Tag: vaccines
Laura Ingraham

Ingraham Blames Migrants For Measles Outbreak Caused By Anti-Vaxxers

On the February 26 edition of The Ingraham Angle, host Laura Ingraham weaponized a recent measles outbreak in Florida to baselessly malign migrants.

At least eight children in Broward County have contracted the virus, at least six of them at one elementary school, and an additional adult case was confirmed in Polk County. Experts say low vaccination rates are to blame. According to the most recent publicly available data, only 91.7 percent of Florida kindergarteners received the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine, short of the 95 percent vaccination goal.

While the Broward County health department is still investigating the origin of the outbreak, Ingraham contended that unvaccinated migrants were responsible for the increase in outbreaks in Florida and around the country.

“Florida has seen the latest outbreak, with nine cases so far, so it's not just the spread of violent crime across the country caused by the open border, it’s the potential spread of contagious diseases,” she claimed.

Ingraham then brought on Fox News medical contributor Marc Siegel to fearmonger that the outbreak, supposedly caused by migrants, “cannot be contained."

Ingraham and Siegel failed to note, however, that in response to the outbreak, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo defied standard medical guidance, allowing parents to choose whether to send their unvaccinated and exposed children to school, rather than recommending the standard 21-day quarantine.

Suggesting migrants are culpable for disease outbreaks is a racist dog whistle, but it’s unsurprising for a network intent on demonizing immigration as a political cudgel against the Biden administration.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

RFK Jr.

Kennedy Can't Resist The Adulation Of His True Political Base: Online Cranks

Robert F Kennedy, Jr. cannot help himself. In his quixotic bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, he initially sought to distance himself from the 15-year crusade against vaccines that has defined him as a public figure. But this week he reverted to form, making outrageous claims during a panel discussion that he convened with fellow antivaxers and advertised on his campaign channels.

“I do not believe that infectious disease is an enormous threat to human health,” Kennedy said on the livestream, a bold statement in the wake of more than a million excess deaths in the US in its first two years. Kennedy also pledged to target medical journals and defund epidemiology if elected, according to Rolling Stone.

And that was just the beginning.

He falsely claimed that vaccine research created HIV, the Spanish flu, and Lyme disease. He has previously insinuated that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS, and that the only reason all reputable scientists think it does is because his nemesis, White House covid czar, Anthony Fauci nixed funding for research into alternative theories.

When Kennedy threw his hat into the ring, many observers were surprised that his campaign website was silent on the vaccine issue, as the candidate sought to rebrand himself as a normal Democrat who criticizes corporate power while reminding boomers of his dead relatives.

The reputational rehab was never going to be easy.

Kennedy made his name as an antivaxer by doggedly promoting the debunked link between vaccines and autism. The pandemic dramatically raised Kennedy’s profile as an opponent of public health measures and vaccine mandates. He published a bestselling book that spins an elaborate and baseless conspiracy theory about how Fauci knowingly denied Americans access to effective covid treatments because the vaccine couldn’t be authorized if treatments were available. In fact, Kennedy’s pet therapies were tested and found worthless and had there been an effective drug treatment for covid, it would have made no effect on the vaccine’s approval process.

Vanity Fair dubbed him “the antivax icon of America’s nightmares.” A well-earned moniker, given that Kennedy founded Children’s Health Defense (CHD), the most influential antivax group in the country. CHD stoked panic about the measles vaccine in Samoa and helped cause an outbreak that killed about 50 babies and toddlers.

During the pandemic, Kennedy became notorious for likening vaccine mandates to the Holocaust. Kennedy is also a prolific spreader of conspiracy theories, including the rumor that 5G networks are being used to “harvest our data and control our behavior.” What’s more, former Donald Trump advisor Steven Bannon keeps bragging about how he convinced Kennedy to run to spread the antivax gospel.

Despite his aspirations to court normie Democrats, Kennedy can’t resist the adulation of his real base – online cranks.

The pandemic made Kennedy a superstar on the right and he prefers the fawning attention of conspiracy-minded podcaster Joe Rogan to the slightly tougher questions of the beltway media. Kennedy’s antivax antics on the campaign trail ramped up sharply after his appearance on Rogan’s show. The candidate also got drawn into a bizarre harassment campaign of vaccine scientist Peter Hotez, who declined to debate Kennedy on Rogan’s show, on the grounds any debate with Kennedy would devolve into the Jerry Springer Show. Billionaires like Elon Musk rushed in to defend Kennedy and smear Hotez. Hotez was deluged with abuse online and antivax YouTubers even showed up at his home.

