The Biden administration's efforts to regulate, either explicitly or through indirect government coercion, what it deems to be "misinformation" in healthcare not only runs counter to our shared values but can be dangerous to our health.

Last summer, the surgeon general issued a 22-page advisory characterizing misinformation as a serious threat to public health. While the report offers guidance for the public on how to discern misinformation, it also encourages social media companies to engage in content regulation and censorship.

More recently, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Robert Califf called for increased government authority to limit misinformation. Their efforts, in addition to state initiatives to dictate speech at the bedside, risk creating a culture of censorship around medical discourse that could have far-reaching consequences.

The FDA's desire to limit truthful and scientific speech is already happening. The same agency that seeks to police "misinformation" has, for years now, routinely challenged and limited the ability of manufacturers to share truthful and scientific information about uses of their treatments for populations or medical indications for which they haven’t yet received FDA approval — what practitioners call “off-label uses.” These restrictions stifle scientific research, limit physicians’ toolbox of potential treatments, and make it more difficult for insurers to learn about how a patient might benefit from a treatment that has not yet been approved.

Worse still, the FDA obtained a recent change in the Fiscal Year 2023 Omnibus Appropriations bill that allows them to ban off-label uses, a move that crosses dangerously into regulating the practice of medicine, which lies under the authority of states' medical boards. Exercise of this authority would be detrimental for patients with a host of diseases, particularly rare diseases, pediatric illnesses, and cancer, where physicians routinely rely on off-label treatments for patient care.

Healthcare knowledge is not static. Knowledge and innovations are constantly evolving. That’s always been true and should be well understood.

Botox, for example, was first developed as a treatment for eye muscle disorders, but it is more commonly used to turn back the clock on some types of facial lines. It now has FDA approval for many additional conditions — lower limb spasticity in children with cerebral palsy, chronic migraines, and overactive bladder — and it remains under clinical evaluation for additional indications. But under the Orwellian regime being promoted, simply discussing the positive impacts of innovative uses of the drug that have not yet earned FDA approval might subject dedicated scientists and clinicians to censure.

For healthcare providers, government censorship of information could make it more difficult to adapt new developments. By restricting the flow of information, the government risks suppressing critical information that could aid healthcare professionals in their efforts to provide the best possible care. As conditions change, public health directives may need to evolve, but imposing new limits on free speech could impede the dissemination of crucial updates, leaving frontline healthcare providers ill-equipped to respond effectively.

While it is important to ensure that accurate information is disseminated, a government crackdown on speech that is deemed to be "misinformation" could lead to the suppression of legitimate dissenting voices. This is particularly concerning in the healthcare sector, where different perspectives and opinions are essential to improving outcomes for patients.

There is, however, something lawmakers can do. The Constitution provides a floor of protection for individual rights, not a ceiling. States can act to protect rights more broadly than the federal Constitution does. Both Arizona and Tennessee have enacted laws safeguarding the free speech rights of manufacturers to share truthful and scientific information with physicians and payers about the off-label use of FDA-approved medicines. Other states should follow suit.

In addition, Congress should rescind the power of the FDA to curb the sharing of truthful and scientific information, and they should establish clear, bright lines that prevent federal agencies from interfering with the practice of medicine, thereby securing the doctor-patient relationship.

Charlatans and misinformation exist. But there is no prescient government agency or arbiter that should have sweeping authority to regulate it. That is why the public needs to know and publicly debate whether they want the government to grab additional authority and power, potentially stifling free speech and hindering the ability of healthcare providers to provide the best possible care.

Joe Grogan is a visiting senior fellow at the USC Schaeffer Center and served as domestic policy adviser to former President Donald Trump from 2019-20. Naomi Lopez is the vice president of healthcare policy at the Goldwater Institute.