anti- vaxxer 2 bak

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">antivax420</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">SEE anti vaxx 3 DELTA VARAINT</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">promote primary 4/20 on covid pandemic danger/qanon</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">perhaps neglected aha pioneer tag on early soc med viral</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">capt 818</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">long jbs history, revived? drs for dis prep</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">bak/capt 420 html ugly cause autism?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.alternet.org/2021/07/fox-news-vaccines/</font></div><div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=Fox+News" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Fox News</a> is moving even further toward being fully anti-vaxx.</b></font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Tuesday night on the conservative channel's "Ingraham Angle" host <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=Laura+Ingraham" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><strong>Laura Ingraham</strong></a> booked <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=Peter+McCullough" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><strong>Dr. Peter McCullough</strong></a>, who falsely told America, "There's no reason right now, no clinical reason to go get vaccinated."</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">That's just plain false, according to the CDC and credible medical professionals.</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">"Virtually all Covid-19 hospitalizations and deaths in United States are now occurring among unvaccinated individuals," White House coronavirus response coordinator Jeff Zients <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/08/covid-vaccines-nearly-all-deaths-hospitalizations-among-unvaccinated.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">said last week</a>. Almost no fully vaccinated patients have been admitted to hospitals.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Ingraham herself wrongly claimed – or creatively framed – her response.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>"Deaths and hospitalizations in almost everywhere is down. Way down."</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>That too is just plain false – hospitalizations are up.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Just look at these headlines over the past 24 hours:</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://news.yahoo.com/spike-in-hospitalizations-due-to-delta-variant-underscores-need-for-covid-19-vaccination-experts-say-214137586.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Spike in hospitalizations due to Delta variant underscores need for COVID-19 vaccination, experts say</font></a></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/young-unvaccinated-people-are-being-hospitalized-covid-19-delta-variant-n1273998" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><b>Young, unvaccinated people are being hospitalized with Covid-19 as delta variant spreads, officials warn</b></font></a></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/13/health/us-coronavirus-tuesday/index.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><b>Covid-19 cases are surging in 46 states. In one hot spot, hospitalized patients are younger than ever, doctor says</b></font></a></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Notice she left out the rise in coronavirus cases. The <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/u-s-covid-19-cases-more-than-double-in-two-weeks-as-delta-variant-spreads-fast-and-who-warns-pandemic-nowhere-near-finished-11626360879" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">daily average of coronavirus cases has more than doubled</a> over the past two weeks, and hospitalizations are also on the rise.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Dr. McCullough on Wednesday wrongly claimed, "the Delta variant really is not responsive at all, or protected by the vaccines."</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That is a curious construction. Vaccines protect people, not viruses. And vaccine manufacturers have said the current slate of US vaccines do protect against the Delta variant.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>McCullough is a cardiologist and an affiliate professor at Texas A&M College of Medicine.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He also claims "42% of 90,000 Delta cases in the UK have been vaccinated."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">NCRM could find nothing that accurately substantiates that claim.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The vaccine is well over 90% effective in preventing infection, but for those who are infected after being fully inoculated, symptoms are almost always mild and do not require hospitalization. The number of fully vaccinated Americans who have died from coronavirus is infinitesimally small.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><a href="https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-health-941fcf43d9731c76c16e7354f5d5e187" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">The Associated Press</a> late last month reported "only about 150 of the more than 18,000 COVID-19 deaths in May were in fully vaccinated people. That translates to about 0.8%, or five deaths per day on average."</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dr. McCullough acknowledges to Fox News viewers there will be a "mild rise" in coronavirus Delta variant cases for vaccinated people, says those cases are "easily treatable in high risk patients," <b>but then says, falsely: "There's no reason right now, no clinical reason to go get vaccinated."</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">NCRM has reached out to Dr. McCullough but did not immediately receive a response.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Watch: [TWT VID]</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/07/watch-republicans-exposed-for-flip-flopping-on-vaccines-as-soon-as-trump-left-office/" class="from-your-sitelink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; font-weight: lighter; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">atch: Republicans exposed for flip-flopping on vaccines as soon ... ›</font></a></p><div class="around-the-web" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><ul class="around-the-weblist" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline-block; width: 589.438px; list-style: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><li class="from-your-siteitem"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/07/literally-his-audience-viewers-shocked-after-tucker-carlson-links-vaccines-to-eugenics/" class="from-your-sitelink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; font-weight: lighter; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">'Literally killing his audience': Viewers shocked after Tucker Carlson ... ›</a></font></li><li class="from-your-siteitem"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/tucker-carlson-vaccine/" class="from-your-sitelink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; font-weight: lighter; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">Tucker Carlson tries to blame Joe Biden for Fox News misleading ... ›</a></li></ul><div class="around-the-webheadline" style="font-weight: 700; text-transform: uppercase; margin-top: 10px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB</font></div><ul class="around-the-weblist" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline-block; width: 589.438px; list-style: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><li class="around-the-webitem"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/06/media/tucker-carlson-anti-vaccination-monologue/index.html" class="around-the-weblink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; font-weight: lighter; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">Tucker Carlson's Fox News colleagues call out his dangerous anti ... ›</a></font></li><li class="around-the-webitem"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/07/09/gop-fox-news-rush-turn-vaccine-door-knockers-into-terrifying-straw-men/" class="around-the-weblink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; font-weight: lighter; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">GOP and Fox News rush to turn vaccine door-knockers into terrifying ... ›</a></li><li class="around-the-webitem"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/11/business/media/vaccines-fox-news-hosts.html" class="around-the-weblink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; font-weight: lighter; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">Fox News Hosts Smear Covid Vaccine, Despite Outbreaks Among ... ›</a></li></ul></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">an 721</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx twt vid</font></font></font></font></div><div>
</div><div><b>Newsmax host dangerously declares vaccines go ‘against nature’: Diseases are ‘supposed to’ wipe out people</b></div><div> David Badash and The New Civil Rights Movement July 12, 2021</div><div>   </div><div><b>Newsmax host Rob Schmitt on Monday dangerously declared he believes vaccines go "against nature" and diseases are "supposed to wipe out a certain amount of people, and that's just kind of the way evolution goes."</b></div><div>
</div><div>Admitting he's "not a doctor," as Media Matters reports, Schmitt mused on-air, "I'm not an anti-vaxxer. I'm not a pro-vaxxer. I'm somebody that's looking at this thing and trying to figure it out."</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div> </div><div>"I've always thought about vaccines, and I always think about just nature, and the way everything works. And I feel like a vaccination in a weird way is just generally kind of going against nature," he claimed, ignoring the fact that all medicine in theory does too – if you define evolution in the most basic "survival of the fittest" terms.</div><div>
</div><div>"Like, I mean, if there is some disease out there -- maybe there's just an ebb and flow to life where something's supposed to wipe out a certain amount of people, and that's just kind of the way evolution goes. Vaccines kind of stand in the way of that. Do you follow what I'm saying? Does that make sense to somebody in medicine?"</div><div>
</div><div>Schmitt was speaking to Dr. Peter McCullough, a professor at Texas A&M College of Medicine, who wrongly claimed the Delta variant of the coronavirus is only 30% of COVID-19 cases (it is 51.7%) and wrongly claimed that as time goes on the variants get "weaker." <b>The Delta variant "is more contagious than the other virus strains," Yale Medicine reports.</b></div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>00:00</b></div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>The World Health Organization calls it “the fastest and fittest."</b></div><div>
</div><div>"Delta is spreading 50% faster than Alpha, which was 50% more contagious than the original strain of SARS-CoV-2," Yale Medicine epidemiologist Dr. Perry Wilson says.</div><div>
</div><div>Schmitt went on to tell viewers that "if you don't have a risk, I just, I can't comprehend why you would take something -- they start learning about the heart inflammation and stuff like that. I just don't understand why it's being pushed so hard on people that are very young. And now they're trying to give it to kids."</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div><b>Three weeks ago the Associated Press reported, "Nearly all COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. now are in people who weren't vaccinated</b>, a staggering demonstration of how effective the shots have been and an indication that deaths per day — now down to under 300 — could be practically zero if everyone eligible got the vaccine."</div><div>
</div><div>Watch:</div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">an 721</font></div><div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The COVID-19 pandemic reached yet another grim milestone recently when, according to <a href="https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore</a>, the worldwide death count passed 4 million. The country with the highest number of COVID-19 deaths is still the United States, where more than 606,000 people have died from the novel coronavirus. Sadly, some people have done their part to add to the misery the pandemic has inflicted, and journalist Tom McKay calls them out in an <a href="https://gizmodo.com/the-worst-charlatans-of-the-covid-19-pandemic-1847217752" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">article published by Gizmodo</a> this week.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In his article, which is headlined "The Worst Charlatans of the COVID-19 Pandemic," McKay laments, "For some people, crisis is an opportunity — more specifically, an opportunity to blow up their own profile by preying on people's fears, making baseless claims, grabbing resources intended for others, and being generally dishonest, disingenuous, or greedy. A comprehensive list of those matching this archetype over the grueling months of the COVID-19 pandemic would be far too large to relay in full. But it would include<strong> </strong>a former president, medical professionals spreading exaggerated or simply fabricated claims about how best to fight the virus, amateur statisticians claiming their analyses proved the virus wasn't dangerous, fraudsters, far-right activists looking to convert influence into money, and wealthy businesses that filled their coffers."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">McKay goes on to list seven people who added to the misery, noting that he is excluding former President Donald Trump from the list "out of fairness to the other contenders."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One is French microbiologist Didier Raoult, who pushed the false claim that hydroxychloroquine (an anti-malaria drug) was a miracle treatment for COVID-19 — a claim that Trump echoed repeatedly in 2020. McKay notes that "global trials of hydroxychloroquine failed to find any benefit for COVID-19 patients."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Others on McKay's list include Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, a Cleveland-based anti-vaxxer, and anti-maskers such as Dr. Stella Immanuel and the Dorr Brothers. McKay also slams Robert Kennedy, Jr. (nephew of President John F. Kennedy) as an anti-vaxxer and cites Alex Berenson as a source of anti-vaccine disinformation</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Although McKay's list is dominated by individuals, he slams big businesses that abused the Paycheck Protection Program.</font></p><div class="around-the-web" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="from-your-siteheadline" style="font-weight: 700; text-transform: uppercase;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES</font></div><ul class="around-the-weblist" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline-block; width: 589.446px; list-style: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><li class="from-your-siteitem"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/04/anti-vaccine-gop/" class="from-your-sitelink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; font-weight: lighter; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">This maniacal anti-vaccine quote highlights the GOP's embrace of ... ›</a></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></li><li class="from-your-siteitem"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/03/anti-vax/" class="from-your-sitelink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; font-weight: lighter; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">A tiny group of anti-vaxxers are flooding the internet with ... ›</a></li><li class="from-your-siteitem"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/tucker-carlson-2649561031/" class="from-your-sitelink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; font-weight: lighter; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">Tucker Carlson says COVID vaccines are 'anti-white' as anti-vaxxers ... ›</a></li></ul><div class="around-the-webheadline" style="font-weight: 700; text-transform: uppercase; margin-top: 10px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB</font></div><ul class="around-the-weblist" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline-block; width: 589.446px; list-style: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><li class="around-the-webitem"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/05/the-people-who-wont-get-the-vaccine/618765/" class="around-the-weblink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; font-weight: lighter; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">What Are No-Vaxxers Thinking? - The Atlantic ›</a></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></li><li class="around-the-webitem"><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01084-x" class="around-the-weblink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; font-weight: lighter; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">COVID vaccines: time to confront anti-vax aggression ›</a></li><li class="around-the-webitem"><a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/06/14/1004757554/anti-vaccine-activists-use-a-federal-database-to-spread-fear-about-covid-vaccine" class="around-the-weblink" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; font-weight: lighter; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">Anti-Vaccine Activists Spread Fear About COVID Vaccines With ... ›</a></li></ul></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/06/texas-hospital/">https://www.alternet.org/2021/06/texas-hospital/</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">tex judge ok mandate?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">621 biden 80 mill then 500 mill doses to who; kpfa 40% med ppl reluctant, tho not so much dr and nurses; rw lawyer --> scotus
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/06/antivax-testimony/">https://www.alternet.org/2021/06/antivax-testimony/</a>
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">new civ rtd</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body css-listicle-body-2653284737"><div class="body-description"><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Ohio

lawmakers debating a bill Tuesday that would allow anyone to refuse any

vaccine for any reason and would give them the "right" to not be

"discriminated" against or even asked about their vaccination status,

heard from Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, recognized as </b><a href="https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/covid-19-health/dozen-misguided-influencers-spread-most-anti-vaccination-content-social-media" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank"><b>one of the world's top spreaders of vaccine disinformatio</b>n</a>.</font></p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After <a href="https://twitter.com/Tylerjoelb/status/1402286405511008258" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank">falsely claiming that 5000 Americans have died</a>

from the coronavirus vaccine, Dr. Tenpenny told lawmakers that the

injections, which have saved countless lives around the world, make

people magnetic.</font></span></p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Right now we're all kind of hypothesizing," a

fast-talking Tenpenny said, after being asked about the "EMF

frequencies," also known as electromagnetic frequencies<em>, </em>she "hypothesizes" are associated with the COVID-19 vaccine.</font></span></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"I

mean what is it that's actually being transmitted that's causing all of

these things? Is it a combination of the protein which now we're

finding has a metal attached to it?" Tenpenny posited to lawmakers.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"I'm

sure you've seen the pictures all over the internet of people who've

had these shots and now they're magnetized, and put a key on their

forehead, it sticks, they can put spoons and forks all over them and

they can stick because now we think that there's a metal piece to that,"

she claimed, not saying who "we" refers to. There is <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2021/05/18/covid-19-vaccine-magnet-challenge-videos-claim-magnets-stick-to-arms-after-vaccination/?sh=2eb7a9c43421" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">exactly zero proof this is legitimate</a>.</font></p><p><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">She also pushed the false claim that vaccinated people are shedding unknown properties onto unvaccinated people.</font></b></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"There

has been people who've long suspected that there was some sort of an

interface," she continued, using air quotes, "yet to be defined in the <b>

interface between what's being injected in these shots, and all of the

5G towers.</b> Not proven yet, but we're trying to figure out what is it

that's being transmitted to these unvaccinated people."</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The name of the Ohio bill, <a href="https://search-prod.lis.state.oh.us/solarapi/v1/general_assembly_134/bills/hb248/IN/00/hb248_00_IN?format=pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank">HB 248</a>, is the "Vaccine Choice and Anti-Discrimination Act," to protect science-denying unvaccinated Ohioans from discrimination.</font></p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As far as Dr. Tenpenny goes, the <a href="https://publicintegrity.org/health/coronavirus-and-inequality/spreading-fears-cashing-in-anti-vaccine/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank">Center for Public Integrity</a>

reports "Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, who offers a $595, eight-week course in

anti-vaccine talking points despite a federal judge having found her

'unqualified' to weigh in as an expert witness on a vaccine-related

lawsuit ('Television interviews do not an expert make,' he <a href="https://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/opinions/ABELL.VERYZER061512.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank">wrote</a>)."</font></span></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ohio Capital Journal reporterTyler Buchanan posted the video, below. His colleague at the Journal, Jake Zuckerman, who he <a href="https://twitter.com/Tylerjoelb/status/1402298609404686338" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank">says</a> has "followed the anti-vax movement in Ohio closer than anyone over the past year," posted this today:</font></p>

</span></font><div class="rm-embed-holder">

<div style="margin:1em 0"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Handed to me outside the statehouse today https://t.co/XqTyVJvunz</font></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> — Jake Zuckerman (@Jake Zuckerman)

                        <a href="https://twitter.com/jake_zuckerman/statuses/1402318029250338817">1623173646.0</a>

</font></blockquote>

</div>

<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Watch the video:</font></p>

</span></font><div class="rm-embed-holder">

<div style="margin:1em 0"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Testimony going off the rails now.

Tenpenny is claiming there is metal in the vaccine that causes forks to stick… https://t.co/TRBqBwZXXx</font></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> — Tyler Buchanan (@Tyler Buchanan)

                        <a href="https://twitter.com/Tylerjoelb/statuses/1402288748575002632">1623166665.0</a>

