Appeals court rules government likely violated First Amendment in vaccine misinformation campaign

[Social Media]

 

 

A U.S. appeals court on Friday ruled several government entities including the White House, the FBI, the Surgeon General and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention likely violated the First Amendment by pressuring social media companies to moderate their content on misinformation surrounding vaccines.

In a decision issued Friday evening, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals said government actors “likely coerced or encouraged” social media companies to moderate their content, affirming a decision by a lower court with respect to the White House, the FBI, the CDC and the Surgeon General. The three judges issuing the decision were all appointed by Republicans.

The decision represents a significant win for conservatives who have long argued the government has gone too far in pressuring social media companies to make content decisions in lockstep with government opinion.

At the same time, the court largely vacated an injunction by a lower court that prohibited the government from contacting social media companies about their content, ruling the previous injunction was both too broad and vague.

It issued a modified injunction that prohibits parts of the government from coercing or significantly encouraging a social media platform’s content moderation decisions. It said this conduct would include threats of adverse consequences, even if those threats were not verbalized or did not materialize, “so long as a reasonable person would construe a government’s message as alluding to some form of punishment.”

 

FULL STORY

[ding]

I'm fully vaccinated and not antivax. And I did see a misinformation campaign but the accusers were the guilty party.

 

A drug with a decades-long great safety record, which was used by millions, was under a quasi ban for use off-label. The reported danger was sudden death from heart arrhythmia. In America, both political parties fell in line but not due to science, due to politics. Stupid.

 

I won't name the medicine because there's such a hysteria over just saying the word, but it seemed effective in early co vid variants. 

 

The medicine's real problem was not heart arrhythmia but an expired patent - no firm makes billions. In fact, studies show it was actually Remdesivir that can cause arrhythmia and bradycardia (low heart rate). But at $1k a pill, it's okay!

 

When some truths come out, and I optimistically think they will, it might get interesting.

[300sd]

32 minutes ago, ding said:

When some truths come out, and I optimistically think they will, it might get interesting.

The truth was out long ago. It's just that many didn't want to hear it.

[ding]

5 minutes ago, 300sd said:

The truth was out long ago. It's just that many didn't want to hear it.

Fact. If a goof like me knew some stuff, makes me suspicious how CNN etc could NOT know. 

[ozimoron]

This will be defeated at a further appeal given that the lies cause actual harm to public safety.

[ding]

1 hour ago, ozimoron said:

This will be defeated at a further appeal given that the lies cause actual harm to public safety.

Do we even know which are the lies without unbiased investigations?

[Danderman123]

On 9/9/2023 at 11:30 AM, ding said:

I'm fully vaccinated and not antivax. And I did see a misinformation campaign but the accusers were the guilty party.

 

A drug with a decades-long great safety record, which was used by millions, was under a quasi ban for use off-label. The reported danger was sudden death from heart arrhythmia. In America, both political parties fell in line but not due to science, due to politics. Stupid.

 

I won't name the medicine because there's such a hysteria over just saying the word, but it seemed effective in early co vid variants. 

 

The medicine's real problem was not heart arrhythmia but an expired patent - no firm makes billions. In fact, studies show it was actually Remdesivir that can cause arrhythmia and bradycardia (low heart rate). But at $1k a pill, it's okay!

 

When some truths come out, and I optimistically think they will, it might get interesting.

Could you share some clinical studies that demonstrate efficacy of your miracld drug?

 

Interestingly, more recent clinical trials of Ivermectin show about 0% efficacy in use against Covid.

 

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2801827

 

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9974046/

 

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2207995

 

Ivermectin seems to be the medical equivalent of Cold Fusion - the crappier the test, the better the results.

 

[impulse]

On 9/9/2023 at 10:15 AM, ding said:

Fact. If a goof like me knew some stuff, makes me suspicious how CNN etc could NOT know. 

Seems like the new CDC director has admitted that they lost the public's trust, and they're doing their best to get it back. 

 

A good start would be to detail what they actually screwed up to lose the trust...

 

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/09/16/cdc-director-public-trust-00116348

[retarius]

On 9/9/2023 at 10:30 AM, ozimoron said:

This will be defeated at a further appeal given that the lies cause actual harm to public safety.

It won't be appealed. Doctors have always been able to prescribe whatever they wish and the FDA, CDC or NIH have no mandate to tell doctors what to prescribe. 

