Physicians Spreading Medical Misinformation: The Suitability of Regulation with Richard Saver

Add to Calendar: Add to Calendar: 2024-09-30 12:00:00 2024-09-30 13:00:00 Physicians Spreading Medical Misinformation: The Suitability of Regulation with Richard Saver Event Description Physicians have played a surprisingly prominent role in the current “infodemic” of false and misleading medical claims. Disturbing examples include certain physicians publicly discrediting vaccination and others promoting ineffective Covid-19 treatments such as ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. Because they can “weaponize” their white coats, physicians pose especially potent dangers when spreading misinformation to the general public. As a result, there have been widespread calls for legal action, above all increased discipline by state medical boards. Richard Saver’s lecture will discuss the prevalence of physician-spread misinformation and the associated harms. Pushing back against the widespread criticism of medical boards for insufficient action, he will question the suitability of medical board oversight. Medical boards have unclear legal authority to regulate physicians’ communications outside a doctor-patient relationship for several reasons, including physicians’ First Amendment rights and limited statutory authority. Institutional design limitations, such as resource constraints and uptake procedures, also hinder medical boards ability to respond effectively. Moreover, because of the difficulty in defining medical misinformation with precision, serious risks arise of regulatory overreach. Saver will review data on recent disciplinary actions by medical boards and the policy implications. He will conclude with a brief discussion of regulatory alternatives to medical board oversight. Speaker Bio Richard Saver joined the Carolina Law faculty in 2010 and serves as the Arch T. Allen Distinguished Professor of Law. He is also professor (secondary appointment) in the Department of Social Medicine, UNC School of Medicine, and adjunct professor of health policy and management in the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. His teaching and research interests include health law, torts and nonprofit organizations. He has authored scholarship in law reviews, medical journals, book chapters and other interdisciplinary publications. His co-authored book, Health Law and Bioethics: Cases in Context, a behind-the-scenes look at the leading cases in the annals of health law, was published by Aspen Publishers. Saver received the UNC School of Law’s Chadbourn Award for Excellence in Scholarship (2012) for his law review article on health care reform and comparative effectiveness research. In addition, Saver received the UNC School of Law’s Robert G. Byrd Award (2015-2016) for Excellence and Creativity in Teaching.  Saver received his B.A. summa cum laude from Harvard University in History and Science (Biology) and his J.D. with distinction from Stanford Law School. He was a member of the Stanford Law Review. After law school, he clerked for Judge Eugene Wright of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. Saver practiced in the health law department of McDermott, Will & Emery in Washington, D.C. He then served as associate general counsel for the University of Chicago Medical Center, working on a variety of regulatory, transactional and patient-care issues. At the University of Chicago, he also served as counsel to the University’s human subjects research review committee (the Institutional Review Board)and lectured on health law topics. Case Western Reserve University School of Law George Gund Hall Room A59, Moot Courtroom 11075 East Blvd., Cleveland, OH 44106 School of Law School of Law America/New_York public