COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine delayed Thursday vetoed part of a bill that state lawmakers viewed as protecting the medical freedom of speech of doctors and other health care professionals, from Republican Gov but says it would “completely undermine” the state’s ability to regulate wrongdoing.
DeWine maintained another provision of the bill that allows law enforcement agencies to charge up to $75 an hour for police body camera video, despite objections from open-government groups including the American Civil Liberties Union and NAACP.
DeWine’s veto of the health-related language comes as Republican President-elect Donald Trump prepares to nominate anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the nation’s health agencies and as national disagreements over medical science continue to grow in the wake of the COVID crisis still smoldering -19 pandemic.
DeWine said in a veto notice that medical oversight language added to the bill could have had “devastating and deadly consequences on patient health.”
“Ohio’s medical licensing boards exist to protect patients and the public from bad actors in the medical field,” he wrote. He said health professionals who provide harmful medical care should not be given “legal protection” to avoid responsibility by “saying there are different ‘medical opinions’.”
Ohio lawmakers passed House Bill 315 around 2 a.m. last month on the final night of their lame-duck session. This was after they turned it into a “Christmas tree bill” that was full of controversial points from other pending legislation. DeWine also vetoed other provisions of the 325-page bill that would have created modern exceptions to the ethics law and dealt with court reporters.
The Ohio Ethics Commission praised his veto of the ethics exemptions, which Executive Director Paul Nick said in a statement would have “significantly weakened” the state’s ethics law by allowing mayors and other executives to exercise interests in public contracts of the public agencies they oversee to have .
Still, the section on medical freedom would probably have had the most far-reaching impact. It called for prohibiting the Ohio Department of Health and the state’s pharmacy and medical boards from disciplining pharmacists or other licensed health care professionals for “publicly or privately expressing a medical opinion that is inconsistent with the “opinions” of a state or County or city health department.
Still, DeWine left a provision in the bill declaring Ohio outside the jurisdiction of the World Health Organization, the United Nations’ health agency.
DeWine was among three Republican governors who did not sign a letter her 24 GOP colleagues sent to the Biden administration in May opposing the WHO’s draft proposal for responding to the next global pandemic. They argued the “pandemic deal” would strip governors of their health powers and give the WHO unprecedented powers on U.S. soil. These claims were debunked, but a backlash of various kinds ultimately derailed the global agreement.
Ohio Advocates for Medical Freedom, a nonpartisan group that has worked for years to advance a constitutional amendment limiting vaccine mandates imposed by businesses, health care providers and governments, supported the vetoed medical freedom of speech provision.
His campaign coincided with DeWine twice vetoing legislation during the pandemic that he said would have impaired the state’s ability to issue emergency health orders. In December 2020, lawmakers failed to override his first veto, but the following March they managed to restore a weaker version of the law.
The medical freedom group has downplayed any role the Sherri Tenpenny case played in implementing the latest medical free speech proposal.
Tenpenny, an osteopathic doctor from Ohio, gained national attention when a video of her June 2021 testimony to state lawmakers that COVID-19 vaccines made people magnetic was posted online. She suspected that coronavirus vaccines could cause people to “talk” to cell towers and disrupt women’s menstrual cycles.
The state medical board, which regulates doctors and can penalize them for making false or misleading medical statements, launched an investigation into the matter after receiving about 350 complaints. The board revoked Tenpenny’s license to practice medicine in 2023 after she refused to cooperate, including refusing to meet with investigators, answer written questions or attend a deposition.
Tenpenny has since agreed to pay a $3,000 fine and cooperate with investigators. Her driver’s license was reinstated earlier this year.
