michael DePeau-Wilson is a reporter on MedPage Today’s enterprise & investigative team. He covers psychiatry, long covid, and infectious diseases, among other relevant U.S. clinical news. Follow
From the article:
"The bigger picture here is what Meryl Nass is claiming is that the medical board has no authority over her," he said.
"What they are doing is using the same exact playbook that [was] used to convince people that global warming wasn't real," he added. "It's all based on conspiracy theories, and what's called conspiracist ideology."
The board needs to be indicted for running an ongoing criminal conspiracy to promote fraud.
The irony keeps getting thicker.
Thou shalt not speak out against the government narrative. To do so will result in your cancellation and all your rights removed by those in the administration that know better than you. Be forewarned and be silent if you know what is good for you.
“Thou shalt not speak out against the government narrative. To do so will result in your cancellation and all your rights removed by those in the administration that know better than you. Be forewarned and be silent if you know what is good for you.”
This struggle over federal censorship reflects two competing visions of freedom in America.
First, as the Louisiana court emphasizes, CISA Director Jen Easterly aptly summarizes the federal officials’ view: “She … stated, ‘We live in a world where people talk about alternative facts, post-truth, which I think is really, really dangerous if people get to pick their own facts.’” Ex. 1, at 77.
She also stated, “[W]e’re in the business of protecting critical infrastructure, and the most critical is our ‘cognitive infrastructure.’” Id.
Thus, Easterly’s view—reflected in federal censorship activity—is that the American “people” cannot be trusted “to pick their own facts,” and that the government should pick our facts for us. Id. She believes that the federal government—armed with the weapons, authority, and the domestic surveillance capacity of the national-security state—should police our “cognitive infrastructure.” Id. As the Louisiana court found, “cognitive infrastructure” means that “the CISA Defendants believe they had a mandate to control the process of acquiring knowledge.” Id. at 110.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s watershed First Amendment opinions express a radically different view of freedom.
“If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion.” W. Virginia State Bd. of Educ. v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 642 (1943). “Our constitutional tradition stands against the idea that we need Oceania’s Ministry of Truth.” United States v. Alvarez, 567 U.S. 709, 723 (2012) (plurality op.).
The Louisiana case is one part of a titanic struggle between these two visions of freedom. The former view—the view reflected in the actions of federal censorship agents like Jennifer Psaki, Rob Flaherty, Andy Slavitt, Dr. Vivek Murthy, Carol Crawford, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Jen Easterly, Matthew Masterson, Brian Scully, Alex Stamos, Rene DiResta, Kate Starbird, Elvis Chan, Laura Dehmlow, and a host of other federal censors—is terrifying and tyrannical, and its power is expanding rapidly.
But the latter view is the vision enshrined in the plain text of our Constitution and deeply engrained in our traditions of liberty. I am profoundly hopeful that this latter vision of freedom will prevail.
This struggle over federal censorship reflects two competing visions of freedom in America:.
https://brownstone.org/articles/the-brilliant-legal-mind-of-john-sauer/
This woman is a hero. When hospitals were telling people to go home with no treatment and don’t come back unless they couldn’t breathe, she was treating them.
As an aside, a doctor I personally know was brought before the medical board in my state in 2021 for several charges. One of the accusations against him was that in 2020 he was recommending to his friends and family they start taking Vitamin D. This is not something I heard, I have seen the actual accusation against him. BTW, he is older and doesn’t have the energy to fight so he retired.
American physicians are credited with the greatest advances in Medicine and Surgery. Much was accomplished by individual creative physicians doing what they could for patients. It was ethical Edisonian empiricism. These stringent restrictions imposed by woke Medical Boards are a disaster for the American people.
Nicky-Boy is a "doctor", so he's a liar by definition.
Spokes-puppet for Big Pharma.
The article does not mention the doctors claims that got her targeted. I think that is very important.
Poor delusional Doctor.
Still thinks that the Constitution has any bearing on the legal system any more, and that Truth trumps government propaganda.
