The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected an attempt by Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine group founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to protect doctors being investigated in Washington state for allegedly spreading misinformation about the Covid-19 virus.
The emergency application was denied by Justice Elena Kagan on behalf of the court.
“We hope that one day the Supreme Court will clearly state that the Constitution does not permit the government to sanction the public viewpoint speech of physicians,” Rick Jaffe, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said.
Kennedy, whom President-elect Donald Trump intends to nominate as the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, was listed as one of the lawyers on the application.
Kennedy’s group and other plaintiffs claim that any investigations seeking to sanction doctors for their views on the virus would violate free speech rights under the Constitution’s First Amendment.
Lower courts, including the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, declined to impose injunctions blocking investigations led by the Washington Medical Commission.
“The enforcement actions not only chill speech but also deprive the public of critical viewpoints necessary for informed debate, especially during a public health crisis,” Kennedy and his fellow lawyers wrote in court papers.
The Supreme Court did not ask the state to file a response to the application, suggesting that it was deemed lacking in legal merit.
Two doctors subject to investigations, Richard Eggleston and Thomas Siler, had joined Kennedy’s group in asking the court to weigh in.
During the pandemic, Eggleston and Siler spread false information about the virus, saying among other things that vaccines were ineffective, a federal judge wrote in declining to impose an injunction.
