The best and most well-trained doctors are leaving the state of California or shutting down their practice now that Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed Assembly Bill (AB) 2098 into law, according to a past gubernatorial candidate.
“They’re going out of the country or having a practice out of state where they're permitted to still have an opinion,” said Daniel Mercuri who campaigned for governor this year but did not advance out of the primary. “That leaves people in California with government medicine, which is the worst because anything that government touches, they destroy.”
AB 2098, also known as the medical misinformation law, strips physicians of their license to practice if they prescribe treatments with off-label drugs that are unapproved by the state.
“That totally obliterates the First Amendment,” Mercuri said. “Doctors should have a right to have an opposing opinion. That's what makes science great. It looks to me that, aside from being a puppet, Gov. Newsom does not care what is constitutional or not.”
As previously reported in the Southern California Record, AB 2098 classifies perceived disinformation as unprofessional conduct.
“It sounds like communism to me,” Mercuri told the Southern California Record. “If you say anything against the government in China, they arrest people and imprison them or sentence them to death. So, how are we not seeing this?”
Mercuri was among Newsom's challengers during the 2021 recall election.
The retired Navy veteran, who plans to run again for governor in 2026, also took issue with SB 107, which Newsom signed into law last week.
“This is really diabolical because this next generation that will be raised on hormone blockers and that doesn't want to identify with what nature has provided them to be, whether it’s male or female, then this country, in and of itself, is going to be so broken apart that it will be easy pickings for any country to come in and destroy this nation,” he said.
Supported by Planned Parenthood and sponsored by Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), SB 107 would protect and prevent the criminalization of parents who allow their children to use puberty blockers and undergo gender reassignment surgery.
“This is highly irregular,” Mercuri added. “If you start blocking a child's growth, then you're going to create a generation of truly confused and maniacal children who have no sense or compass of direction of what they should do or what they can do.”
But Weiner said the law is needed to push back against anti-LGBTQ hatred.
"The rainbow wave is real, and it’s coming," Weiner said in a statement online. "Thank you, Governor Newsom, for standing with our community.”