A new escalation in the war on what governments deem to be medical mis-, dis- and mal-information appears to be under way.
To begin, a couple of important caveats: First, I came to this story late, having only heard about it yesterday afternoon. As such, I have not been able to get as deep into the undergrowth as I would have liked. Plus, it is about France, a country that is not my bailiwick and whose language I am not nearly as versed in as I am in English (my mother tongue) or Spanish (my second language). In addition, at the heart of this story is draft legislation Macron’s government is determined to bulldoze into law, and I am even less versed in legalese than I am in the French language. Now, I’m having to put the two of them together.
That all being said, this is a story that I believe needs reporting, for the simple fact that if the French government is successful in criminalising criticism of medical treatments, its approach could be replicated by other governments in Europe. But given the time pressures, there are likely to be some big gaps in this summary. Even more than usual, the input of members of the Commentariat, especially those of you living in France and/or with knowledge of the inner workings of the French political and legal system, is most welcome. Now, to the story.
On Wednesday (Feb 14), France’s Chamber of Deputies passed new legislation aimed at intensifying the crackdown on what the Macron government calls “sectarian abuses-” Contained within that legislation is an article (#4) that essentially seeks to make it criminal, and punishable with jail, for any person or organisation to encourage other people to abandon or abstain from receiving medical care or treatment. Here’s the first paragraph (machine translated) of the article’s original text, which has since been tweaked (more on that later):
Incitement to abandon or abstain from following therapeutic or prophylactic medical treatment is punishable with one year of imprisonment and a fine of 15,000 euros, when this abandonment or abstention is presented as beneficial for the health of the persons targeted when in reality it is, according to medical guidelines, clearly likely to be detrimental for their physical or psychological health, taking into account the condition from which they suffer.
Second paragraph:
Incitement to adopt practices presented as having a therapeutic or prophylactic purpose for the persons concerned is punishable by the same penalties when it is clear, according to established medical guidelines, that these practices expose the persons to an immediate risk of death, or injuries likely to result in mutilation or permanent disability.
Third:
When the provocation provided for in the first two paragraphs has had an effect, the penalties are increased to three years’ imprisonment and a fine of 45,000 euros.
Fourth and last:
When these offences are committed through the written or audiovisual press, the specific provisions of the laws which govern these matters are applicable with regard to the determination of the persons responsible.
The new offence seeks to “facilitate the prosecution and repression of behaviour that could seriously harm people’s health, without prohibiting the promotion of additional practices that fall within individual freedom,” according to Vie Publique, a website produced, edited and managed by the Directorate of Legal and Administrative Information.
The ostensible goal is to address the growing proliferation of non-professional practitioners within the alternative healthcare sector. Since the pandemic, the number of lifestyle gurus, naturopaths and other health coaches has mushroomed. Many of them have found success and even a certain amount of fame on social media. According to the government, some are putting their clients’ health at risk by distancing them from the public health system.
In response, the government proposes not only to escalate its war on alternative forms of medicine but also to apply a battering ram to three basic fundamental human rights: the rights to freedom of expression, bodily autonomy and bodily integrity. And it is applying the broadest possible brush by not specifying to whom the proposed article 4 may or may not apply to. It is not hard to discern the likely main target here: criticism of the COVID-19 vaccines, as the bill’s co-sponsor, Brigitte Liso, recently all but admitted (clarification in brackets my own):
“[A]fter the COVID-19 crisis, protest movements against public institutions and doctors, and the emergence of the famous anti-vaxxers, Miviludes [a French government agency charged with observing and analysing the phenomenon of cult movements and coordinating the government response] has seen the number of cases explode, often linked precisely to the subject of well-being, care and health. It became urgent to propose a law which creates a real crime.”
That crime is to incite people not to take certain “therapeutic or prophylactic medical treatments” or “adopt certain practices presented as having a therapeutic or prophylactic” effect that in reality does not have that effect. As readers will no doubt appreciate, signing these measures into law raises a host of ethical, professional and practical concerns.
For a start, recent history is littered with scandals regarding medical treatment in which public health authorities have found to be complicit. One such case is that of Mediator, a drug produced by Servier Laboratories that is believed to have caused the death of between 1,500 and 2,000 French people. The French National Agency for Medicines and Health Products Safety (ANSM) was fined 303,000 euros for negligence.
