A federal judge in California has blocked a new law that would have penalized doctors and other health care workers in that state who spread “disinformation” about Covid and its treatments that deviates from the “contemporary scientific consensus.”

Judge William Shubb granted a motion for a preliminary injunction in the case, Høeg et al v. Newsom et al, blocking implementation of California Assembly bill 2098, which was signed into law by Governor Newsom in September and empowered the Medical Board of California to sanction doctors who stray from the conventional Covid orthodoxy.

In his ruling, Judge Shubb said the phrase “contemporary scientific consensus” is vague and lacks any clearly established definition, enough so that the law puts the physicians in the position of not knowing whether they are breaking it.

“Drawing a line between what is true and what is settled by scientific consensus is difficult, if not impossible,” the judge said. “Because COVID-19 is such a new and evolving area of scientific study, it may be hard to determine which scientific conclusions are ‘false’ at a given point in time.”

When he signed the measure, Mr. Newsom said the law was aimed at protecting patients. It empowered the state’s Medical Board, which includes non-medical professionals, to revoke the licenses of doctors accused of feeding misinformation and disinformation about Covid and its treatments.

The bill defined “misinformation” as “false information that is contradicted by contemporary scientific consensus contrary to the standard of care,” and “disinformation” as misinformation provided with “malicious intent or an intent to mislead.”

Critics of the bill said it was potentially disastrous for medical practitioners, and would exacerbate the state’s already severe shortage of medical workers. Doctors were likely to flee the state rather than subject themselves to the vagaries of the law and its enforcers on the Medical Board.

The plaintiffs in the Høeg case, a group of five doctors represented by the New Civil Liberties Alliance, claimed that the law violated their First Amendment rights to free speech and expression as well as their 14th Amendment rights to due process. Because the judge sided with the plaintiffs on the 14th Amendment challenge, he did not rule on the cases’s First Amendment implications. Other physicians in the state have sued to block the law as well, but Wednesday’s decision from Judge Shubb is the first ruling among those cases.

A senior litigator for the New Civil Liberties Alliance, a nonprofit founded by Philip Hamburger to safeguard constitutional liberties, Greg Dolin, said the speed at which Judge Shubb ruled in the case demonstrates the significance of the constitutional problems created by the bill.   

“This Act is a blatant attempt to silence doctors whose views, though based on thorough scientific research, deviate from the government-approved ‘party line,’” Mr. Dolin said. “At no point has the State of California been able to articulate the line between permissible and impermissible speech, further illustrating how problematic the statute is.”