</font></blockquote>

</div>

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    </div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===<br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/some-biggest-us-brands-run-ads-notorious-covid-19-vaccine-conspiracy-theorists">https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/some-biggest-us-brands-run-ads-notorious-covid-19-vaccine-conspiracy-theorists</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">del Bigtree is an anti-vaccine activist credited with worsening a measles outbreak, and he is also a COVID-19 conspiracy theorist who has encouraged people to intentionally contract the deadly disease and then treat symptoms by taking Vitamin C until they get diarrhea. Even though Bigtree routinely promotes deadly medical misinformation through his various online broadcasts, his commentary regularly features ads from some of the most recognizable brands in the United States.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bigtree is the host of a podcast, The Highwire with Del Bigtree, that Apple makes available for streaming through iTunes. In recent weeks, he has falsely claimed on his podcast that more than 300,000 people in the United States may have been killed by COVID-19 vaccines, that getting a COVID-19 vaccine makes a person a “magnet” to contract the most “deadly” variants of the disease, and that the COVID-19 vaccine “doesn’t work.” He has also hosted guests who have falsely claimed that wearing a mask means “limiting oxygen into the lungs and into the brain” and that wearing a mask causes cancer via “oxygen deprivation” but that cancer can be treated with Vitamin D.&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Media Matters watched Bigtree’s podcast and found that it often features advertisements from major U.S. brands, including Progressive, Lexus, ZipRecruiter, Rocket Mortgage, Geico, Lowe's, NBC, Capital One, and ColorChoice.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bigtree, who has no medical credentials, is a leading figure in the anti-vaccination movement through his anti-vaccine nonprofit organization Informed Consent Action Network. A 2019 profile in the online parenting magazine Fatherly labeled him “dangerous” and said he “may be the most connected node in the anti-vaccine activist network.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bigtree made national headlines in 2019 when he interfered with efforts to contain a measles outbreak in a predominantly Orthodox Jewish community. As the outbreak was ongoing, Bigtree led rallies in heavily impacted areas where he encouraged people to resist calls for vaccination and spread misinformation, including the false claim that vaccines cause autism in children. The Washington Post identified Bigtree as one of the best-funded leaders in the anti-vaccine movement and reported on his claim outside of a Brooklyn anti-vaccination rally that “they should be allowed to have the measles if they want the measles. It’s crazy that there’s this level of intensity around a trivial childhood illness.” Bigtree also received attention -- and condemnation -- in 2019 for placing a yellow Star of David badge on his coat during an anti-vaccine speech, referencing Nazi Germany’s persecution of Jews. He has since turned his attention to spreading misinformation about COVID-19 and the vaccines against the disease that offer a chance to rein in the pandemic.&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Last year, YouTube banned Bigtree from its platform after he repeatedly encouraged viewers to intentionally contract COVID-19 and pushed other dangerous medical misinformation, including promoting the claims of holistic medical practitioners, one of whom advised COVID-19 patients to take Vitamin C “till bowel tolerance,” which he explained meant “until you get diarrhea.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In recent episodes of his Apple podcast, Bigtree has:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Misrepresented a study he falsely attributed to Harvard Medical School to claim more than 318,000 Americans may have been killed by COVID-19 vaccines “in three months” and that more than a million will be killed by COVID-19 vaccines before the end of the year. After making this claim, Bigtree issued a warning: “If you make any attempt to force this ridiculous, horrifyingly dangerous product onto me or my children, or any of my friends, look out. We are ready to go to battle on this.” The episode featured ads from ZipRecruiter, StihlDealers.com, and Rocket Mortgage.&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Touted his 2016 film Vaxxed, which helped popularize the false belief that vaccines cause autism in children. The HighWire episode featured an advertisement from Geico.&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Argued that “a lot” of reports of COVID-19 death tolls around the world are “lies” in an April 2021 podcast where he attacked the idea of wearing a mask to slow the spread of the disease, including calling Florida judge Dale Cohen a “mask Nazi” because he previously issued an adverse ruling against Bigtree’s guest for that day’s program, who is involved in a child custody visitation dispute that has become entangled with her anti-mask views. The program featured ads from ADP, Dunkin’ Donuts, and American Family Insurance.&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Featured the false claim that “there is one thing for sure, masks do help in limiting oxygen into the lungs and into the brain.” The episode featured advertisements from Progressive and Lexus.&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Falsely claimed Johnson & Johnson has “admitted” its COVID-19 vaccine is “dangerous” while claiming he knew the vaccine was dangerous but was “holding this information back” so that “we could really use that in court.” The episode featured ads from Napa Auto Parts.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Promoted an anti-vaccine rally held in Connecticut in episodes featuring ads from Geico and Lowe's.&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Distorted a non-peer reviewed study to claim that “the vaccine is a disaster” and that receiving a vaccine makes a person a “magnet” to contract a “deadly” variant of COVID-19. The episode featured an advertisement from NBC.&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Falsely stated that “the vaccine doesn’t work” and that MSNBC host Rachel Maddow and other proponents of COVID-19 vaccines “are all riding on a sinking ship to the bottom of the ocean, or hell as it would be if this ends up costing the lives of millions of people around the world.” The episode featured ads from Progressive and Capital One.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Used the COVID-19 pandemic as a prompt for a guest who claimed that wearing a mask causes cancer through “oxygen deprivation” and that Vitamin D “is healing” to cancer, among other unscientific claims. An ad for ColorChoice ran during the episode.</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><h1 class="widget__headline h1" style="margin: 25px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; cursor: pointer; overflow-wrap: break-word; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">f<a class="widget__headline-text custom-post-headline" href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/gop-anti-vax/" aria-label="Former GOP congressional candidate says vaccinating people is the 'modern day Holocaust'" data-type="text" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; word-break: break-word; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 25px;">ormer GOP congressional candidate says vaccinating people is the 'modern day Holocaust'</a></font></h1><div class="social-author clearfix" style="margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a class="social-author__name" href="https://www.alternet.org/author/david-badash" data-type="text" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.4; display: inline; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; position: relative;">David Badash</a>&nbsp;<a class="social-author__name" href="https://www.alternet.org/author/the-new-civil-rights-movement" data-type="text" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; overflow-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.4; display: inline; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; position: relative;">The New Civil Rights Movement</a></font></div><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body  css-listicle-body-2652860742" style="margin-top: 10px; -webkit-box-orient: vertical; margin-bottom: 15px; display: -webkit-box; text-overflow: ellipsis; line-height: 23px; -webkit-line-clamp: 3; overflow: hidden; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="body-description"><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">DeAnna Lorraine, a QAnon conspiracy theorist, right wing religious extremist, and former Republican candidate who tried to win Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's congressional seat last year, says working to get people vaccinated and to trust science is the work of "Satan."</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Lorraine, who used her run for Congress to further her brand&nbsp;...</font></p></div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">an 421 bd sups wagner</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(245, 245, 245);">WAGNER: "Does it … is there any intention of tracking folks?"</span><br style="" /><br style="" /><span style="background-color: rgb(245, 245, 245);">CHAU: "Nope."</span><br style="" /><br style="" /><span style="background-color: rgb(245, 245, 245);">WAGNER: "Is there any, in the vaccine, we heard about an injection of a tracking device. Is that being done anywhere … in Orange County?"</span><br style="" /><br style="" /><span style="background-color: rgb(245, 245, 245);">CHAU: "I'm sorry, I have to compose myself. There's not a vaccine with a tracking device embedded in it that I know of ... exists in the world. Period."</span></font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">jim carey did video 421?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.alternet.org/2021/04/anti-vaxxer/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">star of david</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">djt kept his vax secret, after reveal he press to promote, 3/16 he did, while indirectly priase self as orig?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/03/tucker-carlson-2651097830/">https://www.alternet.org/2021/03/tucker-carlson-2651097830/</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">anaphal shock claimed fatal</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/anti-vax">https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/anti-vax</a></font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">aha metaphor of invasion? fluoride gubmint put something scary/myst in your body by force or stealth // virginity fortress?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1220</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/tucker-carlsons-history-pushing-vaccine-conspiracy-theories">https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/tucker-carlsons-history-pushing-vaccine-conspiracy-theories</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">====</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trumpism--young-earth-flat-earth-anti-vax-qanon/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trumpism--young-earth-flat-earth-anti-vax-qanon/</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx anti-vaX mama meme graf // stop steal to vax</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div><br /></div><div>anti-vax advocacy groups online are helping to radicalize the QAnon movement</div><div><br /></div><div>The unhinged QAnon conspiracy cult has become a ‘new constituency’ for the Republican Party: report</div><div>]</div><div>Meaghan Ellis November 28, 2020</div><div>&nbsp; &nbsp;</div><div><b>The alliance between anti-vaxxers and QAnon followers is rapidly increasing as they continue their plight to spread massive amounts of disturbing misinformation amid the pandemic. One glaring example centers around one incident that occurred last week.</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>Facebook opted to nix a massive anti-vaccination propaganda group with more than 200,000 members last week. However, the group was not shut down for the dangerous public health misinformation its members posted, but rather, the disturbing promotion of QAnon, reports Huffington Post.</b></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">On Monday, Larry Cook, the founder of the "Stop Mandatory Vaccination" movement took to Facebook in his final Facebook Live video before the group was removed to warn that vaccines were a plot "to literally enslave every human on the planet," In the video, Cook also included the QAnon hashtag #WWG1WGA in the upper left corner and the QAnon logo in the upper right corner.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">"The purpose of vaccination is to literally slaughter the population and dumb everyone down and render them helpless," Cook said. "It is a global plan to literally enslave every human on the planet."</span></div><div><br /></div><div>As he spoke, comments poured in from viewers who expressed gratitude for the "truth" and "awakening" he shared in his video. Like Cook, other anti-vaxxers including David Wolfe along with Ty and Charlene Bollinger have all begun to expose their large followings to the QAnon rhetoric.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Laura Muhl, one of Instagram's most popular anti-vax influencers has also shared relatively dangerous claim insisting the government "engineered" many of the problems currently plaguing the United States. In a meme, she criticized the media with a comparison of covering up the so-called "rigged election" to an attempt to cover up "the truth about vaccines."</b></div><div><br /></div><div>"The virus is engineered. The pandemic is engineered. The second wave is engineered. The need for a vaccine is engineered," said the mother of five.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Now, the anti-vaccination pushback and in misinformation rapidly circulating on social media has<b> accelerated </b>with groups joining forces with QAnon. The result is accelerating the effort to discredit science and the integrity of public health.</span></div><div><br /></div><div>Related Articles Around the Web</div><div>How QAnon Conspiracy Is Spreading In Christian Communities ... ›</div><div>He's a former QAnon believer. He doesn't want to tell his story, but ... ›</div><div>QAnon conspiracy theory gaining ground in UK, analysis shows | US ... ›</div></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx pix twt vid</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div><br /></div><div><b>long Island Protest Praised by Trump Featured Anti-Vaxxer Call to “Hang Fauci”</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Robert Mackey</div><div>May 17 2020,&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">THE PRESIDENT OF the United States voiced his support on Saturday for a protest against New York state’s public health orders that was backed by an anti-government militia and anti-vaccine activists who called for the execution of Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s senior immunologist.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The “Re-Open NY” rally on Thursday in Commack, New York was organized by a group of Trump supporters who call themselves the Setauket Patriots, but also endorsed by anti-vaccination activists and the Long Island branch of the <b>Oath Keepers</b>, a national organization of current and former law enforcement officers and military veterans who think they are defending the nation from a range of imaginary threats posed by the federal government.</span></div><div><br /></div><div>Amid a sea of American flags and Trump banners, several of the signs waved by the protesters referenced conspiracy theories promoted by radical anti-vaccine activists that demonize Fauci and the philanthropist Bill Gates.</div><div><br /></div><div>051620_commackA protester at a rally in Commack, New York on Thursday displayed a sign calling for the execution of the nation’s leading immunologist and a billionaire philanthropist. Photo: News 12 Long Island]</div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>In addition to placards calling for New York to open businesses, others displayed at the rally channeled conspiracy theories from anti-vaccine activists who believe that Bill Gates is somehow behind the crisis. “Just Say NO to Bill Gates,” read one sign. Another, with idiosyncratic punctuation, read: “My <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Son’s </span>Are Not Lab Rats For Bill Gates Vaccine.”</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The protest outside a shuttered department store was attended by just a few hundred people, but it drew national attention after a local news reporter, Kevin Vesey, posted video of himself being harassed by demonstrators.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Kevin Vesey</div><div>@KevinVesey</div><div>The level of anger directed at the media from these protestors was alarming. As always, I will tell a fair and unbiased story today.</div><div><br /></div><div>Embedded video</div><div>140K</div><div>11:34 AM - May 14, 2020</div><div>Twitter Ads info and privacy</div><div>90.3K people are talking about this</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The protesters echoed the president’s anti-media harangues by complaining to Vesey that his channel, News 12 Long Island, had “stopped airing the Trump briefings,” and taunted him with the chant, “Fake news is not essential.” One woman told the reporter, “You’re the virus.” Another accused him of “destroying Suffolk and Long Island” through his reporting on the coronavirus crisis.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Suffolk County, where the protest took place, has been among the worst hit in the United States, with 37,942 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and 1,733 deaths as of Saturday. That means the suburban New York county of just under 1.5 million people has a mortality rate more than 4 times the national average</b>. One of those cases was News 12’s Vesey, who tested positive last month and recently recovered from a relatively mild case of the illness.</span></div><div><br /></div><div>During a longer Facebook Live report from the demonstration, Vesey was menaced at close range by a man in a Trump hat and shirt who was not wearing a mask but said that<b> he did not need to keep his distance because, “I got hydroxychloroquine; I’ll be fine, bro.”</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The man held a sign that called on one side for New York’s Democratic governor, Andrew Cuomo, to be deposed, and on the other accused his brother, Chris Cuomo, of lying about his bout with Covid-19.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Another protester held up a sign saying Fauci “has to go” and falsely asserted that he “works for” for the World Health Organization.</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The television report Vesey filed on Thursday evening included video of one of the demonstrators displaying a sign for the camera that read: “Hang Fauci, Hang Gates, Open Up All Our States.”</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Kevin Vesey</div><div>@KevinVesey</div><div>I'll probably never forget what happened today.</div><div><br /></div><div>I was insulted. I was berated. I was practically chased by people who refused to wear masks in the middle of a pandemic.</div><div>All the while, I was there to tell THEIR story. Here's the finished product.</div><div><br /></div><div>Embedded video</div><div>41.2K</div><div>3:04 PM - May 14, 2020</div><div>Twitter Ads info and privacy</div><div>26.8K people are talking about this</div><div><br /></div><div><b>On Saturday morning, in a tweet that echoed his infamous praise for white supremacists who marched in Charlottesville in 2017, Trump described the protesters who had harassed the reporter as “Great people!”</b></div><div><br /></div><div>James Robitsek, a leader of the pro-Trump Setauket Patriots group that organized the protest, confirmed in a Facebook message on Saturday that his call for opponents of the lockdown to rally had been supported by the local chapter of the anti-government Oath Keepers militia. “They copied my post and made up their own for their group,” Robitsek said of the Oath Keepers. “They come to our events and vice versa. We all share events, our group is only 40-50 members.” Thursday’s gathering, he said, included “many people from other groups, or who just saw the post and wanted to come down.”</div><div><br /></div><div><b>The Oath Keepers’s name is a reference to the belief of its members that they are bound by their pledge to “defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” even if that means defying the government.</b> <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">As Justine Sharrock reported for Mother Jones in 2010, a year after the group was founded, some of the group’s first members were convinced then that it would not be long “before President Obama finds some pretext — a pandemic, a natural disaster, a terror attack — to impose martial law, ban interstate travel, and begin detaining citizens en masse.”</span></div><div><br /></div><div>In an open letter posted online last month, the Long Island branch of the militia group echoed that belief, by declaring that the state’s orders to shut down businesses, churches and public gatherings were the acts of “an overbearing government acting under the guise of benevolence” and had created “an untenable situation” that justified resistance. “Any government, or governing representative which acts in such a manner, attempts to act outside of the Constitution, and must be put on notice as doing such,” the group wrote.</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The national group’s founder, Stewart Rhodes, a libertarian trial lawyer and former Ron Paul staffer, mocked Trump earlier this week for tweeting in support of protesters in Pennsylvania who want to re-open businesses. “Uh, they are using YOUR Admin’s guidelines, including the Orwellian ‘essential/non-essential’ paradigm, which is like something out of the USSR,” Rhodes tweeted back at the president.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><b>On Twitter, Rhodes has also shared anti-vaccine conspiracy theories related to the Covid-19 pandemic, including one meme that described Gates as a “vaccine pushing globalist eugenicist” and urged readers “to REFUSE to take ANY vaccine he funds, ‘mandatory’ or not.</b>”</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">He also encouraged his followers to listen to a podcast in which<b> Robert F. Kennedy Jr. attacked Gates a</b>nd boosted a conspiracy theory about Fauci. The baseless smear on Fauci was first made by a discredited scientist who claims, without evidence, that the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director buried her research about how vaccines can damage people’s immune systems. Those false claims about Fauci and Gates have been spread widely by the pro-Trump conspiracy group QAnon and by prominent anti-vaccine activists who have taken a leading role in recent protests demanding an end to the emergency public health orders in California, Texas and New York.</span></div><div><br /></div><div>The Coronavirus Crisis</div><div>Read Our Complete Coverage</div><div>The Coronavirus Crisis]</div><div><br /></div><div>Robitsek, the Setauket Patriots’ leader, insisted that three of the people seen in Vesey’s video harassing the reporter were “not associated with our group” and suggested that at least one of them — the man who had refused stay away from the reporter — might have been “a plant by left leaning groups in the area who were against our rally coming to Commack.” If so, the man has been under deep cover for some time, since a photograph on the Setauket Patriots Facebook page shows that he was also at a previous protest at the same spot two weeks ago. On that occasion, which was also covered by Vesey for News 12 Long Island, the man made no attempt to harass the reporter and did nothing to tarnish the reputation of the protesters.</div><div><br /></div><div>As for the woman who told Vesey he was the virus, Robitsek called her “a wacko,” and noted that she travels to protests all across the tri-state area of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut provoking confrontations and filming them for her group’s Facebook page.</div><div><br /></div><div>Robitsek, who said that he has been unemployed for almost nine weeks and is yet to receive any payment from the state, cast the rally as a non-partisan attempt to push New York to let people earn a living. “We all need to work,” he said. “Give me my unemployment, and I’ll stay home then but I need to pay my bills and eat. People are getting desperate.”</div><div><br /></div><div>Anxious to counter the negative publicity generated by Vesey’s video, Robitsek also suggested that a “local moms group” that was opposed to the rally had been “in cahoots with the media before it even started.” But the only evidence he could cite for that was a screenshot of a Facebook post from a member of the group Commack Parents Network, in which she had simply passed on an interview request from Vesey, saying that he would like one or more of them to explain why they were opposed to the re-opening protest taking place in their town.</div><div><br /></div><div>Robitsek also said that his group had agreed not to wave Trump flags, in a bid to be bipartisan, but many members of other groups who came to the rally did so. For his part, Robitsek wore what appeared to be one of Trump’s red caps, albeit a more understated one — with “USA” stitched on the front and “45” on the side — and a mask, while carrying an American flag. In addition to his group and the Oath Keepers, Robitsek said, members of the Conservative Society for Action also attended the rally, as did, “a bunch of anti-vaccine people.”</div><div><br /></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">620 intercept\</font><div class="Homepage-HomepageSubjectSecondaryNode-textBlock" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-left: 16px; width: 247.266px; flex: 1 1 100%; display: inline !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><h4 class="elements-Heading-heading elements-Heading-light Homepage-HomepageSubjectSecondaryNode-heading" relay="[object Object]" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; position: relative; z-index: 1; cursor: pointer; display: inline !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="elements-Eyebrow-eyebrow elements-Eyebrow-light PromoHeadline-eyebrow" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline-color: inherit; margin: 0px; padding-top: 20px; position: relative; border-top: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); line-height: 1.1; display: inline !important;"><a class="Homepage-HomepageSubjectSecondaryNode-container" relay="[object Object]" href="https://theintercept.com/2020/05/17/trump-salutes-long-island-protest-hang-fauci-sign-displayed/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline-color: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; margin-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 20px; position: relative; border-top: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); display: inline !important;">Coronavirus Crisis</a></span></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></h4></div></div><div class="Homepage-HomepageSubjectModule-container" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px 0px 40px; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 1200px;"><div class="Homepage-HomepageSubjectModule-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; flex-direction: row; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 1200px; padding: 0px;"><div class="Homepage-HomepageSubjectModule-secondaryPromos" style="box-sizing: border-box; width: 405px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 20px;"><div class="Homepage-HomepageSubjectSecondaryNode-textBlock" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-left: 16px; width: 247.266px; flex: 1 1 100%;"><h4 class="elements-Heading-heading elements-Heading-light Homepage-HomepageSubjectSecondaryNode-heading" relay="[object Object]" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; position: relative; z-index: 1; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a class="Homepage-HomepageSubjectSecondaryNode-container" relay="[object Object]" href="https://theintercept.com/2020/05/17/trump-salutes-long-island-protest-hang-fauci-sign-displayed/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline-color: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; display: flex; margin-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 20px; position: relative; border-top: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238);"><span class="" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><font style="font-weight: normal;">Long Island Protest Praised by Trump Featured Anti-Vaxxer Call to “Hang Fauci”</font></span></a></font></h4></div></div></div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/coronavirus-conspiracy-video-plandemic-2645951410.html">https://www.ecowatch.com/coronavirus-conspiracy-video-plandemic-2645951410.html</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>f</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>acebook, YouTube and Vimeo are among the companies scrambling to remove a coronavirus conspiracy video called 'Plandemic,' </b>as</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/05/07/plandemic-youtube-facebook-vimeo-remove/" target="_blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">The Washington Post</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">reported.