Other examples include Levothyrox, Dépakine, Distilbene, growth hormones, Isomeride, Vioxx and Thalidomide. All of these came to light thanks to whistle-blowers or painstaking research from journalists. With the passage of the new bill, in particular article four, similar such medical and scientific alerts, whether in the mainstream press, scientific journals or in the alternative media landscape, could be met with penalties including fines and even risk of imprisonment.
Without an open, informed debate, science can not properly function, as the NGO Bon Sens warned in a letter to the deputies (again, machine translated):
Constructive criticism and questioning of information are essential aspects of the scientific process , and this should be done transparently and respectfully. A scientific consensus only has value over a limited period and only if it takes into account divergent opinions. Science is an ongoing debate, and stifling this debate in the name of a false consensus amounts to killing both any progress or any corrective mechanism. It is the pluralism of ideas – and not censorship – that allows us to progress.
Faced with the abnormal and often illegal influence (known corrupt practices and conflicts of interest) of pharmaceutical laboratories in Public Health decisions, it is essential to preserve the safeguard of freedom of expression on these issues…
Remember, in the Covid-19 crisis…, the discourse of the health authorities [around vaccines] evolved from “safe and effective” toward a general recognition that vaccines ultimately did not protect against infection but only serious forms of illness and finally to the acknowledgement several months after the vaccine roll out that they could cause myocarditis and pericarditis, especially in young men,… or hemorrhagic menstrual disorders… potentially requiring hospitalisation in young women… At this time there is no certainty about the impact this may have had on their fertility.
None of this is to say that the problem of digital health charlatans does not exist (snake oil salesmen and -women have always existed and there can be no doubt that social media offers their present day ilk a lucrative market place), or that the problem is not serious. However, the government’s proposed solution is totally out of proportion to the scale of the problem. That’s not just my interpretation but also that of France’s Council of State, which acts both as legal adviser to the executive branch and as the supreme court for administrative justice.
In November, the Council concluded that the government has failed to demonstrate “the necessity for or the proportionality of these new legal offences”. It also noted that the undesirable behaviours the proposed law is supposed to tackled are “already amply covered” by existing criminal offences. What’s more, aiming to prevent the promotion of so-called “unconventional” healthcare practices in the press, on the internet and social media “constitutes an attack on the exercise of the freedom of expression, protected by Article 11 of the Declaration of 1789.”
The Council then hammered what should have been the final nail in article four’s coffin:
[The Council] also notes that the European Court of Human Rights deduces from Article 10 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms the freedom to accept or refuse specific medical treatment, or to choose another type of treatment, which is fundamental to controlling one’s own destiny and personal autonomy, in the absence of inappropriate pressure (see ECtHR, judgment no. 302/02 of June 10, 2010). Even though the legitimacy of the objective pursued by the bill is incontestable, the Council of State notes that it was not able, within the time limit set for the examination of the text, to develop a drafting given these criticisms. It therefore recommends that the provisions in question (articles four and five) are not retained.
The Macron government chose to ignore the recommendation. But when the bill was presented in the senate in December, an overwhelming majority heeded the court’s advice and rejected article 4. But when it reached the House of Deputies earlier this month, it was reinstated, only for a slim majority of deputies to vote against its inclusion this Tuesday. But even that was not enough to deter the Macron government. On Wednesday, it took it back to the floor and finally got it past. After falling at literally every hurdle, article 4 is closer than ever to becoming law.
But there is apparently good news. Before presenting the bill in the Chamber a second time, the language in article 4 was significantly watered down. The new text allegedly specifies that the incitement to abstain from following a course of treatment must be the result of sustained pressure on the patient. Also, any “incitement” will not count as an offence if it is “accompanied by clear and complete information on the potential health consequences” of taking or not taking a particular treatment, or if “the conditions in which the incitement was made do not call into question the [patient’s] free and informed consent.”
As Bon Sens notes, this will probably make it a lot harder to prove that a crime has been committed. But it is still early days. The law will now go to the Joint Commission and will have to return to the Assembly before being taken up by the Constitutional Court, where hopefully sanity will prevail. But the mere fact that Article 4 is still alive is deeply troubling. This is, to my knowledge, the first time an EU member government has gone from trying to get people systematically cancelled (or “de-ranked” or de-monetised) on social media for spreading what it deems to be medical mis, dis- or mal-information (one of the purposes of the EU’s Digital Services Act) to trying to systematically criminalise their actions.
