TUCSON, Ariz., Dec. 18, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- In its latest filing with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons Educational Foundation (AAPS) strongly objects to the censorship imposed by the Biden Administration and by medical boards against physicians who speak out about COVID policies.
AAPS’s Dec 14 filing quotes a recent prior decision by this same Fifth Circuit when it held that: “Today we reject the idea that corporations have a freewheeling First Amendment right to censor what people say.” Netchoice v. Paxton, 49 F.4th 439, 445 (5th Cir. 2022) (on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court).
Medical boards control “board certification,” which physicians need to practice medicine in hospitals and participate in insurance networks. Revoking board certification based on public statements by physicians, such as how best to respond to COVID-19, harms many thousands of patients.
“Colleges do not revoke diplomas after someone graduates, based on what that person says politically,” observes AAPS counsel, Andrew Schlafly. “So why are medical boards retaliating against physicians based on a disagreement with their public statements?”
AAPS is also suing the Biden Administration for dispersing rather than ending its censorship activities when it discontinued its failed Disinformation Governance Board. AAPS seeks disclosure of documents by the Biden Administration under the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) concerning its censorship activities.
“The Biden Administration should be fully transparent about how it attempts to control and limit what can be said on the internet,” Andrew Schlafly observes. “It should release to the public all of its documents concerning its internal recommendations to disband its Disinformation Governance Board.”
“In a curious legal twist, FACA may apply more broadly to the Biden Administration’s censorship campaign if federal workers left their offices early on the day the DGB was disbanded, to beat the afternoon commute in D.C., which starts sooner than in most cities,” Mr. Schlafly adds based on his filed brief.
This pending appeal is captioned AAPS v. ABIM, ABOG, ABFM, and Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary, U.S. Department of Homeland Security (Fifth Circuit No. 23-40423).
The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons Educational Foundation is a sponsor of national conferences featuring presentations on controversial topics, and is also active in providing information over the internet.
Contact: Andrew Schlafly, Esq., (908) 719-8608, aschlafly@aol.com