</span></font></div><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body  css-listicle-body-2645951410" style="margin-top: -15px; line-height: 1.5;"><div class="body-description" style="clear: both;"><div class="rebellt-item   col1" id="rebelltitem1" data-id="1" data-reload-ads="false" data-is-image="False" data-href="https://www.ecowatch.com/coronavirus-conspiracy-video-plandemic-2645951410.html?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1" data-basename="particle-1" data-post-id="2645951410" data-published-at="1588947937" style=""><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The widely circulated video makes unsubstantiated medical claims about the coronavirus and it features Judy Mikovits, a discredited scientist and activist in the anti-vaccine campaign.</font></p><p style=""><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In the 26-minute video, which is billed as an extended trailer for a longer documentary that the filmmakers say "will </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">expose the scientific and political elite</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> who run the scam that is our global health system,</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">" Mikovits contends that wearing masks activates the coronavirus within people, without providing evidence, and criticizes orders to stay away from beaches, as&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-tech-video/facebook-youtube-remove-plandemic-video-with-unsubstantiated-coronavirus-claims-idUSKBN22K077" target="_blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">Reuters</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;reported.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>"Suggesting that wearing a mask can make you sick could lead to imminent harm, so we're removing the video," Facebook said,</b> according to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-tech-video/facebook-youtube-remove-plandemic-video-with-unsubstantiated-coronavirus-claims-idUSKBN22K077" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">Reuters</a>.</font></p></div><div class="rebellt-item   col1" id="rebelltitem2" data-id="2" data-reload-ads="false" data-is-image="False" data-href="https://www.ecowatch.com/coronavirus-conspiracy-video-plandemic-2645951410.html?rebelltitem=2#rebelltitem2" data-basename="particle-2" data-post-id="2645951410" data-published-at="1588947937" style=""><p style=""><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A YouTube spokesperson said the company removes "content that includes medically unsubstantiated diagnostic advice for covid-19," which includes the "Plandemic" video.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> A Vimeo spokesperson said the company "stands firm in keeping our platform safe from content that spreads harmful and misleading health information. The video in question has been <b>removed by our Trust & Safety team for violating these very policies,</b>" as&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/05/07/plandemic-youtube-facebook-vimeo-remove/" target="_blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">The Washington Post</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;reported.</span></font></p><p style=""><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Despite efforts to remove it, changing the name slightly, misspelling search terms, or altering the video slightly has allowed plenty of lengthy clips to pass through the AI filters</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, as&nbsp;</span><a href="https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/07/plandemic-video-judy-mikovits/" target="_blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">TechCrunch</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;reported.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The video uses high-production value to cater to a number of topics that strike a chord with online conspiracy-theorists, filtering most claims through a lens that vaccines are simply a money-making plan put forth by greedy pharmaceutical companies and they cause more harm than good</b>, as&nbsp;<a href="https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/07/plandemic-video-judy-mikovits/" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">TechCrunch</a>&nbsp;reported.</font></p></div><div class="rebellt-item   col1" id="rebelltitem3" data-id="3" data-reload-ads="true" data-is-image="False" data-href="https://www.ecowatch.com/coronavirus-conspiracy-video-plandemic-2645951410.html?rebelltitem=3#rebelltitem3" data-basename="particle-3" data-post-id="2645951410" data-published-at="1588947937" style=""><p style=""><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Plandemic videos racked up a combined 4.7 million views on YouTube on Monday and Tuesday</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, according to BuzzSumo, a social media tool, as&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/facebook-youtube-and-twitter-grapple-with-viral-plandemic-conspiracy-video/" target="_blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">CNET</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;reported.</span></font></p><p style=""><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In the video Mikovits, who has said Dr. Anthony Fauci should be charged with treason, vociferously criticized the nation's leading infectious disease doctor and also suggested the virus had been engineered, saying it wasn't a "natural occurrence.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">" As&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/facebook-youtube-and-twitter-grapple-with-viral-plandemic-conspiracy-video/" target="_blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">CNET</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;reported, </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">scientists widely believe&nbsp;<a href="https://www.factcheck.org/2020/02/baseless-conspiracy-theories-claim-new-coronavirus-was-bioengineered/" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">the virus jumped from animals to human beings</a>, and the<b> U.S. intelligence community took the unusual step of publicly saying it believed the virus wasn't "<a href="https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press-releases/item/2112-intelligence-community-statement-on-origins-of-covid-19" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">manmade or genetically modified</a>."</b></span></font></p></div><div class="rebellt-item   col1" id="rebelltitem4" data-id="4" data-reload-ads="false" data-is-image="False" data-href="https://www.ecowatch.com/coronavirus-conspiracy-video-plandemic-2645951410.html?rebelltitem=4#rebelltitem4" data-basename="particle-4" data-post-id="2645951410" data-published-at="1588947937" style=""><p style=""><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">According to TechCrunch, "To the uninformed viewer, Mikovits might appear to ably address scientific-sounding topics, but her own scientific credentials are extremely dubious. </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In 2009, Mikovits authored a study on chronic fatigue syndrome that was&nbsp;<a href="http://retractionwatch.com/2011/12/22/chronic-fatigue-syndrome-xmrv-paper-retracted-by-science-completely-this-time/" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">retracted</a>&nbsp;by the journal&nbsp;<em>Science</em>&nbsp;two years later when an audit found "evidence of poor quality control" in the experiment and the results could not be replicated in subsequent studies</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">That event and her subsequent firing from a research institute appear to have kicked off her more recent turn as an anti-vaccine crusader, conspiracist and author."</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Her claim in the movie that she was arrested for discovering a retrovirus that was transmitted through vaccines was thoroughly debunked by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/scientist-vaccine-jailed/?fbclid=IwAR3o4wl1u88oaA5sq9MKMW1o2-AniwH-NXEZYRlP1PXmdA4v41glTZGakj4" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">Snopes</a>.</b></font></p></div><div class="rebellt-item   col1" id="rebelltitem5" data-id="5" data-reload-ads="true" data-is-image="False" data-href="https://www.ecowatch.com/coronavirus-conspiracy-video-plandemic-2645951410.html?rebelltitem=5#rebelltitem5" data-basename="particle-5" data-post-id="2645951410" data-published-at="1588947937" style=""><p style=""><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">As&nbsp;<a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/05/07/1001469/facebook-youtube-plandemic-covid-misinformation/" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">MIT Technology Review</a>&nbsp;noted, <b>when YouTube started to remove "Plandemic" from its platform, supporters took to Twitter with claims of unfair censorship. The documentary then became a trending hashtag on Thursday, driving even more attention, outrage and media coverage to it. AMPLIFY</b></font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Mikovits has tweeted a video in which she urged President Donald Trump to end the lockdown and stop requiring people to wear masks, calling the face coverings "dangerous." Twitter told&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/05/07/plandemic-youtube-facebook-vimeo-remove/" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); line-height: 1.5;">The Washington Post</a>&nbsp;that it would allow that video, but it did remove #PlagueofCorruption and #PlandemicMovie from its searches and trends sections.</font><a class="tags__item" href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/public-health" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; margin: 4px 2px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1; border-radius: 20px; border: 2px solid rgb(232, 232, 232); padding: 6px 11px;">public health</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</span><a class="tags__item" href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coronavirus" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; margin: 4px 2px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1; border-radius: 20px; border: 2px solid rgb(232, 232, 232); padding: 6px 11px;">coronavirus</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</span><a class="tags__item" href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/science" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; margin: 4px 2px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1; border-radius: 20px; border: 2px solid rgb(232, 232, 232); padding: 6px 11px;">science</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</span><a class="tags__item" href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/vaccines" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; margin: 4px 2px; display: inline-block; line-height: 1; border-radius: 20px; border: 2px solid rgb(232, 232, 232); padding: 6px 11px;">vaccines</a></font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ref</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/07/plandemic-video-judy-mikovits/">https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/07/plandemic-video-judy-mikovits/</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx twt</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>a video about the coronavirus featuring a well-known vaccine conspiracist is spreading like wildfire on social media this week, even as platforms talk tough about misinformation in the midst of the pandemic.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the professionally-produced video, a solemn interviewer named Mikki Willis interviews Judy Mikovits, a figure best known for her anti-vaccine activism in recent years. The video touches on a number of topics favored among online conspiracists at the moment, filtering most of them through the lens that vaccines are a money-making enterprise that causes medical harm.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The video took off mid-week after first being posted to Vimeo and YouTube</b> on May 4. From those sites, it traveled to Facebook, Instagram and Twitter where it circulated much more widely, racking up millions of views. <b>Finding the video is currently trivial across social platforms, where it’s been reposted widely, sometimes with its title removed or reworded to make it more difficult to detect by AI moderation.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to Twitter, tweets by Mikovits apparently don’t violate the platform’s rules around COVID-19 misinformation, but it has marked the video’s URL as “unsafe” and blocked the related hashtags “#PlagueOfCorruption and #Plandemicmovie. The company also hasn’t found evidence that her account is being amplified as part of a coordinated campaign.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Update: On Friday<b>, Twitter </b>clarified to TechCrunch that the company is assessing individual clips from the video when they are shared to Twitter in order to determine if the snippets violate the platform’s rules. The company will also add a warning label to links on Twitter to the full video hosted elsewhere. Twitter is choosing not to remove these links across the board as it says many users include links as context when disputing the video’s claims.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Over on Facebook, the video indeed runs afoul of the platform’s coronavirus and health misinformation rules—but it’s still very easy to find. For this story, I was able to locate a copy of the full video within seconds and at the time of writing Instagram’s #plandemic hashtag was well-populated with long clips from the video and even suggestions for related hashtags like #coronahoax. Facebook is currently working to stem the video’s spread, but it’s already collected millions of views in a short time.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>On YouTube, a search for “Plandemic” mostly pulls up content debunking the video’s many false claims, but plenty of clips from the video itself still make the first wave of search results.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The video itself is a hodgepodge of popular false COVID-10 conspiracies already circulating online, scientifically unsound anti-vaccine talking points and claims of persecution.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Mikovits, who in the video states that she’s not opposed to vaccines,</b> later goes on to make the claim that vaccines have killed millions of people. “The game is to prevent the therapies ‘til everyone is infected and push the vaccines, knowing that the flu vaccines increase the odds… of getting COVID-19,” Mikovits says, conspiratorially. </span>At the same time, she suggests that doctors and health facilities are incentivized to overcount COVID-19 cases for the medicare payouts, an assertion that contradicts the expert consensus that coronavirus cases are likely still being meaningfully undercounted.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the video, Mikovits accuses White House coronavirus task force member Dr. Anthony Fauci of suppressing treatments like hydroxychloroquine—falsely touted by President Trump as a likely cure for the virus. While her claims appear to have landed at the perfect opportunistic moment, her beef with Fauci is actually longstanding. As Buzzfeed reported,<b> in a book she wrote six years ago, Mikovits accused Dr. Fauci of banning her from the NIH’s facilities—an event Fauci himself was not familiar with.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Mikovits also touches on a popular web of conspiracy theories fixated on the idea Bill Gates is somehow implicated in causing the pandemic to profit off the eventual vaccine and makes the unfounded claim that “it’s very clear this virus was manipulated and studied in the laboratory.”</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In other interviews, Mikovits has suggested that face masks pose a danger because they can “activate” the virus in the wearer</b>. In the “Plandemic” clip, Mikovits also makes the unscientific claim that <b>beaches should not have been closed due to “healing microbes in the saltwater” and “<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">sequences</span>” in the sand that protect against the coronavirus.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">To the uninformed viewer, Mikovits might appear to ably address scientific-sounding topics, but her own scientific credentials are extremely dubious. In 2009, Mikovits authored a study on chronic fatigue syndrome that was retracted by the journal Science two years later when an audit found “evidence of poor quality control” in the experiment and the results could not be replicated in subsequent studies. That event and her subsequent firing from a research institute appear to have kicked off her more recent turn as an anti-vaccine crusader, conspiracist and author.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">With “Plandemic,” Mikovits seems to have positioned herself successfully for relevance in the pandemic’s information vacuum—her book sales have even soared on Amazon. Toward the end of the clip, her interviewer even cannily sets up a future outrage cycle at the inevitable crackdown from social media platforms, where the video flouts rules ostensibly banning harmful health conspiracies like the ones it contains.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“It’s other people shutting down other citizens and the big tech platforms follow suit and they shut everything down,” Willis says with steely concern. “There is no dissenting voices allowed any more in this free country.”&nbsp;</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As we’ve reported previously, the coronavirus crisis is fertile ground for conspiracy theories and potentially lethal misinformation— a fact that the “Plandemic” video’s apparent mainstream crossover success demonstrates. <b>Widespread uncertainty and fear is a powerful thing, capable of breathing new life into debunked ideas that would have otherwise kept collecting dust in conspiracist backwaters, where they belong.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">====</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ref</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">nyt</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div><br /></div><div><b>Bill Gates, at Odds With Trump on Virus, Becomes a Right-Wing Target</b></div><div>The Microsoft co-founder turned philanthropist has been attacked with falsehoods that he created the coronavirus and wants to profit from it.</div><div><br /></div><div>By Daisuke Wakabayashi, Davey Alba and Marc Tracy</div><div><b>April 17, 2020</b></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In a 2015 speech, Bill Gates warned that the greatest risk to humanity was not nuclear war but an infectious virus that could threaten the lives of millions of people.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">That speech has resurfaced in recent weeks with 25 million new views on YouTube </span>— but not in the way that Mr. Gates probably intended. Anti-vaccinators, members of the conspiracy group QAnon and right-wing pundits have instead seized on the video as evidence that one of the world’s richest men planned to use a pandemic to wrest control of the global health system.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Mr. Gates, 64, the Microsoft co-founder turned philanthropist, has now become the star of an explosion of conspiracy theories about the coronavirus outbreak. In posts on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, he is being falsely portrayed as the creator of Covid-19, as a profiteer from a virus vaccine, and as part of a dastardly plot to use the illness to cull or surveil the global population.</b></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The wild claims have gained traction with conservative pundits like Laura Ingraham and anti-vaccinators such as<b> Robert F. Kennedy Jr</b>. as Mr. Gates has emerged as a vocal counterweight to President Trump on the coronavirus.</span> For weeks, Mr. Gates has appeared on TV, on op-ed pages and in Reddit forums calling for stay-at-home policies, expanded testing and vaccine development. And without naming Mr. Trump, he has criticized the president’s policies, including this week’s move to cut funding to the World Health Organization.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Misinformation about Mr. Gates is now the most widespread of all coronavirus falsehoods tracked by Zignal Labs, a media analysis company</b>. The misinformation includes more than 16,000 posts on Facebook this year about Mr. Gates and the virus that were liked and commented on nearly 900,000 times, according to a New York Times analysis. On YouTube, the 10 most popular videos spreading lies about Mr. Gates posted in March and April were viewed almost five million times.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Mr. Gates, who is worth more than $100 billion, has effectively assumed the role occupied by George Soros, the billionaire financier and Democratic donor who has been a villain for the right</b>. That makes Mr. Gates the latest individual — along with Dr. Anthony Fauci, the leading U.S. infectious disease expert — to be ensnared in the flow of right-wing punditry that has denigrated those who appear at odds with Mr. Trump on the virus.</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Bill Gates is easily transformed into a health-related meme and figure because he’s so well known,” said Whitney Phillips, an assistant professor at Syracuse University who teaches digital ethics. “He’s able to function as kind of an abstract boogeyman.”</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Especially since Mr. Gates has sharpened his comments about the White House’s handling of the coronavirus in recent weeks.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“There’s no question the United States missed the opportunity to get ahead of the novel coronavirus,” he wrote in an opinion column in The Washington Post on March 31. “The choices we and our leaders make now will have an enormous impact on how soon case numbers start to go down, how long the economy remains shut down and how many Americans will have to bury a loved one because of Covid-19.”</span></div><div><br /></div><div>[ImageIn a 2015 talk, Bill Gates said an infectious virus could be the greatest threat to humanity.</div><div>In a 2015 talk, Bill Gates said an infectious virus could be the greatest threat to humanity.Credit...Ted]</div><div><br /></div><div>Mark Suzman, chief executive of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Mr. Gates’s main philanthropic vehicle, said it was “distressing that there are people spreading misinformation when we should all be looking for ways to collaborate and save lives.”</div><div><br /></div><div>Through a representative, Mr. Gates declined to be interviewed.</div><div><br /></div><div>The conspiracy theories about Mr. Gates may particularly damage what people think about a future coronavirus vaccine, said Claire Wardle, executive director of <b>First Draft, an organization that fights online disinformation</b>. She said the narratives “have the potential to kick off coordinated and sophisticated online campaigns that turn people against taking a virus vaccine.”</div><div><br /></div><div>[Latest Updates: Economy</div><div>Tesla’s plans to reopen its California factory are not in compliance with a local health order.</div><div>April’s job losses highlight the depth of the pandemic’s devastation.</div><div>...]</div><div><br /></div><div>YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, which also owns Instagram, said they were fighting coronavirus misinformation.</div><div><br /></div><div>Mr. Gates, who founded Microsoft with Paul Allen in 1975 and built it into a software behemoth, has largely devoted his time to philanthropic endeavors since he stepped back from the company in 2008. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">As of 2018, the Gates Foundation had a $46.8 billion endowment, making it one of the world’s largest private charitable organizations.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The<b> foundation has worked to distribute vaccines in developing countries, advocated family planning through greater use of contraceptives</b> and<b> funded the development of genetically modified crops. </b>Those efforts have prompted unfounded accusations that Mr. Gates was hurting the world’s poor with unnecessary drugs and harmful crops while trying to suppress the global population.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><b>His disdain for Mr. Trump, whom he has met several times, has also become public. </b>In 2018, footage surfaced of Mr. Gates recounting how Mr. Trump needed help distinguishing H.I.V., which refers to the human immunodeficiency virus and causes AIDS, from HPV, which is the human papillomavirus, a sexually transmitted infection.</div><div><br /></div><div>“Both times he wanted to know if there was a difference between H.I.V. and HPV, so I was able to explain that those are rarely confused with each other,” Mr. Gates said to laughter in comments to his foundation.</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">In January, when the coronavirus began spreading, the Gates Foundation committed $10 million to helping medical workers in China and Africa. In February, Mr. Gates weighed in on the illness, warning in The New England Journal of Medicine that Covid-19 was behaving like a once-a-century pathogen.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><b>In addition to writing the Washington Post op-ed, he called for more and equitable testing in a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” session last month. </b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">This month, Mr. Gates appeared on “The Daily Show” and said his foundation would fund factories for the seven most promising potential vaccines.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><b>On Wednesday, the Gates Foundation said it would commit $250 million — up from an earlier pledge of $100 million — to slow the disease’s spread.</b></div><div><br /></div><div>By then, falsehoods about Mr. Gates had taken off. The first mention of a baseless conspiracy connecting him to the outbreak was on Jan. 21, according to the Times analysis. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">That was when a YouTube personality linked to <b>QAnon</b> suggested on Twitter that Mr. Gates had foreknowledge of the pandemic. The tweet was based on a coronavirus-related patent from the Pirbright Institute, a British group that received funding from the Gates Foundation.</span></div><div><br /></div><div>[Image</div><div>Mr. Gates at Trump Tower in New York in 2016. He has met President Trump several times.Credit...Sam Hodgson for The New York Times]</div><div><br /></div><div><b>The patent was not for Covid-19; it was connected to a potential vaccine for a different coronavirus that affects poultry. But two days later, the conspiracy website Infowars inaccurately said the patent was for “the deadly virus.”</b></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The idea spread. From February to April, conspiracy theories involving Mr. Gates and the virus were mentioned 1.2 million times on social media and television broadcasts, according to Zignal Labs. That was 33 percent more often, it said, than the next-largest conspiracy theory: that 5G radio waves cause people to succumb to Covid-19.</span></div><div><br /></div><div>Some of the theories tapped into Mr. Gates’s acquaintance with Jeffrey Epstein, the financier who was convicted of sex trafficking and committed suicide, saying a global elite had banded together to create the coronavirus.</div><div><br /></div><div>In other theories, internet trolls twisted comments that Mr. Gates had made. In one, trolls said Mr. Gates, who had raised the idea of “digital certificates” to confirm who had the virus, wanted to surveil the population with microchip vaccination implants.</div><div><br /></div><div>By April, false Gates conspiracy theories peaked at 18,000 mentions a day, Zignal Labs said.