Ron DeSantis: 'We're Gonna Do the Opposite of California'

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) made it clear on Wednesday that Florida will not follow California in the blue state’s pursuit of penalizing doctors who spread what officials consider to be “false” information on the Chinese coronavirus.

The Golden State’s legislature this week passed a measure seeking to punish doctors who spread what officials deem to be misinformation on the Chinese coronavirus. According to the New York Times, the law “would designate spreading false or misleading medical information to patients as ‘unprofessional conduct,’ subject to punishment by the agency that licenses doctors, the Medical Board of California.”

Florida, DeSantis said, will do no such thing as the legislature hopes to expand protections for doctors pursuing “evidence-based” medicine.

“Honestly, we may be forced to do that because if you see what they’re trying to do in California, they’re gonna penalize physicians who say something that the government deems to be misinformation now,” DeSantis said, explaining that it is a “chilling” move, given how many things regarding the coronavirus — touted by the medical establishment at one point or another — have been inaccurate.

“Just think about how chilling that is because a lot of the things that have been accurate about Covid for example were once deemed by government bureaucracies to be misinformation,” he said, listing a few examples.

“You know, I would say very early on if you’ve recovered from COVID you have protection because of that prior infection, and they would say, ‘Oh DeSantis is saying this, experts disagree.’ They say the vax has more protection. Nonsense,” he said, pointing to clinical trials showing that those with prior infection had stronger immunity than those who received an mRNA vaccine.

Florida was also among the first to talk about the need to have schools back open — another issue among the medical establishment at the time.

“Oh my gosh, do you remember what they were saying about me?” he asked, remembering protesters in Miami “bringing hearses out to protest the fact that we had kids in school.”
They were trying to tell parents their kids were going to die by going to school. That was a lie then. Everybody knew that,” he said, also pointing to the original claims that the vaccines would prevent virus infection.

“They told us that, and so that was misinformation,” he said.

“And so you had a lot of physicians over the last two you years who have been right on this stuff, but they dissented from orthodoxy and they dissented from the medical establishment and so therefore they were pilloried,” he said, noting that state Surgeon General Joe Ladapo is among those who has been attacked.

Nevertheless, DeSantis made it clear that the state, under his leadership, will do the “opposite” of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) California.

“What we’re gonna do though, and we should have done this last this past legislative session, we had some hiccups with a couple of people in the legislature, but we should–  we’re gonna do the opposite of California,” he said.

“We’re not going to do something where someone gets penalized for saying what the government thinks is misinformation. We’re gonna protect people right to practice and be able to do an evidence-based medicine,” the governor said. “Just because some woke association is saying one thing that does not mean that you are bound by that when you have the evidence and the data supporting you on the other side.”

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