State Legislature Passes Bill Restricting Pharmacist Speech About Ivermectin and Hydroxycholoroquine
From a Missouri bill (HB 2149), which is apparently now heading to the Governor for approval or veto:
A pharmacist shall not contact the prescribing physician or the patient to dispute the efficacy of ivermectin tablets or hydroxychloroquine sulfate tablets for human use unless the physician or patient inquires of the pharmacist about the efficacy of ivermectin tablets or hydroxychloroquine sulfate tablets.
Seems to me like an unconstitutional speech restriction. To be sure, the government may restrict professional-client speech in some situations where it can’t restrict it in other contexts. (Consider the fact that some speaking professions, such as psychotherapy, may require a license in the first place, or that giving negligent professional opinions or predictions to a client may be malpractice even if a newspaper columnist or blogger can’t be sued for such speech.) Nonetheless, courts have recognized that professional-client speech is indeed entitled to considerable constitutional protection, see, e.g., Wollschlaeger v. Governor (11th Cir. 2017) (en banc). To quote the Supreme Court’s opinion in NIFLA v. Becerra (2018),
The dangers associated with content-based regulations of speech are also present in the context of p
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