</div><div><br /></div><div>The theories were amplified by people such as Mr. Kennedy, a son of former Senator Robert F. Kennedy, who campaigns against vaccines as a director of the Children’s Health Defense network. On his Instagram page, Mr. Kennedy has said Mr. Gates pushes vaccines to feed his other business interests.</div><div><br /></div><div>On Tuesday, Mr. Kennedy posted a cartoon of a smiling Mr. Gates with a syringe and a caption: “Your Body, my choice.”</div><div><br /></div><div>Mr. Kennedy, whose Instagram followers have doubled to more than 285,000 since March, said in an interview that he was telling the truth about the “terrible damage” that Mr. Gates had inflicted on the world with vaccines.</div><div><br /></div><div>In an April 7 tweet, Ms. Ingraham, a Fox News host, shared a conspiracy theory about nefarious motives behind Mr. Gates’s call to track and identify who had received a Covid-19 vaccine. “Digitally tracking Americans’ every move has been a dream of the globalists for years,” she wrote.</div><div><br /></div><div>Ms. Ingraham did not respond to a request for comment.</div><div><br /></div><div>And Roger J. Stone Jr., the Trump confidant who was sentenced this year to 40 months in prison for felonies related to the 2016 Trump campaign, said in a radio interview this week reported by The New York Post that whether Mr. Gates “played some role in the creation and spread of this virus is open for vigorous debate.”</div><div><br /></div><div>On Wednesday, after Mr. Gates said pulling funding to the World Health Organization was ill advised, the online reaction was swift. (The Gates Foundation funds the organization.)</div><div><br /></div><div>One anti-vaccinator posted a poster of the movie “Kill Bill” on Instagram that read “Kill Bill Gates” and called for people to flood the comments on Mr. Gates’s Instagram account.</div><div><br /></div><div>That same day, when Mr. Gates posted his thanks to health care workers, it received over 14,000 comments. One read: “This virus is a big, big lie.”</div><div><br /></div><div>Michael H. Keller contributed reporting. Ben Decker contributed research.</div><div><br /></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=====</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2x extraCT</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden field__item" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--twitter-tweet paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="field field--name-field-twitter-tweet field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__item" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden field__item" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">On the morning of&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">April 7,<b>&nbsp;Fox host Laura Ingraham,</b></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">&nbsp;while</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">&nbsp;quote-tweeting an&nbsp;<a href="https://www.irishpost.com/news/jim-corr-corrs-comes-support-anti-vaxx-movement-168537" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: currentcolor none medium; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">anti-vaxx musician's</a>&nbsp;post about Gates’ AMA,&nbsp;</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">said “globalists” see the pandemic as a “perfect vehicle” for their “dream” of “digitally tracking Americans’ every move.</span>”</font></p></div></div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--twitter-tweet paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="field field--name-field-twitter-tweet field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__item" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden field__item" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">The spread of the conspiracy theory comes as&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/guide-right-wing-media-coronavirus-reactions-and-conspiracy-theories" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: currentcolor none medium; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">multiple other conspiracy theories</a>&nbsp;about the coronavirus have&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/right-wing-media-figures-spread-empty-hospitals-theory-downplay-threat" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: currentcolor none medium; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">circulated</a>&nbsp;on&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/qanon-conspiracy-theory-post-about-coronavirus-spreading-social-media" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: currentcolor none medium; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">social</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/06/tech/5g-coronavirus-conspiracy/index.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: currentcolor none medium; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">media</a>, including others about&nbsp;<a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanhatesthis/qanon-supporters-and-anti-vaxxers-are-spreading-a-hoax-that" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: currentcolor none medium; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">Gates and the virus</a>.</font></p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ref</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">NOOOO---ooooo---ooooo!</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.irishpost.com/news/jim-corr-corrs-comes-support-anti-vaxx-movement-168537" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: currentcolor none medium;">https://www.irishpost.com/news/jim-corr-corrs-comes-support-anti-vaxx-movement-168537</a></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jim Corr from The Corrs<b>&nbsp;comes out&nbsp;</b>in support of the anti-vaxx movement</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">BY: Jack Beresford</font></div><div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">June 28, 2019</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">IRISH MUSICIAN Jim Corr of The Corrs has seemingly come out in support of the anti-vaxx movement in a move that has seen him come in for brutal criticism online.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Corr took to Twitter to voice his support for the anti-vaccination movement, which is led by a growing group of parents and individuals who are refusing to immunise their children against a raft of illnesses.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While vaccines have been known to have adverse reactions in a small group of people, scientists have always stressed the benefits far outweigh the risks in this regard.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Despite this, the number of people vaccinated against measles has been falling in countries like the US, which recently reported its first measles death in 12 years.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">With measles infections are their highest since the diseasd was first eradicated, Corr took to Twitter to offer his view on the subject, writing:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“What if</span>&nbsp;we were actually meant to get mild childhood illnesses like Measles so as to help prime our immune systems into fighting much greater diseases in later life?”</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jim Corr</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@Jimcorrsays</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What if we were actually meant to get mild childhood illnesses like Measles so as to help prime our immune systems into fighting much greater diseases in later life? ??</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1,440</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2:49 AM - Jun 25, 2019</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Twitter Ads info and privacy</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">3,355 people are talking about this</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It’s fair to say the tweet didn’t go down too well among his followers.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Measles is not mild” one wrote. “Oh Jim. No. No no no,” another added.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I ALMOST DIED at the age of 5 from Rubella measles & pneumonia,” a third tweeted.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jim Corr</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@Jimcorrsays</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">People are waking up to the dangerous Russian Roulette aspect of Vaccination. We're told repeatedly they're safe (in truth they're lucrative) while the US Gov has paid out 4 Billion in damages for vaccine injury</span>. https://twitter.com/HighWireTalk/status/1143295006666579973 …</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The HighWire</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@HighWireTalk</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We're #winning, they're panicking. "Just half of people in eastern #Europe think vaccines are safe, compared with 79% worldwide" MT Survey shows #vaccination crisis of confidence in parts of #Europe#YearOfTheBravehttps://www.tGUK.com/society/2019/jun/19/survey-shows-crisis-of-confidence-in-vaccines-in-parts-of-europe?CMP=share_btn_tw …</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">51</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2:40 AM - Jun 25, 2019</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Twitter Ads info and privacy</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">34 people are talking about this</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It added to my genetic bundle of autoimmune problems that have given me chronic pain my whole life. Measles will destroy your immune system & if you survive, you pay an enormous price. VACCINATE.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><br /></b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Corr was having none of it though.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">“#Google has also been censoring the vaccine debate,” he wrote in one follow-up tweet.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jim Corr</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@Jimcorrsays</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">#Google has also been censoring the vaccine debate. https://twitter.com/JeffereyJaxen/status/1144241505655230464 …</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jefferey Jaxen</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@JeffereyJaxen</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">#<b>Google is also censoring the vaccine debate in an attempt to influence, in favor of its pharmaceutical company partners, the record legislative activity happening across America</b>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;https://www<b>.breitbart.</b>com/tech/2019/06/26/second-source-confirms-<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">project-veritas-report-on-youtube-meddling-in-irish-abortion-referendum-</span>searches/ … @congbillposey @realDonaldTrump @RepDLesko @RandPaul #Ireland</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">52</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">12:44 PM - Jun 27, 2019</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Twitter Ads info and privacy</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">46 people are talking about this</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The musician then took things a little further with a tweet condemning the use of…suncream.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Most sunscreens are toxic. One must look carefully at the ingredients. Our skin is a living breathing organ that can absorb what is put on it especially if it's hot,” he tweeted.[vitamin d]</font></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">====</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">see oann kris rouz</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/coronavirus-conspiracy-theory-film-attacking-vaccines-has-racked-million-views">https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/coronavirus-conspiracy-theory-film-attacking-vaccines-has-racked-million-views</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no vid/pix</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><br /></b></font></div><div><p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>A film featuring a known anti-vaxxer pushing conspiracy theories and false claims about the novel coronavirus, including attacking vaccines, has racked up more than 9 million views on YouTube.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> </span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Additionally, the video and its reuploads have tallied more than 16 million Facebook engagements. The spread of the film -- called “Plandemic” -- through reuploads on YouTube shows the platform’s continuing issues with enforcing its policies against coronavirus misinformation during this public health crisis.</span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">In March, as the disease spread throughout the United States, YouTube&nbsp;<a href="https://youtube-creators.googleblog.com/2020/03/coronavirus-update-on-creator-support.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">wrote</a>&nbsp;that it had “worked to prevent misinformation associated with the spread of the virus” and would “quickly remove videos that violate our policies when they are flagged, including those that discourage people from seeking medical treatment or claim harmful substances have health benefits.”</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yet despite that promise -- and despite YouTube’s attempts to take the video down for&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/donie/status/1258478735411552257" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">violating its policies</a>&nbsp;-- “Plandemic”&nbsp;has gone viral on the platform, and has been going viral on Facebook and even&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/noUpside/status/1258186894313058304" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">trending on Twitter</a>. In the video, a filmmaker named&nbsp;<a href="https://heavy.com/news/2020/05/mikki-willis/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">Mikki Willis</a>&nbsp;interviews Dr. Judy Mikovits, a former chronic fatigue researcher whose&nbsp;<a href="https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/scientist-vaccine-jailed/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">claims have been retracted</a>&nbsp;by a scientific journal and who was arrested for “allegedly stealing equipment belonging to the Institute that fired her.”</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Mikovits has since become popular in anti-vaxx circles -- she&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/media/3870266" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">attended</a>&nbsp;a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2020/05/05/anti-vaxxers-wakefield-coronavirus-vaccine/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">recent major anti-vaxx summit</a>&nbsp;-- and has also&nbsp;<a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wxevj5/the-coronavirus-truthers-dont-believe-in-public-health" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">become involved</a>&nbsp;in efforts to have Dr. Anthony Fauci fired</b> as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a leading member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force (she relitigated her claims against him, which&nbsp;<a href="https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/scientist-vaccine-jailed/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">he has denied</a>, in the film).</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">The film makes multiple&nbsp;<a href="https://www.truthorfiction.com/researcher-behind-retracted-paper-launches-anti-fauci-campaign/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">false and misleading</a>&nbsp;claims about the coronavirus and public health.&nbsp;Mikovits argues that&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/media/3870271" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">mandatory coronavirus&nbsp;vaccines will</a>&nbsp;“kill millions as they already have with their vaccines,” and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.factcheck.org/2020/04/no-evidence-that-flu-shot-increases-risk-of-covid-19/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">that</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/media/3870276" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">“flu vaccines increase the odds by 36% of getting COVID-19”</a>&nbsp;and are part of a plot against what Willis calls “natural remedies” for the virus. Mikovits also asserts&nbsp;that it’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/media/3870286" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">“insanity”</a>&nbsp;to close beaches because somehow the sand and “healing microbes in the ocean” will actually help treat the virus. She also&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/media/3870296" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">touts</a>&nbsp;anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for the virus,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/fox-news-mentions-hydroxychloroquine-have-significantly-dropped" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">despite multiple studies casting doubt</a>&nbsp;on its use, and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/media/3870301" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">she and the film push</a>&nbsp;the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/right-wing-media-suggested-covid-19-fatalities-were-overcounted-new-data" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">false</a>&nbsp;claim that the death count from COVID-19 is being inflated. To push that claim the film includes&nbsp;footage of two California doctors pushing the claim in a video that YouTube&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/youtube-facebook-split-removal-doctors-viral-coronavirus-videos-n1195276" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">has already removed</a>&nbsp;for violating the platform’s rules. The film also&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/sheeraf/status/1258474256460996613" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">falsely suggests</a>&nbsp;that wearing a mask could be harmful.</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>A review by Media Matters found dozens of reuploads of the film in addition to Willis’ original upload on May 4 (<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/media/3870366" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">including one</a>&nbsp;from a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/qanon-grifter-dustin-nemos-was-selling-colloidal-silver-supposed-coronavirus" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">major supporter of</a>&nbsp;the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/twitter/fbi-calls-qanon-domestic-terror-threat-trump-has-amplified-qanon-supporters-twitter-more-20" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">QAnon conspiracy theory</a>)</b>, resulting in more than 9 million views combined (which includes videos still up and those since taken down). The high view count was achieved despite YouTube continuing to take down reuploads of the video for violating its Community Guidelines. <b>Some of the reuploads&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/media/3870306" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">have received</a>&nbsp;hundreds of thousands of views on their own....</b></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Much of the video’s YouTube virality is likely thanks to Facebook, where Media Matters’ review also found the videos receiving more than 16 million Facebook engagements&nbsp;(Facebook on May 7&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/sheeraf/status/1258473974603763713" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">announced</a>&nbsp;that it would ban shares of the film). Some of the uploads of the video&nbsp;have&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/media/3870311" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">received</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/media/3870316" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">millions</a>&nbsp;of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/media/3870321" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">Facebook</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/media/3870331" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">engagements</a>&nbsp;on their own. Many of the engagements have come from Facebook groups, including&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/media/3870336" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">anti-vaxx</a>&nbsp;groups, groups&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/media/3870361" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">demanding</a>&nbsp;an end to stay-at-home orders, and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/media/3870346" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">groups</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/media/3870356" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">promoting</a>&nbsp;the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/qanon-conspiracy-theory-post-about-coronavirus-spreading-social-media" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">QAnon conspiracy theory</a>.</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The film has also&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/TaylorLorenz/status/1258430521690017792" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">spread on Instagram</a>, which is owned by Facebook.</b></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>The videos also received tens of thousands of shares on Twitter (where the platform has&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/07/facebook-youtube-struggling-to-remove-plandemic-conspiracy-video.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">blocked</a>&nbsp;some hashtags promoting the film)</b>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/media/3870376" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">including from</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/newsmax/newsmax-host-wayne-allyn-root-endorses-scammy-silver-product-which-can-supposedly-kill" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">Newsmax host and <b>coronavirus grifter Wayne Allyn Root</b></a><b>; Darla Shine, the wife of former Fox News executive&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/08/us/politics/bill-shine-resigns.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">Bill Shine</a>, who is working on President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign; and some widely followed QAnon&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/media/3870381" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">accounts</a></b></span><b>.</b></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...The video’s spread is just the latest instance in YouTube’s serious struggle to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/apr/03/youtube-coronavirus-treatments-profit-misinformation" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">contain</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanhatesthis/youtube-anthony-fauci-deep-state-coronavirus" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">coronavirus</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/joeydurso/youtube-coronavirus-misinformation" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">misinformation</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/bill-gates-coronavirus-conspiracy-theory-spread-social-media-and-then-fox-news" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">on its platform</a>&nbsp;--&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/youtube-took-down-coronavirus-conspiracy-theory-video-violating-its-rules-its" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">including reuploads</a>&nbsp;-- a problem that continues to be&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/AlKapDC/status/1251240680996900868" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">compounded&nbsp;</a>by its spread on&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/AlKapDC/status/1252329080286052352" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">Facebook</a>.</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">NEW</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/how-trump-may-already-be-discrediting-a-covid-19-vaccination/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/how-trump-may-already-be-discrediting-a-covid-19-vaccination/</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/anti-vaxxers-are-latching-onto-the-coronavirus-pandemic-to-bolster-their-movement</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Anti-vaxxers are latching onto the coronavirus pandemic to bolster their movement</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by Kaiser Health News April 25, 2020</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While most of the world hungers for a vaccine to put an end to the death and economic destruction wrought by COVID-19, some anti-vaccine groups are joining with anti-lockdown protesters to challenge restrictions aimed at protecting public health.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Vaccine critics suffered serious setbacks in the past year, as states strengthened immunization laws in response to measles outbreaks sparked by vaccine refusers. California tightened its vaccine requirements last fall despite protests during which anti-vaccine activists threw blood on state senators, assaulted the vaccine bill’s sponsor and shut down the legislature.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Now, many of these same vaccine critics are joining a fight against stay-at-home orders and business shutdowns intended to stem the spread of the coronavirus, which had killed more than 47,000 Americans as of Thursday afternoon.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“This is just a fresh coat of paint for the anti-vaccine movement in America, and an exploitative means for them to try to remain relevant,” said Dr. Peter Hotez, a professor at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hotez said anti-vaccine groups are seizing on the anti-government sentiment stoked by conservative-leaning protesters to advance their cause.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Unfortunately, their strategy may work.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A group calling itself the Freedom Angels, whose members last year stood on chairs and chanted at public hearings on the California vaccine bill, say governors are abusing their power by shutting down gun shops and other businesses.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Many anti-vaccine activists — who have claimed that diseases such as measles aren’t that serious — now contend the coronavirus isn’t dangerous enough to justify staying home. They agree with President Donald Trump that the “cure” for the pandemic could be worse than the disease itself.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That’s led some vaccine foes to join the protesters — whom Trump has encouraged on Twitter — in staging demonstrations in state capitals to “reopen America.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“This is the time for people to take notice and really evaluate the freedoms they’re giving up, all in the name of perceived safety,” said Freedom Angels co-founder Heidi Munoz Gleisner in a Facebook video.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The group organized a Monday rally in Sacramento called “Operation Gridlock.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“People need to get back to work, get back to life, get back into contact with their loved ones who they’re isolated from, they need to be able to have a paycheck,” group co-founder Tara Thornton told The Sacramento Bee, which interviewed her during the demonstration. “This is the grounds they will enslave us upon.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Freedom Angels did not respond to requests for interviews. The group’s website mentions plans for additional rallies and includes photos from Monday’s demonstration, such as one in which a protester holds a sign proclaiming “No Mandatory Vaccines.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But after the Monday event, the California Highway Patrol announced it had revoked the group’s permit for future protests because the gathering — which included dozens of people — violated the governor’s social distancing order. The highway patrol has now banned all group events at the Capitol during the pandemic to avoid spreading the coronavirus.