Ohio governor vetoes medical free speech clause he says would gut state's regulatory power

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine vetoed part of a bill late Thursday that state lawmakers cast as protecting the medical free speech of doctors and other health professionals but that the Republican governor says would ''totally gut'' the state's ability to regulate misconduct.

DeWine left in place another provision of the bill that will alow law enforcement agencies to charge up to $75 an hour for police body camera video, despite objections raised by open government groups including the American Civil Liberties Union and NAACP.

DeWine's veto of the health-related language comes as Republican President-elect Donald Trump prepares to appoint anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head the nation's health agencies and with national divisions over medical science still festering in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

DeWine said in a veto message that the medical oversight language added to a the bill could have had "devastating and deadly consequences for patient health.''

''Ohio's medical licensing boards exist to protect patients and the public from bad actors in the medical field,'' he wrote. He said health professionals who give harmful medical care shouldn't get a ''legal shield'' to avoid accountability by "saying there was a difference of ‘medical opinion.'''

Ohio lawmakers passed House Bill 315 at around 2 a.m. on the final night of their lame duck session last month. That was after they turned it into a ''Christmas tree bill,'' loaded with controversial items from other pending legislation. DeWine also vetoed to other provisions of the 325-page bill that would have established new ethics law exemptions and dealt with clerks of court.

The Ohio Ethics Commission praised his veto of the ethics exemptions, which Executive Director Paul Nick said in a statement ''would have significantly weakened'' the state's ethics law by allowing mayors and other executive officers to have interests in public contracts held by public agencies they serve.

DeWine nonetheless left in place a provision in the bill that declares Ohio outside the jurisdiction of the World Health Organization, the U.N.'s health agency.

DeWine was among three Republican governors who did not sign onto a letter that their 24 GOP colleagues sent to the Biden administration in May opposing the WHO's draft proposal for responding to the next worldwide pandemic. They argued the ''pandemic treaty'' would strip governors of their health authority and give the WHO unprecedented powers on U.S. soil. Those claims were debunked, but a backlash of various sorts ultimately sunk the global deal.

Ohio Advocates for Medical Freedom, a nonpartisan group that's been working for years to advance a constitutional amendment limiting vaccine mandates imposed by businesses, health care providers and governments, backed the vetoed medical free speech provision.

Its campaign coincided with DeWine twice vetoing legislation during the pandemic that he said would have handicapped the state's ability to issue emergency health orders. Lawmakers failed in December 2020 to override his first veto, but they managed to restore a weaker version of the law the following March.

The medical freedom group has downplayed any role that the case of Sherri Tenpenny played in driving the latest medical free speech proposal.

The state medical board, which regulates physicians and can discipline them for making false or deceptive medical statements, launched an inquiry into the matter after receiving some 350 complaints. The panel suspended Tenpenny's medical license in 2023 after she refused to cooperate, including declining to meet with investigators, answer written questions or sit for a deposition.