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The Council of State will review this once it’s passed and strike down the offending provisions before the law is promulgated. This is a typical tactic of the Macron machine – total overkill and exaggeration to the point of panic in order to get what they really want promulgated and ultimately sneak in more than what the Council would ordinarily accept. I think they’re on to the scam at this point. The immigration law was the last straw. All that said, there’s a big problem with the unregulated practice of medicine in France (with most quacks paid in cash) so perhaps some heads need to roll.
The decline in the ability of the French health service to satisfy its ‘clients’ over the last decade or so, has led to dissatisfaction and increasing retirements of much needed experienced staff.
Much as they want to ensure that ‘private’ sector provision is kept at bay , a move towards at least similar to that in Spain is required.
Agreed about the Conseil Constitutionnel and their relationship to Macron’s current législative strategy.
It’s also worth noting that homeopathy is very very popular and legitimized by pharmacies in France.
Also…let’s call it “traditional medecine” practices are widespread and have deep roots outside of Paris. I live in a mostly rural area of central France and everybody here knows multiple people who they believe are able to do some variety of what we might call psychic healing or faith healing. They call it “cutting off the fire” or “abjuring the fire”, and it’s generally used to reduce serious pain in particular around burns, essentially through something like laying on hands and prayer or incantation. I have people in my extended family that are reputed for having this power and very reasonable rational people around me will call on their services. This was quite surprising for me as an American who generally relies on science and rationality as my ways of knowing, but in the way it’s integrated into the culture it seems generally harmless or even a nice thing to have around. There are generally understood taboos about asking for money for these healing sessions, and I don’t personally know anyone who thinks they are a replacement for traditional medicine (I’m sure they’re out there). After all, the placebo effect is a truly excellent acute pain treatment.
But, in any event, if people started thinking that the government was going to come after their very Catholic aunt who talks to angels and helps the local farmers when they get burned on a hot tractor engine (or whatever) we would be back in Yellow Vest territory. And for what? I don’t see it happening.
‘The words are the words’ as we used to have drilled into us at Union Conferences in the 1980’s and 1990’s. Advice designed to ensure that any motions submitted had no wriggle room for any adverse interpretations.
In terms of the established legal principles of precedent; on what has been presented thus far in regards to this proposed French legislation there exists some problematic blow back wriggle room potential in certain contexts.
For example; A current topic of of animated discussion here in the UK concerns the policy in the NHS of replacing medically skilled and trained doctors with lower paid, untrained, and insufficiently skilled staff.
See here: https://skwawkbox.org/2024/02/13/merseysiders-protest-government-moves-to-replace-skilled-medics-with-less-skilled/
Point being that:
“Incitement to abandon or abstain from following therapeutic or prophylactic medical treatment”;
“Incitement to adopt practices presented as having a therapeutic or prophylactic purpose for the persons concerned is punishable by the same penalties when it is clear, according to established medical guidelines, that these practices expose the persons to an immediate risk of death, or injuries likely to result in mutilation or permanent disability.”
etc. do not specify who and who is not included in such behaviours [unless such information is not included in this article].
The argument of those opposed to the downgrading of skilled medical provision in the UK is that it will have a detrimental effect on health outcomes. Possibly even to the extent of meeting the definition of “practices [which] expose the persons to an immediate risk of death, or injuries likely to result in mutilation or permanent disability.”
To have such legal provisions enshrined in legislation within the UK [at least] could well be something of a wedge against such policies?
The better protection is the longstanding common law principle that a medical treatment is not negligent if two independent clinicians can be found to endorse the treatment provided by the accused. This is of course about standard of care in negligence rather than incitement but the common law principle stretches from negligence into criminal law where the consequences are death or disability etc.
I don’t know how much this principle has been eroded. It used to work against patients alleging negligence – which was the preference of the judiciary and NHS, to strangle US-style malpractice culture at birth – but perhaps it still serves to defend clinical freedom.
Scientific method derives theories from experiments or observations. The French method is just the opposite.
The government (l’état) or some well known, pretentious intellectual (maître à penser) establishes a theory. Then “facts” are marshaled to support it.
This is often called “cartésienism” after Descartes. Public deviation from official theory is tolerated but condemned for being “anglo-saxon”. This stupidity has actually been much attenuated in recent decades, as more and more French people learn English and travel abroad.
What actually happens, in practice, has little to do with absurd theories. Internationally accepted norms prevail in France.