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A big tent</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The anti-vaccine movement has never been limited to one political party. Left-leaning vaccine critics — such as Children’s Health Defense, led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — include environmentalists who are suspicious of chemical pollutants, corporations and “Big Pharma.” The Kennedy group’s website attacks Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, for rushing “risky and uncertain coronavirus vaccines” into development as part of a “sweetheart deal” for drug companies.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On the other side of the political spectrum, many anti-vaccine conservatives oppose state immunization requirements because they distrust “big government.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A group called Texans for Vaccine Choice has called on the governor to promise that no one will be forced to get a coronavirus vaccine in order to go to work or school.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Posts on the Facebook page of Californians for Health Choice, which also opposed California’s vaccine laws, question stay-at-home orders and accuse government officials of refusing to admit the orders are a mistake.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a video on the Freedom Angels’ Facebook page, its founders describe stay-at-home orders as an abuse of government authority, and the closure of California gun shops as an assault on the Second Amendment. The group notes that guns could be essential for protection from rioters and looters looking to steal food during the pandemic.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In many ways, the conservative arm of the anti-vaccine movement is a natural ally for those leading “reopen America” rallies, said Dr. David Gorski, an oncologist and managing editor of the Science-Based Medicine site. Both harbor suspicions about government authority.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Vaccine critics, for example, have long championed the false claim that vaccines cause autism, and that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has tried to cover up that information, Gorski said. Trump has at times linked vaccines with autism, although he came out strongly in favor of vaccinations during the 2019 measles epidemic.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Anti-vaccine groups are now rebranding themselves as advocates of “medical freedom.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Protests against social distancing began in Michigan but have spread to state capitols in Texas, Colorado, Nevada, Maryland, Wisconsin and elsewhere, with more planned. Most protests have been small, limited to a few hundred or fewer people.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yet the anti-vaccine movement doesn’t speak for everyone on the right.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stephen Moore, the senior economic contributor for FreedomWorks, a conservative advocacy group that has been helping publicize the protests, said he’s unfamiliar with the Freedom Angels or their rallies.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I’m personally pro-vaccine,” said Moore, a member of the White House council to reopen the economy. “Especially when it comes to coronavirus.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And some heroes of the anti-vaccine movement say they support coronavirus lockdowns.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dr. Jay Gordon, a Santa Monica, California, pediatrician popular among vaccine foes for downplaying the risks of measles, said the risk of COVID-19 is real. Gordon said he approves of the lockdown, “and we have to keep it up.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Containing the pandemic</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dr. Richard Pan, a pediatrician and California state senator who has championed stronger vaccine mandates, described anti-vaccine and anti-lockdown protesters as “essentially selfish” because they put other people at risk.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“One of the hallmarks of the anti-vaccine movement is this sense of selfishness and lack of concern for other people’s health,” Pan said. “They like to talk about rights and freedom. But what they really want is freedom without consequences.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Both anti-vaccine parents and those who want to relax social distancing assume that the medical system will come to their rescue if they become sick, said Pan, who noted that thousands of health care workers have died while fighting the pandemic.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fauci has said that relaxing stay-at-home orders is dangerous as long as the virus — for which there are no approved treatments or vaccines — is actively spreading. Reopening businesses too soon could spark a second wave of infections.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">More than 75 companies and research groups worldwide are trying to develop vaccines, which are seen as a key weapon against the novel coronavirus.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the meantime, the CDC says that social distancing measures — such as working from home and avoiding large gatherings — are critical to slowing the spread of the coronavirus and preventing patients from overwhelming hospitals. Health leaders say it won’t be safe to reopen the county until widespread testing shows the coronavirus has died down.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Americans overwhelmingly support vaccination, according to surveys, and polling by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 80% of Americans want lockdowns to continue. Only 19% said social distancing orders placed an unnecessary burden on the economy. (Kaiser Health News is an editorially independent program of the foundation.)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Neither the anti-vaccine nor anti-lockdown demonstrators represent the opinions of most Americans, Pan said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Let’s put this movement into proper context,” he said. “They’re loud, they’re noisy and they’re small.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">aha note escalator, and rexycling mutation/hybridization of older conspir BS</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">he's the next soros re covid?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bill Gates coronavirus conspiracy theory spread on social media and then to a Fox News host.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/bill-gates-coronavirus-conspiracy-theory-spread-social-media-and-then-fox-news</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">mma many link, pix, graf/ twt</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bill Gates coronavirus conspiracy theory spread on social media and then to a Fox News host</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers, white nationalists, and QAnon supporters spread the false claim online</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">WRITTEN BY ALEX KAPLAN</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">PUBLISHED 04/08/20 12:13 PM EDT</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A conspiracy theory about Microsoft founder Bill Gates and a potential vaccine for the novel coronavirus has been circulating for weeks on social media platforms, getting high engagement numbers, and has since been pushed by both Fox News host Laura Ingraham and a Newsmax correspondent.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As the coronavirus pandemic has spread throughout the United States, Gates, who runs an organization that focuses on public health worldwide and has warned of the threat of epidemics for years, has been leading efforts to and spoken out about finding a vaccine. That has included spending billions of dollars to find a cure via his foundation and doing interviews on shows including Fox News Sunday and The Daily Show about the need for a vaccine.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gates on March 18 also participated in a Reddit “AMA” (“Ask me anything”) Q&A, where he encouraged a “national tracking system” for the coronavirus and “some digital certificates to show who has recovered or been tested recently or when we have a vaccine who has received it.” Scientific American reported in December that Gates had been funding efforts to create an invisible ink that could go into people’s skin to see who has been vaccinated. A Massachusetts Institute of Technology bioengineer said the ink could provide data that is useful in fighting disease around the world, noting, “If we don’t have good data, it’s really difficult to eradicate disease” (though the outlet also quoted a bioengineering professor admitting it could raise privacy concerns).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">During this time, conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers, white nationalists, and supporters of the QAnon conspiracy theory have spread a baseless conspiracy theory on multiple social media platforms, far-right sites, and message boards claiming that Gates’ effort to help develop a vaccine is some kind of nefarious attempt to control, follow, or even depopulate the world’s population via a “microchip” of some sort (the “depopulation” claim is based on a major misreading of Gates’ past remarks).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A review by Media Matters found that the conspiracy theory first seemed to gain traction around March 17, when a YouTube video about the virus mischaracterized Gates’ work to develop trackable vaccine data as “implanting everybody with a global ID” and compared it to tattoos on Holocaust victims. The video received more than 120,000 views. On that same day, conspiracy theory outlet Infowars published a piece and video of an Infowars host suggesting Gates was using the situation to “reduce the world’s population,” citing the invisible ink, and tied it to claiming the government would give out a “color-coded wristband that will be used for traveling Americans during an impending COVID-19 lockdown.” The Infowars article subsequently spread in Facebook groups and showed up as a meme on Instagram.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Infowars Bill Gates</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Following Gates’ AMA and his “digital certificates” comment, the conspiracy theory spread on March 18, moving to message boards including 4chan’s “/pol/” and the conspiracy subreddit on Reddit, where a user called Gates’ Reddit posts “pretext for introduction of certificate of movement” and a plan to be “fully enslaved by the Deep State.” On Telegram that evening, white nationalist Faith Goldy wrote that Gates’ posts were “underreported” and that a “microchip implant ID” would be harmful to “nationalists.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Faith Goldy Bill Gates</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The following day, as the conspiracy theory continued to circulate on 4chan, it was picked up by NewsPunch, a disinformation site formerly known as YourNewsWire, which accused Gates of pushing for technology that will be “adopted for its ‘convenience and safety’ and then overnight will become mandatory for you and your family – or else.” That piece, too, circulated on social media and as a meme, along with other memes accusing Gates of using a vaccine to work with “globalists” for a “new world order.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bill Gates Instagram3</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On March 21, another YouTube video was uploaded saying Gates wants to implant microchips in people and calling them a “mark of Satan” that could be used for “identifying us to the United Nations.” The video has received nearly 1.8 million views and at least 1.2 million Facebook engagements, according to the tracking tool BuzzSumo. That includes shares in QAnon Facebook groups and on a major anti-vaxx Facebook page.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bill Gates Facebook1</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Throughout the rest of March, more videos popped up on YouTube (despite the platform’s pledge to crack down on coronavirus misinformation) accusing Gates of wanting “eugenics” and “population control” and claiming he is the antichrist and that he essentially supports genocide; they racked up another 1.6 million views combined. The videos included a clip from anti-Semitic conspiracy theory outlet TruNews and a video whose title called the virus a “hoax” (those videos received hundreds of thousands of Facebook engagements combined).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bill Gates YouTube5</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Videos on social media platform TikTok pushing the conspiracy theory in late March and early April also racked up many views (despite the platform’s anti-misinformation policy). One video that received more than 230,000 views included in the caption “#fvaccines” and accused Gates of pushing for everyone on the planet to have a “digital ID … by combining mandatory vaccines with implantable microchips.” (Media Matters removes identifying information from videos created by or featuring minors to protect their identity.) Another video that received tens of thousands of views claimed Gates was “evil” and connected him to a plan to “get everybody microchipped” via vaccines.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Video file</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CitationFrom a video uploaded to TikTok on April 1, 2020</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The conspiracy theory continued to spread following news in early April of Gates’ spending for a coronavirus cure. Another major white nationalist Telegram account shared a post saying Gates wants the population “extinguished,” and multiple accounts on Facebook and Instagram, including QAnon and anti-vaxx accounts, shared a meme urging people to take “no vaccine from some shady ass nerd that wants to depopulate the planet.” Ben Garrison, a far-right and pro-Trump cartoonist, drew a cartoon pushing the conspiracy theory that portrays Gates as a Nazi, which was also posted on the backup site of the pro-Trump subreddit “r/The_Donald.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bill Gates Facebook Instagram meme</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By April 6, bigger QAnon accounts on social media had spread the conspiracy theory, such as Dylan Wheeler, who accused Gates of using “microchip[s]” in order to be “the face of the New World Order.”&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That afternoon, Emerald Robinson, Newsmax’s White House correspondent, tweeted a thread accusing Gates of “control[ling] global health policy” and saying that his “plan” was to use “vaccines to track people.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On the morning of April 7, Fox host Laura Ingraham, while quote-tweeting an anti-vaxx musician's post about Gates’ AMA, said “globalists” see the pandemic as a “perfect vehicle” for their “dream” of “digitally tracking Americans’ every move.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The spread of the conspiracy theory comes as multiple other conspiracy theories about the coronavirus have circulated on social media, including others about Gates and the virus.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/heres-why-the-tormented-conservative-mind-is-so-drawn-to-the-dangerous-allure-of-miracle-drugs/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Here’s why the tormented conservative mind is so drawn to the dangerous allure of miracle drugs</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by Amanda Marcotte / Salon April 3, 2020</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In one of the oddest developments of the coronavirus crisis, there’s been a run on a pair of antimalarial drugs, hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, which are used primarily in the U.S. to treat arthritis and to prevent organ damage from lupus. The drugs are being sucked out of pharmacies at an alarming rate, thanks to Americans who have convinced themselves these drugs will save them if the develop COVID-19, and thereby leaving patients who actually need these medications in danger.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This is happening in the face of only thin evidence that these drugs work against the novel coronavirus, and plenty of evidence that they don’t work. At one Paris hospital that used the drug heavily — on the recommendation of Didier Raoult, a climate change-denying French doctor with a shady reputation — the results suggest these drugs are not effective at all. Chinese doctors also concluded they were useless. These drugs are known to have some scary side effects, including sudden cardiac death in some patients. They are also notorious for psychological side effects, such as paranoia and nightmares. At least one person in the U.S. has died from swallowing aquarium cleaner that contains a similar chemical compound.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So why are so many people so eager to get their hands on drugs that are clearly dangerous and may do no good?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The most immediate reason is simple: The people rushing the pharmacies are Republicans, and both Donald Trump and numerous Fox News personalities have told them these drugs are a “game-changer” that can save them from the coronavirus.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But there’s a reason these false or unproven claims are resonating with the ordinary citizens of Trumpistan. The hope that there’s a hard-to-get miracle cure that will save them speaks directly to the poisonous social Darwinism that guides modern conservatism. It reflects deep hostility to the very concept of a shared public good and a fierce attachment to a racialized ideology of individualism that treats public goods such as health care as things to be hoarded by those with the privilege, money and status to do so.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Conservative ideology simply doesn’t allow for the possibility that anything, including pandemic management, is best managed with a “we’re all in this together” mentality. Instead they’re drawn to this fantasy that there’s a Platinum Member COVID-19 status that can be purchased, which will allow them to opt out of the suffering of the plebeian class that has to quarantine or risk sickness and death.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There’s no question that Trump and other right-wing figures are pushing this hydroxychloroquine angle hard. Trump has talked about these drugs several times during his daily propaganda-dump “press briefings,” as well as on Twitter.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Laura Ingraham of Fox News has been hyping this stuff heavily, hosting a doctor who misleadingly argued that “this is the beginning of the end of the pandemic” Wednesday night. She’s also had tweets removed by Twitter for promoting medical disinformation.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sean Hannity of Fox News has been urging his millions of viewers to grab this stuff up as well, saying “I love the idea of off label use” and arguing that even if it doesn’t work, people have “right to try” — completely ignoring that these drugs are dangerous.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There are many other examples, carefully collected here by Media Matters. This kind of repetition works, and goes a long way towards explaining how enthusiastically right-wing audiences have latched onto these drugs as a possible miracle cure.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But hydroxychloroquine mania also flows from the rigidly hierarchical view conservatives hold of society, one where even basic necessities like health care should be differentiated along class and race lines. Public health measures like quarantine and vaccine are viewed suspiciously precisely because they involve everyone on an approximately equal basis. They long for a special kind of medical care, one that’s just for the people they see as better than everyone else.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This attitude has manifested in many ways before this crisis, most notably around the debate over health care policy. For progressives, the conservative resistance to a single-payer health care system is baffling, even viewed from the perspective of pure self-interest. Private insurance is expensive and unreliable, and since your plan is constantly changing, it can makes basic things like keeping a steady relationship with a doctor nearly impossible. A single plan for all Americans that covers us all in the same way would be cheaper and more efficient and take a lot of pain out of seeking medical care when you need it. That seems obvious.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But that’s just what conservatives don’t like about it: They don’t want a single plan for all Americans. The very idea of having the exact same health care plan as people they see as beneath them, especially lower-income people of color, causes an angry reaction. That’s what all the right-wing hysteria over “rationing,” in response to both Obamacare and the possibility of Medicare for All, is ultimately about. It’s not that you might have to wait in line for something like knee surgery, because that’s already happening under our patchwork private-insurance system. It’s that people you deem unworthy, due to skin color or class status, also get to wait in line and — heaven forbid — might be ahead of you.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">(This attitude also explains the longstanding right-wing desire to police the food purchases of people on food stamps, to make sure they are sticking with “their” food and not buying conservatives feel are reserved for true and upstanding Americans. It also explains the often-hysterical levels of right-wing hostility to public transportation, which can be traced back to the end of the practice of sending black people to the back of the bus.)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In this worldview, certain kinds of health care are for grubby commoners, while the well-off white homeowner class should have its own elite status. This is also part of the reason that the anti-vaccination movement has taken off in this country. Vaccinations, after all, are an unpleasant reminder that disease has no respect class or race, but sees all humans as basically equal, which very much does not fit with conservative ideology.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Unsurprisingly, then, anti-vaxxer attitudes have taken hold on the right, especially in the religious right, which has long been tightly intertwined with a hostility to the government defining and controlling public goods, and has favored widespread privatization of everything from education to welfare.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A lot of people believe that anti-vaccination attitudes are most common among New Age-style leftists, but in reality, Republicans are more likely to oppose mandatory vaccinations than Democrats. It’s largely Republican elected officials who are trying to roll back laws requiring vaccinations, and the religious right has increasingly promoted the idea that it’s better for kids to simply get diseases like the chicken pox than to vaccinate them.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It’s true that anti-vaccination ideology started off in lefty circles, but that happened largely among well-off white people who may vote Democratic but tend to live in highly segregated communities and tend to embrace reactionary ideologies like “attachment parenting” that prevent women from having employment outside of the home. Ultimately, the logic of anti-vaccination comes down to a belief that an elite lifestyle of organic foods and helicopter mothering precludes the need for sharing the same health care common people use, including universal vaccination. That this mentality would leap to Republicans, who would lean into it even harder, isn’t really a surprise.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The irony of the anti-vaccination movement is that the “elite” form of health care — organic food, a mother’s unwavering attention, chicken pox parties — is less effective than the universal policy that’s under disdain, which is vaccination. But that kind of logic, where reactionaries turn up their noses at the common good since it also benefits the proletariat, is hardly limited to health care. It’s also evident in everything from rejecting the local taco stand to thinking that hip-hop isn’t “real” music.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That tormented way of thinking is what’s driving the conservative enthusiasm for hydroxychloroquine. The drug probably doesn’t work, and the side effects are scary. But getting a prescription for it helps set one apart from ordinary working people who are doing the stuff public health officials prescribe, such as washing their hands a lot and staying home (even though, for many, it’s meant the loss of jobs and steady income).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Even if a coronavirus vaccine is developed relatively quickly, don’t be surprised if many conservatives prefer the fantasy of hydroxychloroquine over having to submit themselves to the same jab that janitors and hamburger flippers will line up for. Most working-class people can’t afford to turn their backs on effective, preventative health care when they can get it.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">an 420</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/new-study-finds-trumps-tweets-intensify-anti-vaccine-attitudes-among-his-supporters/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">New study finds Trump’s tweets intensify anti-vaccine attitudes among his supporters</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by April 3, 2020</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">New research has found that Americans who voted for Donald Trump in 2016 are particularly prone to anti-vaccination attitudes and that these attitudes can be exacerbated by the president’s tweets. The findings have been published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.“I’m generally interested in anti-vaccination beliefs because they have the potential to do so much damage. When Trump was elected it also struck me as a curious moment in history, because he was the first U.S. president in modern history to be on the record with anti-vaxx views,” explained study author Matthew J. Horns…</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Read More</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">New research has found that Americans who voted for Donald Trump in 2016 are particularly prone to anti-vaccination attitudes and that these attitudes can be exacerbated by the president’s tweets. The findings have been published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I’m generally interested in anti-vaccination beliefs because they have the potential to do so much damage. When Trump was elected it also struck me as a curious moment in history, because he was the first U.S. president in modern history to be on the record with anti-vaxx views,” explained study author Matthew J. Hornsey, a professor at the University of Queensland Business School.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump had sent dozens of tweets linking vaccinations with autism, such as one in 2014 that read: “Healthy young child goes to doctor, gets pumped with massive shot of many vaccines, doesn’t feel good and changes – AUTISM. Many such cases!”[see CPP?!]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hornsey remarked that Trump is “the most conspiracy-minded president in modern history. It was natural to wonder, then, whether Trump supporters were more anti-vaxx than other Americans, and whether Trump’s tweets had the potential to still do damage.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The researchers first conducted a scientific survey of 518 Americans who voted in the 2016 presidential election. They found that participants who voted for Trump tended to be more conservative and more conspiracy-minded, which in turn made them more likely to express concerns about vaccines and agree with statements such as “Children get more vaccinations than are good for them.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“There’s a conspiratorial worldview that Trump voters hold more than other people; that it’s commonplace for groups of elites with hidden agendas to band together and conduct elaborate hoaxes on the public in near-perfect secrecy. And the data show that having that worldview makes you much more likely to be anti-vaxx,” Hornsey told PsyPost.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We then did a study to test whether reading Trump’s anti-vaxx tweets still have an impact on the public.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the second study, another 316 Americans who voted in 2016 completed the same scientific survey. About a week later, the participants were randomly assigned to either view Trump’s tweets about vaccines or a view Trump’s tweets about golf. They then reported their levels of concern about vaccination for a second time.