Last September, Tennessee's Board of Medical Examiners unanimously adopted a statement that said doctors spreading COVID misinformation — such as suggesting that vaccines contain microchips — could jeopardize their license to practice medicine.

"I'm very glad that we're taking this step," Dr. Stephen Loyd, the panel's vice president, said at the time. "If you're spreading this willful misinformation, for me it's going to be really hard to do anything other than put you on probation or take your license for a year. There has to be a message sent for this. It's not OK."
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This story was produced in partnership with Kaiser Health News.

The board's statement was posted on a government website. It used language suggested by an umbrella group, the Federation of State Medical Boards. More than a dozen other state boards also posted the language, which warned doctors that spreading inaccurate information about COVID vaccines "threatens to further erode public trust in the medical profession and puts all patients at risk."