Indefensible theories, even when incorporated into laws, are quietly ignored.
I also used to believe this, and in a lot of cases its true.
However when it really matters, resistance is useless, compliance is mandatory.
Too much money at stake, basically.
The methods oil and tobacco pioneered to seed doubt and confusion into science is now being used all over the business world to keep regulators away from their profits.
As French scientists are reputed to say, “That’s all very well in practice but does it work in theory?”.
{:-) (that’s a smiley in a beret…).
Having ‘lived’ in France during the covid madness, I am not surprised by this.
Two points. The French are renowned for their protests, however I have found this revolves around their wallets, when it came to their health and human rights they were nowhere to be seen.Within its own borders the French State is as powerful and centralised as any that has ever existed.
The Constitutional Court tests compliance not morality or ethics.
re: wallets
I remember le monde diplomatique reporting the number of French billionaires, I think doubling, the rise of the poor rising by 40% (?) or so due to Covid policies…
p.s. thx for reporting this story. I feared it would go unnoticed.
As a thought experiment, imagine this law had been passed back in the fifties. So what would happen to all those people who were trying to warn pregnant women not to take Thalidomide in the late 50s and early 60s, even if their doctor prescribed it. Would they be threatened with up to a year in prison and a huge fine? And what would have happened if later on it was realized the catastrophic effects of that drug on unborn babies which the French government finally had to admit. Would the French government say that at the time they were ‘following the science?’–
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide_scandal
Don’t forget to read the section called ‘Development of thalidomide’
Those arguments were used during the covid years to no avail.
Doctors were struck off or at least encouraged to retire for not following the instructions.
The sight of queues of people in our small nearby town obediently waiting for their PCR tests and mRNA ( it had to be mRNA) jabs will never leave me. That of course was only after completion of the obligatory form to be allowed to move outside 1km of your home.
And what would you have done, under the circumstances?
I went to high school with a Thalidomide baby. Although she was one of the smartest kids in the school, and had a sweet personality, she had no friends.
Why?
Well it might have been because the other kids were creeped out by the fact that she only had one intact limb, a leg. The other three limbs were prosthetic.
I must admit that on first pass the headline read like France was placing critics under mandatory “medical treatment”…
As Bugs says, this is typical of the chaotic way in which Macron’s government is trying to pass legislation at the moment. The problem is that he and his new teenage Prime Minister don’t have a majority in the National Assembly, and are having to make ad hoc deals with the right-wing Republicans, who are themselves divided (to add to the fun on this occasion the text was only agreed with the support of the Socialists, partly because the thereat which the law is intended to counter is alleged by the government to come from the “extreme Right.”) Today’s Le Monde has a fairly sober account.
The last time this happened was over the shambolic Immigration Law, where the ducking and weaving became so complex that in the end nobody really understood what had been agreed, although the consensus is it doesn’t actually change very much. Macron’s response was that the draft law should go to the Conseil d’État and they should be responsible for sorting it all out which, as was said at the time, is an abrogation of governmental responsibility. It’ll be the same thing here, and quite what the final law will actually look like, it’s impossible say.
But I’d be somewhat careful about your source. Bon Sens, for all the apparent eminence of its contributors (including Didier Raoult) comes pretty close to Covid denialism. The “analysis” of its Vice-President, Christian Perronne, criticises “the wearing of masks by the general population, in spite of the absence of arguments for their effectiveness … and the negative effects of sustained mask-wearing by children.” He also argues that there is “no scientific proof that lockdowns and curfews had any effect on the epidemic and that the risks for mental health and the economy were too great.” In general, the site is dismissive of Covid as a problem at all, the virus “having a very low lethality for those under 65,” although to be fair it also criticises compulsory vaccination. Make what you will of that.
Thanks Aurelian. I already knew something of Bon Sens’ background and don’t agree with many of its positions on COVID-19, but in this particular case most of its arguments seemed pretty sound. I also made sure to go directly to the primary sources, such as the Conseil d’Etat’s written evaluation of Article 4, as well as some media sources. That said, most of the articles I could find on the issue in the mainstream press were broadly supportive of the government’s legislation.
Thank you Aurelien. Noticing the awful amount of noises I gather that the populace at large must be rightfully in distrust of the institutions and awfully disoriented about, for instance how to handle let’s say “respiratory infectious diseases” which are by far the most common infectious diseases and have an enormous influence on our societies. And this fact might exactly be the reason why we and our institutions seem unable to handle this with rigour.