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Trump voters became more anti-vaxx after reading his tweets. So Trump doesn’t just reflect the views of his supporters, he still has the power to shape his supporters’ views,” Hornsey explained.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We thought that reading Trump’s tweets might shock liberal voters into being less anti-vaxx. But it didn’t. Trump’s tweets made his own supporters more anti-vaxx but had no effect on anyone else. So it was all downside; there was no upside to the tweets, sadly.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump appears to have reversed course on this issue, however.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Trump has stopped making anti-vaxx statements since he became president. Last year, he even encouraged parents to vaccinate their children in the face of a measles outbreak. We’re hoping this is a permanent change of heart, especially in the wake of COVID-19. Every president since Roosevelt has swung behind the science on vaccination. It’s promising that Trump has stopped backing himself into a corner on this, because his words can save lives,” Hornsey said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The study, “Donald Trump and vaccination: The effect of political identity, conspiracist ideation and presidential tweets on vaccine hesitancy“, was authored by Matthew J. Hornsey, Matthew Finlayson, Gabrielle Chatwood, and Christopher T. Begeny.Trend MD v2.4.7</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">an 320</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;Paltrow’s anti-vaxxer ally comes under fire for ‘discredited pseudo-scientific claims’ about coronavirus</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Alex Hen</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/how-right-wingers-and-trump-apologists-could-get-people-killed-with-coronavirus-disinformation-columnist/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.alternet.org/2019/09/malicious-bots-and-trolls-spread-vaccine-misinformation-now-social-media-companies-are-fighting-back/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Malicious bots and trolls spread vaccine misinformation – now social media companies are fighting back</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by The Conversation September 27, 2019</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Social media have become one of the preeminent ways of disseminating accurate information about vaccines. However, a lot of the vaccine information propagated across social media in the United States has been inaccurate or misleading. At a time when vaccine-preventable diseases are on the rise, vaccine misinformation has become a cause of concern to public health officials.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A 2018 study showed that a lot of anti-vaccine information is generated by malicious automated programs – known as bots – and online trolls. In a striking parallel with the 2016 presidential campaign and the 2018 midterm elections, some vaccine misinformation on American social media has been traced back to Russia.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At Saint Louis University’s Center for Health Law Studies, I monitor legal and policy responses to vaccine misinformation. Now platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest are developing strategies to address anti-vaccine bots and to try to reduce their reach in the United States.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Vaccine misinformation is all over social media</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Vaccine hesitancy” is what public health officials call the “delay in acceptance or refusal of vaccines” despite their availability. The World Health Organization has classified vaccine hesitancy as one of 10 big threats to global health in 2019, on the list with air pollution, heart disease, cancer and pandemic outbreaks due to viruses like Ebola.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In recent years, social media platforms have become effective vehicles for conveying inaccurate information about vaccines, amplifying anti-vaccine movements and giving greater visibility to scientifically unsound data.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a 2019 experiment, several journalists searched the term “vaccine” on Facebook. What came back was predominantly anti-vaccine content, even though the vast majority of parents – 91% in one survey – are pro-vaccine.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One study by the Royal Society for Public Health in the U.K. found that 41% of parents using social media reported having encountered “negative messages” related to vaccination. The number increased to 50% among parents of children younger than 5.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">via MEME [matrix]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Memes and other eye-catching visuals can also help propagate the idea that vaccines are unnecessary or harmful, without any reference to scientific or medical data.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Anyone with access to a computer can easily spread inaccurate information about vaccines through social media.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But bots trolling social media can accomplish this goal at a massive level, as they have been doing in the United States at least since 2014.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Malicious bots targeting vaccine info</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bots account for a large percentage of online activity overall. Calculations suggest that between 40% and 52% of all internet traffic is automated. A study analyzing online bot activity in 2018 estimated that 20.4% of bots were malicious. Researchers estimate that between 9% and 15% of active Twitter accounts, for instance, are run by bots, instead of people.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A 2018 study analyzing Twitter data examined the role of bots and Russian trolls in spreading vaccine misinformation. Researchers looked at over 1.7 million vaccine-related tweets between July 2014 and September 2017. Accounts associated with these two categories tweeted at a higher rate about vaccines than average users. While there are no published studies about other social media, researchers have warned of similar activity on Facebook and YouTube.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the case of Twitter, there seem to be at least two separate goals behind spreading misleading news about vaccines. Most vaccine-focused bots are deployed with the direct goal of spreading vaccine misinformation, presumably with the purposed of amplifying anti-vaccine views.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But content originating in Russia conveys both pro- and anti-vaccine messages. This is part of a broader strategy aimed at sowing discord in the U.S. by stirring up conflict around divisive topics.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Some Russian tweets identified in the study used the Twitter #vaccinateUS hashtag. Of all the #vaccinateUS tweets that had Russian sources, 43% were pro-vaccine, 38% were anti-vaccine and 19% were neutral. A pro-vaccine one asked: “Do you still treat your kids with leaves? No? And why don’t you #vaccinate them? It’s medicine!” An example of an anti-vaccine one read: “#vaccines are a parents choice. Choice of a color of a little coffin.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The U.S. is not alone in facing increasing levels of vaccine misinformation on social media. Canada has also reported a rise in the number of online bots spreading vaccine misinformation. Moreover, as content from social media is consumed across borders, these issues are now turning into a global problem.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Social media platforms clear out misinformation</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A 2015 study analyzing vaccine pins on Pinterest found that the majority were anti-vaccine. By early 2019, the company decided to block all vaccine content from the platform.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Initially, the ban was absolute, regardless of the accuracy or source of the information. In late August, Pinterest announced that it would start allowing content from public health organizations, including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Academy of Pediatrics and World Health Organization.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In March 2019, Facebook announced that it would take steps to diminish anti-vaccine content. The company no longer allows anti-vaccine advertising and says it is considering removing fundraising tools from anti-vaccination Facebook pages. It no longer “recommends” anti-vaccine content and reduced the rankings of groups and pages conveying vaccine misinformation. They’re less visible, but not banned – these groups and pages are still present on Facebook.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Also in 2019, YouTube prohibited advertising on channels and videos that run anti-vaccination content. Until then, most YouTube searches for “vaccine” served up misinformation at the top of the list results. Afterwards, John Oliver’s HBO episode on vaccines and similar content jumped to the top.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Plenty of misinformation still online</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As I wrote this article, dozens of new tweets were added to the #vaccine hashtag on Twitter. Several were similar to this one, tweeted from an account with over 11,000 followers, that conveys an anti-vaccine message under the guise of scientific information.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This account, which appears to be closely related to a previously suspended one, tweeted multiple times per hour. Less than an hour before the tweet above, it had tweeted a visually more blunt message asserting the false link between vaccines and autism.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Like most Twitter users, I have no idea whether this is a personal account or one operated by a bot. But for several hours the vast majority of the tweets on the vaccine hashtag were spreading content that is not supported by current scientific consensus.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While the latest tweets were predominantly anti-vaccination, when I sorted results by “top tweets,” a tweet from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, pointing readers toward its own vaccine information page, appeared first.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But tweets 4, 5 and 9 in the top 10 belonged to the same account with 11,000 followers I encountered repeatedly while monitoring the Twitter vaccine hashtag.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">With outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases on the rise, public health institutions like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have been increasing their social media presences. Social media platforms can continue to help reduce misinformation that could further increase vaccine hesitancy in the United States and elsewhere. As suggested by Pinterest’s approach, these tech companies can increase the amount and visibility of vaccine content from reliable sources. While it’s virtually impossible to eliminate all inaccurate posts, I believe social media can and should be redesigned to facilitate the promotion of accurate vaccine information.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[ Deep knowledge, daily. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter. ]The Conversation</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ana Santos Rutschman, Assistant Professor of Law, Saint Louis University</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">kid in vax lawsuit gets measles?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Only the lord God almighty is in control’: Texas lawmaker calls vaccines ‘sorcery’ in attack on renowned pediatrician</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">David Badash / The New Civil Rights Movement</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Conservative Christian Republican also claimed that parental rights are more important than “science,” which he put in scare-quotes.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">cruise ship reportedly owned by the Church of Scientology has been quarantined in the port of St. Lucia after a case of measles was confirmed on board, health officials said Wednesday. There are almost 300 passengers and crew on the ship, which has the same name as a ship owned by the church, NBC News reported.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">only one crew infected measles?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">..."Because of the risk of potential infection, not just from the confirmed measles case but from other persons who may be on the boat at the time, we thought it prudent to make a decision not to allow anyone to disembark," St. Lucia Chief Medical Officer Dr. Merlene Fredericks-James said in a statement reported by The New York Times. St. Lucia cannot stop the boat from departing, which it is scheduled to do on Thursday, NBC reported.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Health officials did not give the name of the vessel, but St. Lucia Coast Guard Sargent Victor Theodore said it was called "Freewinds." The Church of Scientology owns and operates a 440-foot cruise ship by that name, and Theodore identified the quarantined ship as the one pictured on the church's website. The Church of Scientology did not respond to requests for comment from NBC, CNN or The New York Times.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While some high-profile Scientologists have spoken out against vaccines, the church itself has no official stance on vaccination, The New York Times reported.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">4/19</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Anti-vaxxers are just as bad as climate deniers</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sonali Kolhatkar / Truthdig</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There have been at least 555 confirmed cases of the highly contagious measles virus since January alone, prompting officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to call this…</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the disturbing reason Republicans deny science and embrace measles epidemic</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Joan McCarter / Daily KosApril 17, 2019</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">All around the country, Democratic lawmakers are trying to stem the resurgence of measles by tightening immunization laws, efforts that are being rejected by Republicans, Politico reports. In Washington state, where…</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.alternet.org/2019/04/simply-wrong-anti-defamation-league-slams-anti-vaxxers-for-using-the-star-of-david-to-symbolize-their-persecution/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Some members of the anti-vaccine movement have recently been wearing a yellow Star of David as a method of protesting against vaccine requirements in the United States. And the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is speaking out against this practice, declaring in an official statement that it “trivializes the experiences of the survivors and victims of the Holocaust.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The ADL quoted its leader, Jonathan A. Greenblatt, as saying, “The Holocaust was a unique event in human history. European Jews were forced to wear yellow Stars of David by the Nazis as a kind of scarlet letter—a form of persecution and forced exclusion from society. It is simply wrong to compare the plight of Jews during the Holocaust to that of anti-vaxxers.”Greenblatt added that “groups advancing a political or social agenda should be able to assert their ideas without trivializing the memory of the six million Jews slaughtered in the Holocaust.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The ADL, in its April 5 article, noted that anti-vaccine activist Del Bigtree used Holocaust-era imagery during a recent event in Austin, Texas—and that the Auschwitz Memorial and Museum in Poland has vehemently criticized him for doing so. The Memorial/Museum asserted that equating “extermination camps like #Auschwitz” with “vaccination that saves human lives” is “a symptom of intellectual and moral degeneration.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The ADL’s article also points out that social media giant Facebook recently announced it would no longer support anti-vaccination articles or ads.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://kpfa.org/episode/upfront-april-8-2019/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pox: An American History (Penguin History of American Life) Paperback – March 27, 2012</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">by Michael Willrich</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://theconversation.com/anti-vaxxers-appear-to-be-losing-ground-in-the-online-vaccine-debate-114406</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As measles outbreaks spread across the U.S., our new look at how information about vaccine safety and reliability spreads online suggests that the tide may be turning against the anti-vaccination movement.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Between Jan. 1 and March 28, 387 people contracted measles in 15 U.S. states. Mumps is also coming back, with 151 infections in just the first two months of 2019. Both of these dangerous and deadly diseases can be prevented by getting the MMR vaccine, which is so safe and effective, and so widely used, that measles was declared eliminated from the U.S. in 2000. But more recently, new outbreaks have struck areas with large pockets of unvaccinated people.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Many states allow parents not to vaccinate their children if they have religious or philosophical beliefs against immunizations. Online disinformation campaigns are spreading false claims about vaccine dangers, boosting the numbers of people seeking those exemptions – and inviting disease into their homes and communities.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Our research lab has spent years tracking the spread of misinformation on social media, including about vaccine safety and effectiveness. Our most recent update of the data has found that pro-vax information and activity is beginning to push back against, and even overtake, anti-vax disinformation.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mapping the spread of vaccine (mis)information</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2016, we mapped the online debate around a 2015 California bill that eliminated the personal-belief exemption to mandatory vaccination rules. We found that several of the most-retweeted accounts using the bill’s main hashtag #SB277 were highly automated, appearing to come from bots.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Two years later, other researchers revealed that some of those accounts belonged to the same Russian trolls that influenced the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Those now-suspended accounts tweeted both pro- and anti-vaccine messages to stoke discord.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We recently updated this work, looking at vaccine-related Twitter hashtags between September 2016 and September 2018, to see how the vaccine debate continues to play out.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We took a random sampling of 10 percent of the public tweets during that time period. We identified 41,998 posts containing the most popular pro- and anti-vax hashtags. We then classified the 27,590 accounts that generated those tweets as pro-vax (blue) or anti-vax (green) based on whether each one used more hashtags from one side or the other.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We used retweets to visualize the diffusion of vaccine information. A node represents a Twitter account; a link from @alice to @bob indicates one or more vaccine-related retweets of @alice by @bob. We then mapped the largest network of connected accounts for each of four six-month intervals. The two communities of pro- and anti-vax information are quite segregated in the network, indicating that the accounts in one group do not generally retweet messages from the other. In the last year, however, we observe some blue nodes connected to the green clusters, suggesting that pro-vax information is beginning to penetrate the anti-vax community.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Accounts likely controlled by bots are depicted as red nodes in the network. They are prominent on both sides of the online discussion: Consistent with prior research findings, bots share both pro- and anti-vax content.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In late 2016, the anti-vax movement (in green) was much larger than the pro-vax movement (in blue). Over time, the pro-vax movement expanded and now dwarfs the anti-vaxxers. Filippo Menczer and Pik-Mai Hui, Indiana University, CC BY-ND</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Our analysis reveals the most influential accounts on each side – the accounts whose tweets are retweeted the most. On the pro-vax side are organizations like @WHO, @UNICEF and @gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, as well as celebrity advocate @ChelseaClinton and pediatrician @luciapediatra.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On the anti-vax side, one account dominates all the others: @LotusOak, which gave as its full name “Vira Burnayeva.” That account was suspended by Twitter in late 2018 or early 2019. Interestingly, another account @ViraBurnayeva (full name “LotusOak”) that posts similar anti-vax misinformation and propaganda is currently among the most influential anti-vax nodes. The names suggest this account is controlled by the same source, illustrating how easy it can be to circumvent social media companies’ efforts to curb vaccine misinformation.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We have found some possible signs of good news: Initially most of the information on Twitter was dominated by people who opposed vaccinations. But in 2017, the scenario appears to have reversed: Anti-vaccine content is now shared only by a minority of users.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If that preliminary finding is confirmed by other research, it could provide evidence that the combined efforts of social media platforms, health organizations, public policy campaigns and grassroots advocacy may eventually overcome anti-vax junk science.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Who profits from vaccine opposition?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The modern anti-vax movement is still around, at least in part, because it makes money. It originated from a disproven, false claim about a link between vaccines and autism in a fraudulent, retracted 1998 paper by British gastroenterologist Andrew Wakefield. Reportedly driven by financial profit motives, Wakefield falsified data and allegedly abused developmentally delayed children.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">His U.K. medical license was revoked in 2010 for unethical behavior, misconduct and dishonesty. But he continues to oppose state bills against vaccine exemptions and profit from promoting anti-vax disinformation, including through his propaganda film “Vaxxed,” which is available on popular streaming platforms.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Others profit from spreading this misinformation, too. For example, InfoWars and Natural News discredit medical science while earning money from the sale of alternative medicine products. The disinformation spreads quickly on social media through a well-connected network of activists and concerned parents.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When enough parents in a specific local community are misled into forgoing vaccination of their children, that area’s vaccination rate falls below the level necessary to confer what is called “herd immunity” on the entire population. For measles, 96 percent or more of a population need to be vaccinated to protect everyone.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Communities with lower vaccination rates are where outbreaks happen. For example, the 2017 measles outbreak in Minnesota followed an anti-vax disinformation campaign targeting Somali immigrants. The current outbreak in Washington affects mostly Slavic immigrants.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Some of the parents may be making their decisions based on what they learn online about vaccination.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On the legislative agenda</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Much of this online activity appears to relate to debate in the real world. For instance, many of the tweets refer to legislation or other policy discussions. And there is a fair amount of disagreement in the political world.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At the moment, almost all states grant religious exemptions and 17 states allow parents to refuse vaccinations on philosophical grounds. Congress is studying the issue.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Some states, like Arizona, are working to expand those exemptions, although the state’s governor has vowed to veto such bills.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Other states are pushing in the opposite direction: Mississippi doesn’t have a religious exemption and has rejected attempts to create one. Washington is considering a bill that would grant exemptions only to parents of children with religious or medical reasons to refuse immunizations, much like California’s SB277 did. Rockland County, New York, has banned unvaccinated minors from public places to curtail the spread of disease.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This may be a legislative reflection of the same trend our research has observed online – where pro-vax information is beginning to push back effectively against the anti-vax movement. Children’s lives are at risk.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">tags</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">GoFundMe bans antivax fundraisers as tech companies finally crack down on medical disinformation</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">gov exposed kids to c pox?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/right-wing-politician-who-condemned-mandatory-vaccination-hospitalized-for-chickenpox/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rand Paul says we shouldn’t be “giving up on liberty” by ensuring kids get vaccinated.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At a moment in our country when previously-eradicated deadly childhood illnesses like measles are resurging in the United States, Sen. Rand Paul wants to speak out against mandatory childhood vaccinations — not, he stressed, because he believes they don’t work or because he buys conspiracy theories about vaccines causing autism, but because gosh darn it, parents deserve freedom.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“As we contemplate forcing parents to choose this or that vaccine, I think it’s important to remember that force is not consistent with the American story, nor is force consistent with liberty our forefathers sought when they came to America,” said Paul in a Senate Health Committee hearing on Tuesday. “I believe that the benefits of vaccines greatly outweigh the risks, but I still don’t favor giving up on liberty for a false sense of security.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Chairman Bill Cassidy (R-LA), a former physician, smacked him down, saying, “I’ve seen people who have not been vaccinated who required liver transplantation because they were not.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">anti-vaxxers sorta, but no mention of recent outbreak in US NW, amazing pro UN, dump on france; yemen mentioned but not 1 mil cholera</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.breitbart.com/news/un-warns-of-complacency-as-measles-cases-soar-worldwide-2/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.alternet.org/2019/02/anti-vax-mom-and-unsubtle-sexism-why-the-internets-latest-meme-is-more-about-mocking-women-than-mocking-pseudoscience/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">a large measles outbreak in Washington state. Vox's Julia Belluz looked into a study about what makes people fall for anti-vaccine messaging, honing in on the ideas of liberty and purity. One suggestion from the author of the study for reaching these people is framing vaccines as something that is natural.