What body determines if the doctor’s statements are lies?
The CDC? The NHI? We all know Fauci lied about masks, or at least issued two contradicting statements about them. First he said masks were no good for Covid, the particles were too small, people wore the masks wrong, and they would lead to a false sense of safety. The he later said this was incorrect, and you had to wear them. He later stated he initially told the public NOT to wear the mask because they were short of them, but didn’t want to cause panic buying and hoarding.
Shouldn’t HE be disbarred for spreading lies? How many people, according to these very same medical boards and Doctor Nick Sawyer, died because they didn’t wear a mask and got Covid?
They’re so SURE that using on HQC and Ivermectin wouldn’t help, that they banned physicians talking about it and/or prescribing it, but even now the FDA says Ivermectin is a available treatment.
Well, where are the lies? I think the government and their shills like Dr. Sawyer are the liars.
It’s not a free speech issue.
I have a license, and if I tell someone with treatable cancer they will be cured by eating red grapes, I will lose my license. I can’t defend myself with a First Amendment defense - I’m free to say it, the State can’t arrest me or jail me for saying it, but my license has conditions, one of which is that I will treat patients correctly.
This is an internal power struggle that could not have occurred 50 years ago. Since then, something called “evidence based medicine” has become very important, and, as Alvan Feinstein pointed out in 1996, EBM gave extraordinary power to people who got to define just what constituted evidence.
In the beginning of EBM, it was pretty clear. But once PAYMENT for treatment got wrapped into it, the fact that evidence for many things was weak or nonexistent made “expert opinion” a major factor - and then politics came into it, and expert opinion changed into “WHOSE experts” and created the mess we see today.
This escalated further as the regime experts became obsessed with Orange Man Bad.
But no doctors, not Dr. Nass and not Dr. Noble have a first amendment right to say ANYTHING WE WISH and stay licensed.
Not sure what the way out is - end licenses, end regulation, or sharply restrict regulation to cover only wrong site surgery and corrupt financial practices.
It’s a mess.
“This struggle over federal censorship reflects two competing visions of freedom in America”.
Thanks for the link to that article.
Would have a better chance suing on invalidity of the misinfo charge .... Ivermectin works and is authorized by the FDA and make them prove misinfo.
“They are basically claiming that lies are perfectly acceptable,” he said. “Even if it causes material harm to people — whether it’s in terms of their personal health or finances — you’re not allowed to call out their lies, otherwise you are in violation of their First Amendment rights.”
The ruling class is experiencing a pandemic of amnesia.
Everyone involved – both major political parties, deep state, media, tech, and pharma – wants everyone to forget about lockdowns, school closures, travel restrictions, church shutdowns, missed cancer screenings, wrecked small businesses, rent moratoriums, brutalized elderly, canceled weddings, zoom funerals, ventilator deaths, censorship and firings, masking children, rushed vaccines and injury/death, segregation by shot compliance, ruined household finances, substance abuse and suicide, lowered life expectancy, and the mass violation of the Bill of Rights.
All of this has become a great taboo even though it wrecked the country and the world, and the damage is all around us.
If enough people participate in a crime, it is made to disappear by all the commanding heights.
This way they never have to admit or apologize, and can do it all over again when the time comes.
https://brownstone.org/articles/letter-from-the-forbidden-land/
” ordering her to submit to a neuropsychological evaluation by a board-selected psychologist after she made a number of false COVID claims in a video interview and on her website.”
This is something straight out of the old Soviet Union playbook where they tried to declare dissidents “mentally ill”.
The problem is that she’s not a very sympathetic case. If it were just about HCQ and Ivermectin she would be on solid ground, but her case involves all kinds of idiocy that SHOULD get a professional license suspended — like falsifying patient records, prescribing medications for patients without examining them, etc.
Thanks.
Hopefully, we will survive this B$ of where only our government thugs and the elites, who control them, can maim or kill us without worry.
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