We have just witnessed how badly in the case of COVID and we haven’t yet found solutions but this hasn’t stopped the authorities to run with useless, if not idiotic, approaches like the vaccine certificates for which some run like beheaded children without haven’t scientific support, except some clinical trials which were aborted too soon to provide reliable data on what we could expect, for instance, from vaccines.
Vaccines don’t really have a brilliant record to prevent diseases that are transmitted via the respiratory tract and initiate in the epithelium. RSV trials ended in disaster and flu vaccines are only recommended after certain age given risk/benefit analyses and, truth be told, better if pauses at individual level should be cautioned to prevent immune fatigue. The craziness with the Covid vaccine will be something to be studied in the future if there is a future in which we can still study things. Bad luck applied in this case and the antigen for the vaccines proved problematic by itself in many senses. And here is where Article 4 enters with it says things about treatments that are “presented as beneficial” by medical guidelines. We have been these past years following “medical guidelines” that were more political than medical and in some cases very misguided. Distrust is guaranteed without the need to resort to Bon Sense denialism or other noisy outlets.
Thanks for this post. The timing of the proposed new law is interesting coming as it does right before the new WHO pandemic treaty comes into effect (most likely, depending on the final vote) this spring. The “treaty” will cede all WHO nations’ members control of their own health policies to the WHO’s dictates for treatments anytime the WHO declares a pandemic.
For anyone else who missed it, here’s Human Rights Watch on the ‘new WHO pandemic treaty’ [from November]:
https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/11/07/draft-pandemic-treaty-fails-protect-rights
If you don’t think that this is the thin end of the wedge….
Thank you Connor, for this excellent post.
I’d like to offer a sliver of my own experience on the topic of approved and unapproved treatments.
I have a post-viral fatigue, which (like long covid, I would argue) falls under the umbrella of ME/CFS. For many years the approved treatment has been cognitive behavioral therapy and graded exercise therapy, essentially the psychiatrists try to convince you that you are just deconditioned and as with cases of genuine deconditioning, you need to exercise more. Unfortunately, the hallmark of ME/CFS is that exertion leads to a “crash” anywhere from immediately to 48 hours later. Sometimes these crashes are permanent. Think “can only get out of bed to piss or shit, possibly for the rest of your life”.
Furthermore, this therapy is not just recommended by doctors worldwide, but in some cases, particularly when the patient is a minor, it can be mandated. This happened to a friend of mine, who was locked in solitary confinement for several months at the age of 12, and who was told by unsympathetic social workers (jailers) that if she wanted to leave she had to stop pretending to be sick. Patients like this are often told that if they are hungry then they must get up and go feed themselves (many who have been forced into these institutes are too ill to do so).
For more reading see [ https://me-pedia.org/wiki/Sophia_Mirza ]
Although recommendations for CBT and GET have been rolled back in some places after decades of effort by activists and allies, [see https://virology.ws/2015/10/21/trial-by-error-i/ ] physicians’ views are slow to change. My friend in the Netherlands who was sectioned is still told to do GET and still cannot get benefits in spite of being mostly bedbound. I cannot think of a country who routinely gets this right, perhaps because it is easier to blame patients for their own ill health than to pay for disability claims.
I cannot help but think that the more a government mandates a behavior, the more culpable they should be when that behavior turns out to be harmful. Would Macron be quite so gung ho to sign this into law if politicians could be found legally and financially culpable for any recommendations or mandates (Macron seems to want to make them one and the same) that turned out to be wrong?
Sounds like blame the patient, or a variation thereof. Awful.
Well then, there’s no time to waste: the mRNA covid vaccines are crap.
Spread the word…
Well, it’s more than that. Lasting immunity to coronaviruses, from previous infection or vaccination, is essentially a unicorn. According to a colleague who is a veterinarian, this has been known since the first attempts to vaccinate poultry against what was then known as avian infectious bronchitis, so far as I can tell. I don’t have time for this rabbit hole, but the first description of this virus in PubMed is from 1949. Yes, birds. But a coronavirus is a coronavirus and a vertebrate is a vertebrate. If we didn’t have so many “leaders” in politics and medicine who are functionally spineless, we just might have a better grasp on COVID-19 in the fifth year of the pandemic? Asking for a friend.