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.alternet.org/2019/01/heres-why-vaccine-opponents-think-they-know-more-than-medical-experts/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One of the most contentious areas of health policy over the past two decades has been the safety of vaccination. Vaccines prevent the outbreak of diseases that used to be widespread, like polio, and scientific consensus strongly supports their safety. Yet many Americans refuse or delay the vaccination of their children out of fear that it could lead to autism, even though scientific consensus refutes this claim.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Anti-vaccine attitudes have been fueled in large part by growing rates of autism diagnoses as well as a now debunked study in The Lancet that linked autism and the measles mumps rubella (MMR) vaccine – pushing many parents to see vaccination as a potential explanation for their child’s autism diagnosis.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The growing “anti-vax” movement here and abroad has seen parents refuse to give their children mandatory school vaccinations, growing numbers of celebrities questioning vaccine safety, and even pet owners refusing to vaccinate their dogs – forcing the British Veterinary Association to issue a statement in April that dogs cannot develop autism.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Given the consistent message from the scientific community about the safety of vaccines, and evidence of vaccine success as seen through the eradication of diseases, why has the skepticism about vaccines continued?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One possibility is that attitudes about medical experts help to explain the endorsement of anti-vax attitudes. Specifically, building on past research, our research team contends that some U.S. adults might support anti-vax policy positions in part because they believe they know more than medical experts about autism and its causes. We wanted to test this theory.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Vaccine skepticism and knowledge</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A child in Romania, on June 6, 2018, receives vaccination after a measles outbreak has sickened hundreds of children. Health officials say the outbreak is serious because of low vaccination rates.And yet, vaccine skepticism persists, extending into the political realm, with many politicians questioning the safety of vaccines. Most notably, President Donald Trump has questioned the credentials of doctors calling for vaccination, pushed for slowed vaccination schedules, and tapped vaccine skeptic Robert Kennedy Jr. to chair an administrative panel on vaccine safety.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We wondered: Could the inability of anti-vaxxers to accurately appraise their own knowledge and skills compared to those of medical experts play a role in shaping their attitudes about vaccines? This inability to accurately appraise one’s own knowledge is called the Dunning-Kruger effect, first identified in social psychology. Dunning-Kruger effects occur when individuals’ lack of knowledge about a particular subject leads them to inaccurately gauge their expertise on that subject. Ignorance of one’s own ignorance can lead people who lack knowledge on a subject think of themselves as more expert than those who are comparatively better informed. We refer to this as “overconfidence.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dunning-Kruger effects and anti-vax attitudes</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">To test our hypothesis, our research asked more than 1,300 Americans in December 2017 to compare their own perceived levels of knowledge about the causes of autism to those of medical doctors and scientists. After doing that, we asked respondents to answer a series of factual knowledge questions about autism, as well as the extent to which they agree with misinformation about a potential link between childhood vaccines and autism.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We found that 34 percent of U.S. adults in our sample feel that they know as much or more than scientists about the causes of autism. Slightly more, or 36 percent, feel the same way about their knowledge relative to that of medical doctors.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We also found strong evidence of Dunning-Kruger effects in our sample. Sixty-two percent of those who performed worst on our autism knowledge test believe that they know as much or more than both doctors and scientists about the causes of autism, compared to only 15 percent of those scoring best on the knowledge test. Likewise, 71 percent of those who strongly endorse misinformation about the link between vaccines and autism feel that they know as much or more than medical doctors about the causes of autism, compared to only 28 percent of those who most strongly reject that misinformation.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We recently published our findings at the journal Social Science and Medicine.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">How does this affect vaccine policy?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Our research also finds that these Dunning-Kruger effects have important implications for vaccine policy.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In addition to gauging autism knowledge, our survey asked respondents to share their opinions on several aspects of vaccine policy. For example, we asked respondents whether or not they support parents’ decisions to not vaccinate their children before sending them to public schools. Respondents could tell us whether they strongly agree, agree, neither agree nor disagree, disagree or strongly disagree with that statement.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We found that nearly a third, or 30 percent, of people who think that they know more than medical experts about the causes of autism strongly support giving parents the latitude to not vaccinate their children. In contrast, 16 percent of those who do not think that they know more than medical professionals felt the same way.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Our study also finds that people who think they know more than medical experts are more likely to trust information about vaccines from non-expert sources, such as celebrities. These individuals are also more likely to support a strong role for non-experts in the process of making policies that pertain to vaccines and vaccination.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">An uphill battle?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ultimately, our results point to the uphill battle that the scientific community faces as it confronts growing anti-vax sentiment from the public and politicians alike. Even as the mountain of evidence on the safety and importance of vaccines from doctors and scientists continues to grow, many Americans think they know more than the experts trying to correct their misperceptions.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Therefore, finding new ways to present scientific consensus on vaccines to an audience skeptical of medical experts should be a priority. Our research suggests that one interesting area for future research could be to examine whether pro-vaccine information from non-expert sources like celebrities could persuade those with anti-vaccine policy attitudes to change their minds.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Matthew Motta, Postdoctoral fellow, University of Pennsylvania; Steven Sylvester, Assistant professor, public policy, Utah Valley University, and Timothy Callaghan, Assistant Professor, Texas A&M University School of Public Health, Texas A&M University</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Here are 3 life-saving reasons we should remove state vaccination exemption clauses</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Imagine your child in the intensive care unit, sedated and on life support. You brought them to the emergency room with a fever and watched as their lungs faltered, the war being waged inside their little body. They are now attached to a ventilator that breathes for them, and a machine is delivering oxygen to their blood outside of their body. Your child is alive thanks to the unbelievable power of modern medicine, but fighting for their life. Your child has the flu.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stories like these are becoming a common occurrence, especially at the peak of the flu season. During my career as a registered nurse in a large academic medical center, I have had the displeasure of watching the influenza virus ravage even the healthiest of individuals. It is a merciless and indiscriminate enemy. It is also largely preventable.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yet recent data suggests parents of school-age kids in Texas are opting out of vaccinations, including the flu vaccine, at alarming rates. Texas — along with 16 other states — allows parents of school-age children to opt out of required school vaccinations on the basis of conscience. This clause has allowed for a recent explosion in the number of vaccine exemptions.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In virtually every school district within and around Austin, the vaccine exemption rate has risen. Nearly 50 percent of students attending Austin Waldorf School — a staggering statistic — went unvaccinated this past school year.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the larger Austin school districts, such as Austin ISD, the exemption rate is now roughly twice the state average. This is a cause for concern.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Local clinics and hospitals can become overwhelmed with treating preventable illnesses during peak seasons, which can lead to delays in care and increased healthcare expenditures. In addition, herd immunity — the reduced risk of contracting a disease when a majority of a community is immunized — can become unpredictable with an increase in opt-outs, putting the most vulnerable among the community at greater risk.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Studies have shown that states with lenient vaccination laws often have higher nonmedical exemption rates and disease rates. It’s time to forego the nonmedical exemption clause and reframe our school vaccination requirements to reflect recent discoveries.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So, what would it look like to have Texas’ exemption clause removed? For one, the rate of vaccinated school-aged children would likely rise. In 2015, California passed SB277 which eliminated nonmedical exemptions for school entry. It was the first state in almost 35 years to do so. In the two years following the bill’s passing, California saw a nearly 2.5% increase in statewide kindergartners receiving school-entry vaccines.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Second, there would likely be a decline in the rate of children contracting — and dying from — preventable infectious diseases such as the flu, measles, and pertussis. Hospital admission rates related to these illnesses would in turn decrease.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Finally, a discussion on vaccinations would be incomplete without addressing autism. From the mouths of celebrities (think Jenny McCarthy) to the average parent’s Facebook newsfeed, the idea that vaccines cause autism is rampant. It’s also incorrect, dangerous propaganda. The only two published studies — by the same author, no less — that claimed to find a link between vaccines and autism were critically flawed and later retracted from scientific records. To be crystal clear, vaccines have not been found to cause autism. They also do not cause that which they are designed to prevent — a common flu vaccine myth.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Legislators of Texas, in the midst of ever-increasing vaccination exemptions, consider drafting legislation to eliminate exemptions of conscience.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And parents, with the flu season upon us, I implore you to vaccinate your children. The lives of our kids are invaluable. Without this lifesaving preventative medicine, the next victim of this unforgiving killer could be yours.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">AW</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">father of the anti-vaccine movement, “[doesn’t] feel responsible at all” for the ongoing measles outbreak in Minnesota.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We beg to differ.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The largest ever measles outbreak in the state’s history is propagating among a tight-knit Somali immigrant community – the same community Wakefield visited at least three times in 2010 and 2011 to warn parents against vaccinating their children. His message clearly took root, because 92 percent of the 50 children affected in the current outbreak were either never vaccinated against measles, or did not finish the vaccine’s full course.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wakefield and others who peddle the falsehood that the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine causes autism are almost entirely responsible for the virus’ rampage against this community.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Vaccination safety isn’t a matter of opinion. A study in the Journal of American Medicine followed more than 95,000 children to conclude that the MMR vaccine doesn’t increase the risk of autism, even among the highest-risk children. Autism appears with equal frequency in vaccinated and unvaccinated children, and a firm scientific consensus – to the tune of tens of thousands of independent studies – confirms vaccines aren’t responsible.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rarely will junk science have as immediate and deadly an impact as the anti-vaccine movement. Although most measles cases are limited to a high fever, flu-like symptoms, and a full-body rash, complications can include life-threatening swelling of the brain and pneumonia.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Measles is incredibly contagious. Roughly 90% of people not already immune to the virus (through vaccine or prior infection) but living with an infected person will catch it. Prior to vaccine availability in the 1960’s, an average of 500,000 Americans could expect to be infected each year.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That doesn’t even consider the litany of other vaccine-preventable diseases which anti-vaxxers presumably subject their children to, including:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pneumonia, meningitis (swelling around brain and spinal cord), chickenpox, hepatitis A and B (liver infections), rotavirus (diarrhea), diphtheria (severe, thick throat infection), tetanus (painful muscle spasms) whooping cough, and HPV(cervical cancer).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Despite these very real risks, the anti-vaccine movement still clings to the wholly disproven notion that immunization causes autism. The very minor chance of vaccine-related injury is far outweighed by the benefits of vaccination in preventing deadly disease.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">..====</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">North Carolina is reporting the worst chickenpox outbreak since a vaccine for it was introduced more than 20 years ago. Ground zero for the outbreak is the Asheville Waldorf School, where 36 children have come down with chickenpox.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that "the percentage of children under 2 years old who haven’t received any vaccinations has quadrupled since 2001," according to the Washington Post. Many of the parents who refuse to vaccinate their children do so under a religious beliefs exemption. "[T]he flare-up demonstrates the real-life consequences of a shadowy debate fueled by junk science and fomented by the same sort of Twitter bots and trolls that spread misinformation during the 2016 presidential election."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The claim of an autism risk, though it has been debunked, has remained a rallying cry of the anti-vaccine movement.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“What’s the big deal with chickenpox?” one city resident, Amy Gordon, told the Citizen-Times.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Chickenpox is serious, warns the CDC, “even life-threatening, especially in babies, adolescents, adults, pregnant women and people with weakened immune systems.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Related: Throwing Science At Anti-Vaxxers Just Makes Them More Hardline</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.alternet.org/heres-why-pregnant-women-are-falling-anti-vaxxer-propaganda-and-how-we-can-stop-it-spreading</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.alternet.org/celebrity-pseudoscience-here-are-nine-household-names-whove-pushed-bad-science-public</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.alternet.org/psychologist-explains-thinking-error-root-science-denial</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;there are three important issues on which there is scientific consensus but controversy among laypeople: climate change, biological evolution and childhood vaccination. On all three issues, prominentmembers of the Trump administration, including the president, have lined up against the conclusions of research.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This widespread rejection of scientific findings presents a perplexing puzzle to those of us who value an evidence-based approach to knowledge and policy.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yet many science deniers do cite empirical evidence. The problem is that they do so in invalid, misleading ways. Psychological research illuminates these ways....</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As a psychotherapist, I see a striking parallel between a type of thinking involved in many mental health disturbances and the reasoning behind science denial. As I explain in my book “Psychotherapeutic Diagrams,” dichotomous thinking, also called black-and-white and all-or-none thinking, is a factor in depression, anxiety, aggression and, especially, borderline personality disorder.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In this type of cognition, a spectrum of possibilities is divided into two parts, with a blurring of distinctions within those categories. Shades of gray are missed; everything is considered either black or white. Dichotomous thinking is not always or inevitably wrong, but it is a poor tool for understanding complicated realities because these usually involve spectrums of possibilities, not binaries....</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.ecowatch.com/cdc-corruption-robert-kennedy-jr-2096438139.html</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">hmn</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.globalpossibilities.org/vaccines-retroviruses-dna-and-the-discovery-that-destroyed-judy-mikovits-career/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://bigthink.com/philip-perry/researchers-may-have-found-what-causes-autism-and-even-how-to-prevent-it</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">gut bacteria</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">wait, what?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.globalpossibilities.org/the-great-vaxxed-debate/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">offit, paul acsh</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">~ vaxxers gives him cover was cigs sis for Whelan? michael specter?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">movies, deniro, RFK2, jenny mccarthy goofy husband;&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;day after Governor Jerry Brown signed a tough vaccination bill into law, former assemblyman and gubernatorial candidate Tim Donnelly started an effort to repeal it.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The new law aims to boost immunization rates by requiring that children be vaccinated to attend public or private daycare or school. The law eliminates exemptions based on personal beliefs and religion, while maintaining a medical exemption.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Donnelly submitted his proposed referendum in a July 1 letter. He has 90 days from the date Brown signed the bill to circulate and file petitions. He will need to collect more than 365,000 valid signatures to qualify for the Nov. 2016 ballot.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a phone interview with KPCC, Donnelly, who’s now a radio host, said the new law is “devastating” to parents’ right to choose which medical care their children receive. “Why should the state have more control over our children’s health than we do?” he asked.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When asked if he thinks he can collect enough signatures to get the issue on the ballot, Donnely replied, “we’ll see,” maintaining that there was a “huge outpouring” of bipartisan opposition to the bill.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Donnelly’s is the first formal challenge of the law, but others are expected. Christina Hildebrand, founder of A Voice for Choice, a group opposed to SB 277, said her group would also attempt to overturn the law through a ballot referendum. She also pledged to file a lawsuit on the grounds that the bill infringes on the state constitution’s guarantee of education.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sen. Richard Pan (D-Sacramento), who wrote SB 277 with Sen. Ben Allen (D-Santa Monica), responded to Donnelly’s move by issuing a statement asserting that Californians “overwhelmingly support” requiring vaccinations for school, according to a recent Public Policy Institute of California survey.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Our bill was a reasonable, science-based approach to protecting children, and the most vulnerable among us, from dangerous diseases,” he said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I have spent my career campaigning to build healthier and safe communities and I will continue that work by fighting any referendum that hurts Californians,” added Pan.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.alternet.org/culture/anti-vaxx-mother-leaves-movement-after-all-7-her-kids-get-whooping-cough</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">vaxxer?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">====</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.desmogblog.com/conservatives-versus-science-new-scientific-validation-republican-war-science-and-republican-brain-thesis</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">UPDATE: The paper discussed below is downloadable here [1].</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For a while now, I’ve been aware of a powerful new paper that directly tests the central argument of my 2005 book The Republican War on Science [2]—and also validates some key claims made in my new book, The Republican Brain [3]. I’ve had to keep quiet about it until now; but at last, the study is out [4]—though I’m not sure yet about a web link to it.&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The research is by Gordon Gauchat [5] of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and published in the prestigious American Sociological Review [6]. In the study, Gauchat uses a vast body of General Social Survey data to test three competing theses about the relationship between science and the U.S. public:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1) the cultural ascendancy thesis or “deficit model” view, according to which better education and engagement with science lead all boats to rise, and citizens across the board become more trusting of scientists and their expertise;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2) the alienation thesis, according to which modernity brings on distrust and disillusionment with science (call it the “spoiled brat” thesis if you’d like); and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">3) the politicization thesis—my thesis—according to which some cultural groups, aka conservatives, have a unique fallout with science for reasons tied up with the nature of modern American conservatism, such as its ideology, the growth of its think tank infrastructure, and so on.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The result? Well, Gauchat’s data show that the politicization thesis handily defeats all contenders. More specifically, he demonstrates that there was only really a decline in public trust in science among conservatives in the period from 1974 to 2010 (and among those with high church attendance, but these two things are obviously tightly interrelated).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And not just that.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gauchat further validates the argument of The Republican War on Science by showing that the decline in trust in science was not linear. It occurred in association with two key “cultural break” points that, I argue in the book, heightened right wing science politicization: The election of Ronald Reagan, and then the election of George W. Bush.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This one figure from the paper really, really says it all:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;[7]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As you can see, conservatives go down, down, down in their trust in science over the period in question—which, of course, is also the period that thoroughly divided and polarized America.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And it’s not just these new findings that resound. Much of Gauchat’s data also validate key points from my new book The Republican Brain [8], which is in many ways my deeper elaboration of the arguments of the Republican War on Science.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">First, Gauchat shows something I also highlight: Graduate degrees are now much more numerous among liberals, and the graduate education gap between left and right is widening. This factor–reflecting liberals’ greater Openness to scientific information and new ideas, as well as unending conservative attacks on academia (and recourse to ideological think tanks to take its place)–is a key structural force involved in driving conservatives away from science.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Second: Gauchat also captures, once again, the “smart idiot” effect [9]: Conservatives becoming more factually wrong—or, in this case, more distrusting of science, which to me is basically the same thing—as their level of education advances. Here let me quote in full, because frankly, the finding can only be called highly disturbing:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">…conservatives with high school degrees, bachelor’s degrees, and graduate degrees all experienced greater distrust in science over time and these declines are statistically significant. In addition, a comparison of predicted probabilities indicates that conservatives with college degrees decline more quickly than those with only a high school degree. These results are quite profound, because they imply that conservative discontent with science was not attributable to the uneducated but to rising distrust among educated conservatives.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The key question to pose, after reading Gauchat’s paper, is why this occurred. Clearly, The Republican War on Science’s politicization thesis is being strongly validated—a thesis that attributes the problem to the growth of a modern conservative movement, its need to appease its core interest groups and constituencies (corporate America, conservative Christians), its need to have its own alternative expertise and journalism (think tanks, Fox, Limbaugh), and so on.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But frankly, I don’t think this thesis goes far enough. That is the whole point of The Republican Brain, where I assert that we need a nature plus nurture account to understand why conservatives deny science and reality. And all of this stuff Gauchat is talking about is sociology—aka, “nurture.” It’s very real, undeniably so–but is it the whole story?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I doubt it. For instance, in their book Authoritarianism and Polarization in American Politics [10], Marc Hetherington and Jonathan Weiler have shown that as the “New Right” emerged in the U.S. in the wake of the cultural battles of the 1960s and 1970s, it mobilized strong forces of authoritarianism–e.g., psychological rigidity and closed-mindedness. In this era, driven by hot button “culture war” issues, authoritarians moved to the&nbsp; right, leaving behind the Democratic Party, particularly in the South. These were the so-called “Reagan Democrats.