The Supreme Court on Monday blocked Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Children's Health Defense from stopping investigations of doctors in Washington state over possible COVID-19 misinformation.
The court's ruling came after Justice Elena Kagan denied the bid in November. After Kagan's decision, Kennedy's group and doctors asked Justice Clarence Thomas to review their application for an injunction pending appeal.
Thomas, though, referred the matter to the full court, NBC News reported. None of the justices noted any disagreement with Monday's denial.
Kennedy, President-elect Donald Trump's nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, founded CHD, which joined other plaintiffs in claiming that any investigations seeking to sanction doctors for their views on COVID would violate free speech rights under the First Amendment, NBC News reported.
"The Court should speak clearly and decisively to state actors, professional organizations, other non-state actors, and the national media: Public speech does not lose its constitutional protection from government action simply because it is uttered by a healthcare professional, even if it is at odds with medical orthodoxy," Kennedy and his colleagues wrote in their Supreme Court injunction application, NBC News reported.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit court had refused to issue a preliminary injunction in the plaintiffs' challenge to the state's enforcement and dismissed the case, Bloomberg Law reported.
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Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
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