TUCSON, Ariz., Oct. 22, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons Educational Foundation (“AAPS”) filed on Monday an expansion to its federal lawsuit against the Biden Administration and board-certifying organizations that threatened to, and sometimes have, revoked board certifications of physicians based on their outspokenness on matters of public policy.
Physicians who advocated using ivermectin to treat COVID-19 have, for example, been retaliated against by revocation of their board certifications. In addition, a board-certified witness was testifying against abortion at a congressional hearing when she was threatened with retaliation against her board certification, the Amended Complaint states.
The lawsuit has been joined by three physicians victimized by such retaliation.
“Using nearly identical terminology and timing, Defendants have acted in an apparently coordinated manner to attain their common objective of censorship based on viewpoint,” AAPS states in its Amended Complaint. Defendants are the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM), the American Board of Obstetrics & Gynecology (ABOG), the American Board of Family Medicine (ABFM) and the Biden Administration.
In this precedent-setting lawsuit, AAPS seeks to establish that ABIM, ABOG, and ABFM have engaged in “state action” in threatening or revoking physicians’ board certifications, which are necessary to practice medicine in most hospitals. AAPS sets forth in its court filings multiple ways in which these board-certifying organizations should be deemed to be state actors, and thus prohibited by the First Amendment from discriminating based on viewpoint.
“This new form of censorship is more dangerous than prior infringements on freedom of speech,” AAPS’s attorney Andrew Schlafly observes. “The Biden Administration has also wrongly caused social media platforms to take down postings and videos.”
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled on June 3 in this case that there is a constitutional right to hear which is fully protected by the First Amendment. “When physicians are silenced by threats to revoke their board certification, that infringes on the constitutional right to hear what they have to say,” Mr. Schlafly added.
AAPS Educational Foundation’s lawsuit is pending in U.S. District Court in Galveston, No. 3:22-cv-240.
The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons Educational Foundation sponsors conferences and subsidizes students’ attendance.
Contact: Andrew Schlafly, (908) 719-8608, aschlafly@aol.com, or Jane M. Orient, M.D., (520) 323-3110, janeorientmd@gmail.com