Scientific debate does not take place in popular media. Reports in popular media of what are purported to be genuine scientific debates are not always such. But if there is a real debate, it can be found in the scientific literature. Formally, this is like writing that truth is a defense against libel, slander and sedition lawsuits and charges. Basically, it says if you can find some academic who can get published, you can claim controversial and that the medical guidelines thus do not support resort to these measures, which are aimed against falsehoods. And formally it doesn’t affect the rights of patients at all, in any way.
How it can work out in practice depends on the judges in France?
Now if you hold the opinion that there is censorship of the scientific journals, or that you insist that science is in fact a matter of opinion and everybody’s opinion is just as good as another’s, then this is a threat.
Also, the implication that Trump shilling hydroxychloroquine was a crime, instead of a cunning blow against the PMC/Deep State would be uncongenial to the Trumpers.
Scientific debate happens on all levels pf society. it is anti-democratic and also anti-scientific to limit the allowed space of discourse via a social hierarchy that has materialized in science as well as in other areas of society.
the scientific method is not one defined set of actions that allows noone to beg to differ. on the contrary, there is a very lively debate inside scientific journals as the general public on what is good knowledge and what are the best ways to get there. in the last 20 years randomized controlled trials were seen as the only gold standard of science where now mechanistic evidence has a shine and rise again as also the placebo is loosing its theoretical justification as good comparison for effectivity..
an ivory tower does not stand firm without a well supporting base and laws like the ones planned in France are destabilizing this societal structure of organized knowledge development. It is also from a standpoint of democratic theory an example of authoritarianism. as were the covid measures all over the world.
it does not only depends on the judges on how it works out in France. it depends on the law makers and also on the population and culture of how they trust scientifically based treatment e.g.. A law like this in the context of a health system crisis which has come from forcing medicinal institutions to gain profit is obviously not addressing the real problems that the health system is not providing what the people need anymore. it puts the blame on those that try to help people in need although there knowledge is limited. Most complementary health practitioners act as a safety need for fisappointed and alienated patients to out them back into regular professional treatment with doctors who have good practice.
To view science, especially medicine as an automated machinery of algorithmic decision making which is only reflected, evaluated and judged in small offices of hih academic institutions is a blind followership of authoritarianism. Please distance yourself from your own statement. we are in need of an immediate stop of this delimitation of civil rights and freedoms especially as we approach the era of material crisis aka conflicts over the last ressources. somehow our values need to survive and excluding 99% of the population from the debate on what is good knowledge and good knowledge production is really not how we keep our moral system alive..
Politics aside, though there is plenty, in my experience, there has simply not been enough research of MRNA vaccines. End of. What frightens me (perhaps I’m cynical and paranoid) is the repeated pushing of these on senior citizens. We must get them! I believe if one has an immunity issue, they are dangerous or can be. This isn’t a flu shot, folks. After the third booster I had delirium as well as a severe outbreak of horrendous eczema that took well over a year to control. I recently saw a piece (I’m too tired to find the site, perhaps someone has seen it?) that one should use both arms to get those lymph nodes working! News flash – There are plenty of us with one arm and no lymph nodes on one side from surgery. I ain’t buyin’ it. I’m masking and distancing but no more MRNA shots. I found it interesting that physicians overseas are using nasal sprays (pHOXWELL, etc) that prevent Covid, but these are unavailable in the U.S. smdh But correct me if I’m wrong..
there is more and more evidence that repeated boosting results in damage to the immune system:
“Multiple doses of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines may result in much higher levels of IgG 4 antibodies, or also impaired activation of CD4 + and CD8 + T cells. ”
IgG4 antibodies are useless against infection, they are what your allergenist is trying to make your immune system switch to to prevent bee sting allergies, for example. They tell the immune system to ignore the antigen. Not helpful.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10238-023-01264-1#Sec1
You need to keep in mind that the law doesn’t make any sense.
There is a great deal of criticism of medical treatments from editors current and past of the medical literature, e.g.
Dr. Richard Horton, the current, editor-in-chief of the Lancet
“‘A lot of what is published is incorrect.’ I’m not allowed to say who made this remark because we were asked to observe Chatham House rules.”
Dr Marcia Angell, a physician and longtime Editor-in-Chief of the New England Medical Journal
“It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published or to rely on the judgement of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of the New England Journal of Medicine.”
Dr. Richard Horton
“The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness.”