Court finds IMA President Emeritus, Senior Fellow likely to prevail on First Amendment claim against California medical regulators
In a major victory for medical freedom and the First Amendment, a federal judge has barred California officials from investigating, prosecuting, or punishing Independent Medical Alliance President Emeritus Dr. Pierre Kory, Senior Fellow Dr. Brian Tyson, and other doctors because their medical opinions about COVID-19 differ from positions promoted by government public health authorities.
“It’s hard to believe that years later, states are still trying to silence and punish doctors for their very accurate statements about COVID, but here we are,” said Dr. Brian Tyson, an IMA Senior Fellow and a plaintiff in this case.
The preliminary injunction, issued August 5 by Senior U.S. District Judge William B. Shubb in the case Kory v. Bonta, found that Kory, Tyson, and their fellow physician plaintiffs are “likely to succeed on their claim that California’s policy constitutes unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination.”
The ruling prevents California Attorney General Rob Bonta and the state’s medical licensing boards from using their disciplinary authority to target these doctors because of the COVID information, recommendations, or medical advice they provide to patients.
“This is a victory for every doctor who believes that medicine must be guided by evidence, clinical judgment, and the needs of the individual patient, not by government-approved talking points,” continued Tyson. “For years, physicians who challenged the official COVID narrative faced the threat of investigations, professional discipline and the loss of their livelihoods.”
“This ruling sends a powerful message that the government does not get to decide which medical opinions doctors are allowed to express.”
California previously enacted AB 2098, which authorized discipline of physicians for certain COVID-related statements deemed “misinformation.” After intense constitutional challenges, and the fact that the so-called “misinformation” was found to be accurate, while government official statements were found to be false, the law was repealed effective January 1, 2024.
Even so, California continued attempting to punish these doctors through its broader medical licensing and “standard of care” authority. Judge Shubb rejected the argument that the government can evade the First Amendment merely by characterizing a physician’s speech as “professional conduct.”
The court concluded that California’s policy appeared to prohibit physicians from expressing COVID perspectives disfavored by state regulators and therefore was likely subject to the Constitution’s most demanding level of judicial review.
“This case exposes one of the most troubling abuses of the COVID era: government officials attempting to police scientific debate by threatening the licenses of doctors who disagreed with them,” said Dr. Joseph Varon, President and Chief Medical Officer of the Independent Medical Alliance. “Science advances through questioning, debate and the willingness to challenge conventional thinking. It cannot survive when government bureaucracies are empowered to decide which medical opinions may be spoken.”
In its ruling, the court specifically recognized evidence that California’s enforcement policies had caused Tyson and others to censor their public statements out of concern that expressing their medical views could trigger additional investigations or threaten their medical licenses.
“The chilling effect was the point,” Tyson said. “When doctors know that questioning the government could cost them their careers, many will remain silent. Patients ultimately pay the price.”
The injunction prohibits California officials from targeting these doctors based on the viewpoint of their COVID-related medical advice, including simply because that advice differs from positions adopted by public-health agencies, and draws a critical constitutional line: medical regulators cannot use licensing power as a weapon to suppress disfavored medical speech.
“This fight has always been bigger than COVID,” Varon said. “It is about whether physicians answer first to their patients and the evidence, or to government authorities demanding ideological conformity. These doctors stood their ground, and this ruling is an important victory for every physician willing to do the same.”
The injunction applies to Kory, Tyson, and the other physician plaintiffs while the litigation proceeds. The case has not yet reached a final judgment.