[ozimoron]

24 minutes ago, retarius said:

It won't be appealed. Doctors have always been able to prescribe whatever they wish and the FDA, CDC or NIH have no mandate to tell doctors what to prescribe. 

That's not right. It's illegal for a doctor to prescribe a drug for a condition which is not approved for that condition.

[Danderman123]

On 9/9/2023 at 12:08 PM, 300sd said:

The truth was out long ago. It's just that many didn't want to hear it.

What truth is that?

 

Covid was a Chinese designed bioweapon, or it was a hoax, or both?

[dhupverg]

On 9/14/2023 at 8:47 PM, Danderman123 said:

Could you share some clinical studies that demonstrate efficacy of your miracld drug?

 

Interestingly, more recent clinical trials of Ivermectin show about 0% efficacy in use against Covid.

 

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2801827

 

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9974046/

 

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2207995

 

Ivermectin seems to be the medical equivalent of Cold Fusion - the crappier the test, the better the results.

 

Amazing how so many other studies from around the world that are not paid nor captured came up with quite different results.

 

https://c19ivm.org

 

https://c19ivm.org/meta.html

 

 

[Danderman123]

21 hours ago, dhupverg said:

Amazing how so many other studies from around the world that are not paid nor captured came up with quite different results.

 

https://c19ivm.org

 

https://c19ivm.org/meta.html

 

 

This is mostly a re-hash of long descredited clinical trials.

 

There is one citation of a possible benefit of Ivermectin for heart-related Covid symptoms, but has yet to be validated by similar trials.

 

This is the problem with providing a citation for a single trial and claiming it as "proof". Anyone can run a single trial and claim whatever outcome they want. Validation by independent duplicate trials is key to establishing proof.

Edited September 19, 2023 by Danderman123

[impulse]

14 minutes ago, Danderman123 said:

This is mostly a re-hash of long descredited clinical trials.

 

There is one citation of a possible benefit of Ivermectin for heart-related Covid symptoms, but has yet to be validated by similar trials.

 

This is the problem with providing a citation for a single trial and claiming it as "proof". Anyone can run a single trial and claim whatever outcome they want. Validation by independent duplicate trials is key to establishing proof.

That's not a single study.  It's a meta study where they looked at the results of many studies (at least 99 different ones according to the table), covering at least 137,000 patients.

 

You're confusing discredited with squelched.  Which is what this whole thread is about...

 

 

[Danderman123]

46 minutes ago, impulse said:

That's not a single study.  It's a meta study where they looked at the results of many studies (at least 99 different ones according to the table), covering at least 137,000 patients.

 

You're confusing discredited with squelched.  Which is what this whole thread is about...

 

 

The meta study cites multiple studies.

 

I saw some cites for bad studies, ie where selection of patients was not random, not double blind, sample size too small, etc.

 

Ironically, the same people who claim CDC has no credibility rely on crappy clinical trials.

[LosLobo]

It is not extraordinary nor unreasonable for the US Government to restrict First Amendment rights during emergencies, such as they did during the Civil War, WWI, the Spanish Flu and WW2.

 

What is sad is that the conservative led attack on medical science killed 200k Americans, with COVID antivax conspiracy theories alone.

 

This OP suggests that the Republicans are not done with this carnage, in their cultural war against science to maintain power.

 

'200,000 Americans needlessly perished, because they believed the anti-vaccine disinformation and refused to take a COVID vaccine during Delta wave and BA.1 Omicron wave in 2021-22 after vaccines were widely available'. Peter Hotez

 

Dr. Peter Hotez on the anti-science movement and declining Joe Rogan’s debate challenge | AMA Update Video | AMA (ama-assn.org)

 

Edited September 19, 2023 by LosLobo

[Eleftheros]

Dr Peter Hotez is probably the least credible of all the US government health spokesmen, a remarkable achievement in itself.

 

Instead of finding dangerous anti-vaxxers to contradict, he spends all his time contradicting himself.

 

 

[rabas]

On 9/17/2023 at 4:53 PM, ozimoron said:

That's not right. It's illegal for a doctor to prescribe a drug for a condition which is not approved for that condition.

Dead wrong on that. See what the FDA says:

 

"From the FDA perspective, once the FDA approves a drug, healthcare providers generally may prescribe the drug for an unapproved use when they judge that it is medically appropriate for their patient."