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I find it hard to believe that this trend is not also showing up in Gauchat’s data. If anything, the finding about church attendance kind of gives it away—in the U.S., authoritarians are often biblical fundamentalists.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Whatever the underlying causes, though, the punchline of the story that Gauchat tells—reaffirming the story I have told—is unmistakably grim. We now have a powerful linkage between a powerful political movement in the United States on the one hand, and the denial of science and reality on the other. This not only manifests itself every day in our dysfunctional political debates; it is a gigantic threat to the country’s future and its ability to cope with 21stcentury problems.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tags:&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">republican war on science [11]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">republican brain [12]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">gordon gauchat [13]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Read more: Conservatives versus Science: A New Scientific Validation of the Republican War on Science (and Republican Brain) Thesis [14]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Source URL: http://www.desmogblog.com/conservatives-versus-science-new-scientific-validation-republican-war-science-and-republican-brain-thesis</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">interesting convergence of anti-science; herd immunity is a version of the commons; internet meme; (goes viral ;(</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">understandable that DDT would be target, but harder to see why vaccine, tho JBS used to think fluride was commie plot</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">hdnet is AXTV rather?&nbsp; corrected?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Vaccines and the Republican War on Science</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Posted by Josh Rosenau on April 4, 2013</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2013/04/04/vaccines-and-the-republican-war-on-science/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ever since Chris Mooney’s Republican War on Science was published in 2005, folks have been looking for a way to argue that Democrats are just as bad. The standard example for this counternarrative, one which Mooney even offered in his book, was vaccine denial – the claim that vaccines cause autism or are otherwise dangerous.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Intuitively, this seems right. The folks and venues touting antivaxx conspiracy theories tended to be New Agey outlets, and the places facing outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases tended to be liberal strongholds, like Boulder, CO or Marin County, CA.&nbsp; That must mean liberals are more likely to buy into vaccine denial, right? Unfortunately, no pollster ever seemed to include a question about vaccine denial in a survey along with questions about political party or political ideology.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Until recently.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yesterday, Public Policy Polling, an outfit known for asking wacky but surprisingly informative questions, asked people about a host of conspiracy theories.&nbsp; The Atlantic Wire’s Philip Bumpsummarizes the results nicely, and there’s much to return to here.&nbsp; For our purposes, the most interesting outcome is that 26% of Republicans think vaccines cause autism, compared to 16% of Democrats (that’s on p. 21 of the PDF).&nbsp;&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Indeed, the only claimed conspiracies which Democrats were more likely to back than Republicans were: “the moon landing was faked” (D: 7%, R: 4%, I: 9%, all within the margin of error), “President Bush intentionally misled the public about the possibility of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to promote the Iraq war” (D: 72%, R: 13%, I: 48%), “the CIA was instrumental in distributing crack cocaine into America’s inner cities in the 1980s” (D: 14%, R: 9%, I: 21%), “Paul McCartney actually died in a car crash in 1966 and was secretly replaced by a lookalike so The Beatles could continue” (D: 7%, R: 4% I: 5%, inside the margin of error), “the United States government knowingly allowed the attacks on September 11th, 2001, to happen” (D: 14%, R: 8%, I: 12%). Republicans are more likely to believe in aliens and in bigfoot, that aliens crashed at Roswell and shape-shifting reptiles rule our world, that Saddam Hussein played a role in 9/11 and a secretive power elite secret rules the world, that the government adds mind control messages to TV signals, sprays evil chemicals into the air, and fluoridates water for nefarious purposes, that bin Laden is alive and Oswald didn’t act alone, that pharmaceutical companies invent new diseases to make money and vaccines cause autism. They also are more likely to think President Obama is the anti-Christ and global warming is a hoax.&nbsp; Republicans endorse more conspiracy theories, and with greater fervor, than Democrats (even stretching back to conspiracies of yesteryear, like McCartney’s supposed death or the CIA’s ambiguous role in the Contras’ drug dealing).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to a survey last December, Republicans aren’t just more likely to think vaccines cause autism, they are also less likely than Democrats to think “the schedule of vaccines recommended by the Department of Health and Human Services is safe.”&nbsp; At the time, Adam Berinsky, the researcher who commissioned the survey, suggested that Republicans’ negative reaction might simply be “a result of the interaction between anti-government sentiment among Republicans and the mention of a government agency in the question.” Yet that survey also found that Republicans were more likely to think vaccines were associated with autism, cancer, and heart disease (and less likely to link it with diabetes).&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Berinsky compared those conspiratorial beliefs with another conspiracy theory, finding that people who are less trusting of the vaccine schedule are more likely to think President Obama wasn’t born in the United States.&nbsp; In other words, belief in one conspiracy seems to predispose you to others.&nbsp; Democrats who were more dubious of the vaccination schedule were also more likely to doubt that the President was born where all evidence indicates he was born.&nbsp; This parallels findings from Australian researchers including Stephan Lewandowsky, who found thatpeople who endorsed conspiracy theories like the CIA assassinating Martin Luther King, Jr., or NASA faking the moon landing are more likely to reject climate change. (Lewandowsky’s paper itself inspired such a fury of conspiracy-mongering that he was able to generate another paper about the conspiracy theories spawned by the first.)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I wrote to Berinsky to ask whether he’d compared vaccine denial with other conspiracy theories, like creationism or climate change denial, and he was able to make a comparison with climate change denial. “As you would expect,” he told me, “anti-vaccine people are climate change deniers.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That’s what you’d expect from the evidence that conspiracy-mongering begets conspiracy-mongering. It’s not what you’d expect if you shoehorn vaccine denial into the role of a liberal counterpart to conservative science denial.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">s mercer mojo</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.) is finally retiring, after two decades in Congress. He's got a notable record of craziness, having doggedly pursued President Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal while knowing full well he'd had an affair himself and even fathered a child out of wedlock. He famously claimed to have shot up a "head-like object" (likely a melon or a pumpkin) to try to re-create the alleged "murder" of former Clinton deputy White House counsel Vince Foster, who committed suicide. But Burton doesn't get enough credit for what may be his lasting legacy: helping turn Americans away from life-saving childhood vaccines.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Burton has said he believes one of his grandchildren became autistic after receiving a childhood vaccination. As a result, he spent many years and lots of congressional resources trying to investigate the alleged link between the two. In 2000, he held a circus-like hearing in which he provided a very high profile platform for the now entirely disgraced British doctor Andrew Wakefield, who helped spawn the myth that vaccines cause autism. Wakefield has since lost his medical license for allegedly falsifying the medical histories of the children he claimed had gotten autism from vaccines, among other issues.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">====</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Michael Specter's new book, Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet and Threatens Our Lives, dives into a worrisome strain of modern life -- a vocal anti-science bias that may prevent us from making the right choices for our future. Specter studies how the active movements against vaccines, genetically engineered food, science-based medicine and biotechnological solutions to climate change may actually put the world at risk. (For instance, anti-vaccination activists could soon trigger the US return of polio, not to mention the continuing rise of measles.) More insidiously, the chilling effect caused by the new denialism may prevent useful science from being accomplished.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.ted.com/speakers/michael_specter</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.dailykos.com/news/american%20thinker#</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">eg http://www.dailykos.com/news/Randall%20Hoven vaccine</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.jennymccarthybodycount.com/Anti-Vaccine_Body_Count/Anti-Vaccine_History.html&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://healthland.time.com/2011/04/26/jenny-mccarthy-vaccine-expert-a-quarter-of-parents-trust-celebrities/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">5/14 vaccine and autism (2nd suggestion for vaccine)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">About 5,100,000 results (0.28 seconds)&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Scholarly articles for vaccines and autism</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Vaccines and autism - ?DeStefano - Cited by 8</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Vaccines and autism - ?Offit - Cited by 4</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Vaccines and autism: a tale of shifting hypotheses - ?Plotkin - Cited by 113</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A worldwide increase in the rate of autism diagnoses—likely driven by broadened diagnostic criteria and increased awareness—has fueled concerns that an environmental exposure like vaccines might cause autism. Theories for this putative association have centered on the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine, thimerosal, and the large number of vaccines currently administered. However, both epidemiological and biological studies fail to support these claims.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On 28 February 1998, Andrew Wakefield, a British gastroenterologist, and colleagues [1] published a paper in The Lancet that described 8 children whose first symptoms of autism appeared within 1 month after receiving an MMR vaccine. All 8 of these children had gastrointestinal symptoms and signs and lymphoid nodular hyperplasia revealed on endoscopy. From these observations, Wakefield postulated that MMR vaccine caused intestinal inflammation that led to translocation of usually nonpermeable peptides to the bloodstream and, subsequently, to the brain, where they affected development.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Several issues undermine the interpretation by Wakefield et al. [1] of this case series. First, the self-referred cohort did not include control subjects, which precluded the authors from determining whether the occurrence of autism following receipt of MMR vaccine was causal or coincidental....</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Search Results</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CDC - Concerns About Autism - Vaccine Safety</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">www.cdc.gov/vacci...?&nbsp;&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">United States Centers for Disease Control and Preve...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mar 26, 2014 - Concerns about thimerosal vaccines leading to autism.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Vaccine not associated with ... - ?IOM Report on Adverse Effects</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Autism-Vaccine Link: Evidence Doesn't Dispel Doubts</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">www.webmd.com/brain/autism/searching-for.../vaccines-autism?&nbsp;&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">WebMD</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Many major medical groups say vaccines don't cause autism. Many parents say they do. So who's right?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Vaccines and Autism - Autism Speaks</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">www.autismspeaks.org/.../information-about-vaccines-and...?&nbsp;&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Autism Speaks</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Many studies have examined possible links between vaccination and increased prevalence of autism. This research has paid particular attention to the ...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">News for vaccines and autism</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Guardian</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">State of Confusion: One-Third of American Parents Continue ...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Huffington Post ?- 3 days ago</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We must not allow anti-vaccination rhetoric to undermine these ... One-Third of American Parents Continue to Link Vaccines and Autism.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">How vaccine denialism in the West is causing measles ...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;3 days ago</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">More news for vaccines and autism</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">MMR vaccine controversy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMR_vaccine_controversy?&nbsp;&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wikipedia</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The scientific consensus is that no evidence links the vaccine to the development ofautism, and that the vaccine's benefits greatly outweigh its risks. Following ...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Vaccines and autism: Separating fact from fiction | BabyCenter</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">www.babycenter.com › ... › Baby Vaccine Concerns?&nbsp;&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">BabyCenter</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Did a preservative in children's vaccines cause a rise in autism rates? We examine the evidence.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Vaccines & Autism « Science-Based Medicine</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/reference/vaccines-and-autism/?&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Overview of Vaccines & Autism. Vaccines are generally considered to be the most successful public health intervention ever devised. And yet there have been ...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">22 Medical Studies That Show Vaccines Can Cause Autism</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">www.activistpost.com/2013/.../22-medical-studies-that-show-vaccines.ht...?&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sep 12, 2013 - Regardless of the MMR vaccine and autism debate, there are still a number of studies that link vaccines to a possible autism connection.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">MMR Vaccine & Autism - American Academy of Pediatrics</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www2.aap.org/.../mmr.html?&nbsp;&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">American Academy Of Pediatrics</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Studies conducted in the US and Europe have found no association between the MMRvaccine and autism. Over the years, the Institute of Medicine and the AAP ...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Autism and Vaccines - Autism Science Foundation</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">www.autismsciencefoundation.org/autismandvaccines.html?&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The results of studies are very clear; the data show no relationship between vaccines and autism. Read the studies themselves below and browse our ...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In-depth articles</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">How to Think About the Risk of Autism</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The New York Times -&nbsp; Mar 2014</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yet most media coverage focuses on vaccines, which do not causeautism and are given after birth. How can we help people separate real risks from false rumors? Over the last few ...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Explore: autism genetic</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Why Does the Vaccine/Autism Controversy Live On ...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Discover -&nbsp; May 2009</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Research has soundly disproved the alleged connection, yet fears aboutvaccines continue to be a major risk to public health.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Explore: vaccine controversy</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jim Carrey: The Judgment on Vaccines Is In???</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">huffingtonpost.com -&nbsp; Apr 2009</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Can we afford to ignore vaccines as a possible cause of rising numbers of children with Autism, when they are one of the fastest growing elements in our children's environment?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Explore: anti vaccination</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Anti-vaxxers are latching onto the coronavirus pandemic to bolster their movement</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by Kaiser Health News April 25, 2020</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While most of the world hungers for a vaccine to put an end to the death and economic destruction wrought by COVID-19, some anti-vaccine groups are joining with anti-lockdown protesters to challenge restrictions aimed at protecting public health.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Vaccine critics suffered serious setbacks in the past year, as states strengthened immunization laws in response to measles outbreaks sparked by vaccine refusers. California tightened its vaccine requirements last fall despite protests during which anti-vaccine activists threw blood on state senators, assaulted the vaccine bill’s sponsor and shut down the legislature.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Now, many of these same vaccine critics are joining a fight against stay-at-home orders and business shutdowns intended to stem the spread of the coronavirus, which had killed more than 47,000 Americans as of Thursday afternoon.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“This is just a fresh coat of paint for the anti-vaccine movement in America, and an exploitative means for them to try to remain relevant,” said Dr. Peter Hotez, a professor at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hotez said anti-vaccine groups are seizing on the anti-government sentiment stoked by conservative-leaning protesters to advance their cause.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Unfortunately, their strategy may work.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A group calling itself the Freedom Angels, whose members last year stood on chairs and chanted at public hearings on the California vaccine bill, say governors are abusing their power by shutting down gun shops and other businesses.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Many anti-vaccine activists — who have claimed that diseases such as measles aren’t that serious — now contend the coronavirus isn’t dangerous enough to justify staying home. They agree with President Donald Trump that the “cure” for the pandemic could be worse than the disease itself.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That’s led some vaccine foes to join the protesters — whom Trump has encouraged on Twitter — in staging demonstrations in state capitals to “reopen America.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“This is the time for people to take notice and really evaluate the freedoms they’re giving up, all in the name of perceived safety,” said Freedom Angels co-founder Heidi Munoz Gleisner in a Facebook video.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The group organized a Monday rally in Sacramento called “Operation Gridlock.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“People need to get back to work, get back to life, get back into contact with their loved ones who they’re isolated from, they need to be able to have a paycheck,” group co-founder Tara Thornton told The Sacramento Bee, which interviewed her during the demonstration. “This is the grounds they will enslave us upon.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Freedom Angels did not respond to requests for interviews. The group’s website mentions plans for additional rallies and includes photos from Monday’s demonstration, such as one in which a protester holds a sign proclaiming “No Mandatory Vaccines.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But after the Monday event, the California Highway Patrol announced it had revoked the group’s permit for future protests because the gathering — which included dozens of people — violated the governor’s social distancing order. The highway patrol has now banned all group events at the Capitol during the pandemic to avoid spreading the coronavirus.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A big tent</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The anti-vaccine movement has never been limited to one political party. Left-leaning vaccine critics — such as Children’s Health Defense, led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — include environmentalists who are suspicious of chemical pollutants, corporations and “Big Pharma.” The Kennedy group’s website attacks Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, for rushing “risky and uncertain coronavirus vaccines” into development as part of a “sweetheart deal” for drug companies.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On the other side of the political spectrum, many anti-vaccine conservatives oppose state immunization requirements because they distrust “big government.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A group called Texans for Vaccine Choice has called on the governor to promise that no one will be forced to get a coronavirus vaccine in order to go to work or school.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Posts on the Facebook page of Californians for Health Choice, which also opposed California’s vaccine laws, question stay-at-home orders and accuse government officials of refusing to admit the orders are a mistake.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a video on the Freedom Angels’ Facebook page, its founders describe stay-at-home orders as an abuse of government authority, and the closure of California gun shops as an assault on the Second Amendment. The group notes that guns could be essential for protection from rioters and looters looking to steal food during the pandemic.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In many ways, the conservative arm of the anti-vaccine movement is a natural ally for those leading “reopen America” rallies, said Dr. David Gorski, an oncologist and managing editor of the Science-Based Medicine site. Both harbor suspicions about government authority.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Vaccine critics, for example, have long championed the false claim that vaccines cause autism, and that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has tried to cover up that information, Gorski said. Trump has at times linked vaccines with autism, although he came out strongly in favor of vaccinations during the 2019 measles epidemic.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Anti-vaccine groups are now rebranding themselves as advocates of “medical freedom.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Protests against social distancing began in Michigan but have spread to state capitols in Texas, Colorado, Nevada, Maryland, Wisconsin and elsewhere, with more planned. Most protests have been small, limited to a few hundred or fewer people.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yet the anti-vaccine movement doesn’t speak for everyone on the right.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stephen Moore, the senior economic contributor for FreedomWorks, a conservative advocacy group that has been helping publicize the protests, said he’s unfamiliar with the Freedom Angels or their rallies.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I’m personally pro-vaccine,” said Moore, a member of the White House council to reopen the economy. “Especially when it comes to coronavirus.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And some heroes of the anti-vaccine movement say they support coronavirus lockdowns.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dr. Jay Gordon, a Santa Monica, California, pediatrician popular among vaccine foes for downplaying the risks of measles, said the risk of COVID-19 is real. Gordon said he approves of the lockdown, “and we have to keep it up.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Containing the pandemic</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dr. Richard Pan, a pediatrician and California state senator who has championed stronger vaccine mandates, described anti-vaccine and anti-lockdown protesters as “essentially selfish” because they put other people at risk.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“One of the hallmarks of the anti-vaccine movement is this sense of selfishness and lack of concern for other people’s health,” Pan said. “They like to talk about rights and freedom. But what they really want is freedom without consequences.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Both anti-vaccine parents and those who want to relax social distancing assume that the medical system will come to their rescue if they become sick, said Pan, who noted that thousands of health care workers have died while fighting the pandemic.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fauci has said that relaxing stay-at-home orders is dangerous as long as the virus — for which there are no approved treatments or vaccines — is actively spreading. Reopening businesses too soon could spark a second wave of infections.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">More than 75 companies and research groups worldwide are trying to develop vaccines, which are seen as a key weapon against the novel coronavirus.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the meantime, the CDC says that social distancing measures — such as working from home and avoiding large gatherings — are critical to slowing the spread of the coronavirus and preventing patients from overwhelming hospitals. Health leaders say it won’t be safe to reopen the county until widespread testing shows the coronavirus has died down.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Americans overwhelmingly support vaccination, according to surveys, and polling by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 80% of Americans want lockdowns to continue. Only 19% said social distancing orders placed an unnecessary burden on the economy. (Kaiser Health News is an editorially independent program of the foundation.)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Neither the anti-vaccine nor anti-lockdown demonstrators represent the opinions of most Americans, Pan said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Let’s put this movement into proper context,” he said. “They’re loud, they’re noisy and they’re small.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div></div></div>