(NewsNation) — NBA legend John Stockton is suing the Washington State Office of the Attorney General and the Washington Medical Commission, challenging a pandemic policy that disciplines doctors who spread alleged misinformation.
Stockton and other plaintiffs argue the state’s disciplinary policy for doctors spreading COVID misinformation is unconstitutional and doctors’ free-speech rights were violated because they spoke “against the mainstream COVID narrative.”
“The goal of the lawsuit is to stop the way Washington Medical Commission from investigating, prosecuting or sanctioning physicians for speaking out in public against the CDC in the mainstream COVID narrative,” Rick Jaffe, one of Stockton’s attorneys on the case, told NewsNation.
Stockton, the lead plaintiff in the suit, is joined by two retired doctors, including Richard Eggleston, who were sanctioned in Washington. The Children’s Health Defense, a nonprofit founded by presidential candidate and attorney Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is also a plaintiff. Kennedy is listed as one of the plaintiffs’ lawyers.
The suit states the defendants investigated, prosecuted and/or sanctioned approximately 60 physicians since September 2021, USA Today reports.
Additionally, the suit states the doctors in question were harmed by the commission’s decision to charge them with professional misconduct, in that they were no longer able to post opinion columns spreading the misinformation for the Lewiston Tribune and the AmericanThinker.com website, The Salt Lake Tribune reports.
Eggleston, a retired ophthalmologist, is being investigated by the Washington Medical Commission for what the suit calls “the public dissemination of information contrary to the government-approved COVID narrative,” according to KXLY.
Eggleston had an active medical license when his opinion columns were published in the Lewiston Tribune questioning the existence of COVID-19 and the accuracy of COVID-19 death counts.
The Washington Medical Commission served notice on COVID misinformation in 2021, warning that “treatments and recommendations regarding this disease that fall below standard of care as established by medical experts, federal authorities and legitimate medical research are potentially subject to disciplinary action.”
The commission disciplined an Illinois doctor who, via telemedicine, prescribed four Washington patients ivermectin.
Jaffe said the suit is ultimately about free speech, suggesting the courts would decide that the government has “no rule” in stopping licensed medical professionals from “voicing their opinion on public.”
“If the medical commission wants to say you can’t prescribe ivermectin, that’s sort of within the heartland of what medical boards can do,” he said. “But in this country, we do not have a tradition or a history of sanctioning people, professionals, for speaking out in public against what the government says is true doctrine. This is the first time they’ve ever tried to do this.”
Stockton has criticized COVID policies since the height of the pandemic. In 2022, the University of Gonzaga suspended Stockton’s season tickets for reducing to comply with the university’s mask mandate.
“I couldn’t sit across from all these students, these young people, who were being forced to be vaccinated against their will and forced to wear masks when I know both are very unhealthy,” Stockton said.
NewsNation contacted the Attorney General’s office and the state’s medical commission for a statement but has not received any response.
