Originally published at California Globe
By Katy Grimes, August 7, 2026 8:13 am
California passed Assembly Bill 2098 in 2022 to punish doctors for spreading “Covid misinformation.” That horrible period of time seems like many years ago, but the Orwellian after effects have lingered.
AB 2098, authored by Assemblyman Evan Low (D-Campbell), punished physicians and surgeons for “unprofessional conduct” for advocating for the potential benefits of early treatment with off-label drugs, or to those who dare to ask questions about COVID vaccine safety.
After several years and numerous lawsuits, Senior U.S. District Judge William B. Shubb of the Eastern District of California just granted preliminary injunction in Kory et al. v. Bonta et al.
The order applies Dr. Pierre Kory, Dr. Le Trinh Hoang, and Dr. Brian Tyson, and has taken two and a half years, three courts, four rounds of opposition, and one Supreme Court decision that had nothing to do with COVID, according to Kory’s attorney Rick Jaffe.
Dr. Pierre Kory explained the decision in a compelling Substack article: “As of Last Night, the U.S Government Will Never Get to Tell Doctors What They Can Say Anymore.”
This is huge.
Dr. Pierre Kory explains:
In the case Kory v. Bastard, err, I mean Bonta, senior United States District Judge William B. Shubb granted our renewed motion for a preliminary injunction and ordered not only California’s Attorney General but also the Medical Board of California and the Osteopathic Medical Board, as well as ANYONE acting on their behalf, to stop investigating us, stop prosecuting us, stop harassing us. Most importantly, stop threatening our licenses over any professional opinions we might share with our own patients about Covid-19, the “vaccines,” ivermectin, anything. The order names me and my two colleagues, Dr. Le Trinh Hoang and Dr. Brian Tyson.
The decision “puts the boards on notice that a federal judge has found their Covid misinformation policy unconstitutional under the First Amendment. Every investigator and every board member now knows how this judge sees it. Anyone board employee who opens or continues a Covid misinformation investigation from here on is doing it with a federal injunction and a federal ruling on the record, and with no ability to say later that nobody told them,” attorney Jaffe explains.
Pending a final determination on the merits, it enjoins California Attorney General Rob Bonta, the Executive Director of the Medical Board of California Reji Varghese, the Executive Officer of the Osteopathic Medical Board of California Erika Calderon, and their agents and employees from investigating, prosecuting, accusing, or sanctioning doctors based on the viewpoint of the information, recommendations, or advice they give patients about COVID-19, including departures from public-health authorities’ positions.
And the Legislature was forced to repeal AB 2098 in 2023.
The Globe had a lengthy conversation Thursday with Dr. Bryan Tyson about the federal preliminary injunction, and the long, difficult and Orwellian road leading up to it.
Dr. Tyson said in 2022 he was running for Congress and had several interviews on air with One America News. They asked him about his medical clinic in El Centro in Imperial County, where he had treated thousands of Covid patients successfully. He recommended “Don’t take the vaccine, only take Ivermectin.”
Someone anonymously reported Dr. Tyson to the state medical board for “misinformation and disinformation.”
“Doctors should be able to speak to their patients” without interference from the state, Dr. Tyson said.
“What incorrect information?” he asked. “I would be considered a Covid expert,” he said, after treating more than 20,000 patients. “None of the federal ‘experts’ had ever taken care of patients – not Fauci or Walensky,” he added.
Dr. Tyson said during the investigative process to revoke his medical license, he told the board that “everything we used was FDA approved. I can use medications off-label as long as I explain/disclose to the patient.”
“We used monoclonal antibodies, Hydroxychloroquine, Melatonin, Albuterol, Inhaled steroids, Vitamin C, Zinc, Vitamin D, Zithromax, Steroids…”
But he was told by the California Department of Public Health to “do nothing” – send the patients home for 14 days, and if they are still sick, send them to the hospital.
With all of the in-person care at his clinic, Dr. Tyson said there were no malpractice lawsuits, no wrongful death accusations, and with the 80% mortality rate at the nearby hospital, he said families were checking their family members out of the hospital and bringing them to Dr. Tyson’s clinic for treatment.
“The government guidelines were written by people who don’t see patients,” Dr. Tyson said. “For physicians who see patients, there was no channel to report what we saw.”
The medical board did not revoke Dr. Tyson’s medical license, and he said at the end of the process, they wondered why he was ever reported.
Dr. Tyson said the California Department of Public Health was in his clinic for 10 months collecting data on his patients, but never provided much-needed PPE. “We were like an island taking care of the 180,000 Imperial County residents, and the 1.5 million from Mexicali,” he added. They never received help from the CDPH.
The preliminary injunction also means “no more suppressing us on social media, or taking down our videos.”
“This is one step – you can’t punish physicians for speaking out against government protocols,” he said. “I also should be able to speak publicly about my experiences – what I am seeing on the ground, what I am doing, and people are getting better, not sicker. And it’s not medical malpractice or unlawful to do that.”
The Globe asked Dr. Tyson if he has ever experienced this overbearing pressure from the government before. “I’ve never run into anything like this, and the refusal to have a conversation – never before.”
He said practicing physicians used to have conversations with government medical employees regularly. “I’ve never been told ‘don’t do anything for 14 days and if they don’t get better, send them, to the hospital!”
“And the killer of this whole story – we had the CDPH in our clinic for 10 months. We gave them our data – morbidity, mortality, height, weight, age… but they didn’t want to know what the reinfection rate was, or my treatment data. ‘What is natural immunity? Are people protected from natural immunity?’”
“They didn’t want to know, even after we gave them over 4,000 patient’s data who got better. They didn’t want to know!”
He said the effort to “block and downplay and punish and diminish what we were doing was the focus.”
He said he started treatment of Covid patients before day 7, and they got better.
Dr. Tyson said he asked the CA Dept of Public Health why they weren’t interested in publishing his patients’ data on the state website – they did not answer. And then they packed up and left the next day.
“Never in my life and career have I seen anything like this.”
“Never has anyone told me ‘you’re a quack.’ ‘You’re going to kill people.’”
“If I was doing the wrong thing for patients, we would have had an empty clinic.”
“Did I almost lose my license for doing the right thing – this judgment is huge.”
“We were right. They were wrong. And there was no forum provided to prove your case.”
Dr. Tyson said the doctors who lost their medical licenses should be rehired and paid for back/lost wages. “Fauci admitted to no science to back it all up. They should get their licenses back.”
“It’s been a big wake-up,” he added. “We’ve gone a long way, and most of the country seems to understand. People are waking up.”
“Where is the apology?”
As Dr. Pierre Kory concluded, “We continue to have the freedom, even in Clownifornia, to both hold and freely express opinions that contradict those of the priesthood within public health and academia. The court even said, in so many words, that the boards may not dress up a viewpoint prosecution as a “standard of care” or “informed consent” case. That was always the trick, and the judge saw through it.”
Read Attorney Rick Jaffe’s post about the legal case.
Read Dr. Pierre Kory’s Substack post.
and read Rita Barnett-Rose’s legal analysis at the Globe: Federal Judge Enjoins California Medical Boards from Punishing Doctors for Rejecting the Government’s COVID Narrative.
I don't understand why more physicians didn't follow his lead. I know doctors and hospitals got incentives from the government, but, honestly, do we have SO many who care more about money than their patients?! If even 10% had stood up together, it would have broken the false narrative that Fauci was expounding. Where is their backbone and honor?