This week Kennedy got the band back together, convening a panel on public health featuring some of the antivax movement’s most notorious figures, which he promoted through official campaign channels. Kennedy’s guests included fellow members of the Disinformation Dozen, a rogues gallery that’s collectively responsible for the majority of online antivax content. One of his guests, Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, testified before the Ohio state legislature that Covid vaccines make people magnetic and create “5G interfaces” to link our bodies to cellular networks.

"You can put a key on their forehead, it sticks,” Tenpenny told Ohio legislators in 2021, “You can put spoons and forks all over and they can stick because now we think there is a metal piece to that."

Perhaps Kennedy is returning to his antivax roots because the rest of his program is at odds with the Democratic base. He rejects common sense gun reform and instead blames school shootings on antidepressants; he dismisses US defense aid to Ukraine as a NATO proxy war against Russia; he refuses to criticize Donald Trump and says he’s proud the former president likes him.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Far Right Exploits Hamlin's Cardiac Arrest To Smear Vaccines

Far Right Exploits Hamlin's Cardiac Arrest To Smear COVID Vaccination

Soon after Buffalo Bills defensive back Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field following a cardiac arrest, right-wing figures on Twitter and other social media platforms were baselessly blaming his injury on COVID-19 vaccines.

Early in the morning of January 3, the Bills released a statement explaining that Hamlin “suffered a cardiac arrest following a hit in the Buffalo Bills' game versus the Cincinnati Bengals. His heartbeat was restored on the field and he was transferred to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center for further testing and treatment. He is currently sedated and listed in critical condition.”

Even though cardiologists have been all over the news explaining that Hamlin likely experienced a condition called commotio cordis, in which an impact to the chest during a specific time in the heartbeat cycle can cause cardiac arrest, right-wing figures rushed to blame Hamlin’s condition on supposed side effects of COVID-19 vaccines without a shred of evidence. Many of them referenced debunked claims, previously spread by conservatives, of athletes suddenly collapsing following their vaccination:

  • Turning Point USA co-founder Charlie Kirk: “This is a tragic and all too familiar sight right now: Athletes dropping suddenly.” [Twitter, 1/2/23]
  • Former Newsmax host Grant Stinchfield: “This is brutal. And I know what everyone with any common sense is thinking. This isn’t the first time a pro athlete had this happen. 💉💉NFL Mandate. Prayers for Hamlin.” [Twitter, 1/2/23]
  • Real America’s Voice host Ben Bergquam posted multiple tweets both explicitly and implicitly blaming Hamlin’s injury on vaccines. [Twitter, 1/2/23, 1/2/23, 1/2/23]
  • BlazeTV host Steve Deace: “I’m totally sure the same people who lied to you about lockdowns, masks, asymptomatic spread, school closures, HCQ, Ivermectin, the testing, the jabs, and about #DiedSuddendly will now suddenly tell you the truth about what you saw on Monday Night Football last night.” [Twitter, 1/3/23]
  • BlazeTV host Alex Stein: “Safe and Effective for 8 billion people with absolutely no side effects.” [Twitter, 1/2/23]
  • Former Newsmax host Emerald Robinson: “Everybody knows what happened to Damar Hamlin because it's happened to too many athletes around the world since COVID vaccination was required in sports.” [Twitter, 1/3/23]
  • News aggregator account NEWS_MAKER posted multiple tweets blaming vaccines. [Twitter, 1/3/23, 1/3/23, 1/3/23]
  • Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton: “The NFL pushed the covid vaccines on its players. When will the league investigate whether the ‘rare’ myocarditis vaccine side-effect is impacting players--such as making them more susceptible to game-related severe heart injuries?” [Twitter, 1/2/23]
  • Right-wing activist Laura Loomer: “We have a responsibility to speak up for those who become victims of Big Pharma & victims of @NFL management who pushed the vaccine onto healthy young players & staff. We have a responsibility to speak up for those who are vulnerable & fell victim to this crime against humanity.” [Twitter, 1/2/23]
  • Anti-vaccine doctor Peter McCullough: “This recent paper from Dr. Polykretis and myself gets the sharp rise in athlete deaths into PUBMED. Since vaccination, ‘1598 athletes suffered cardiac arrest, 1101 of which with deadly outcome. Over a prior 38-years (1966-2004), 1101 athletes < age of 35 died (~29/yr).” [Twitter, 1/3/23]
  • QAnon influencer InTheMatrixxx: “Buffalo Bills’ Damar Hamlin appears ok then just dropped. Vaccines?” [Truth Social, 1/3/23]
  • Serial vaccine misinformer Sheri Tenpenny: “The media will 100% cover this up - guaranteed ‘Hamlin collided with Bengals receiver Tee Higgins after a completion. He got to his feet, appeared to adjust his face mask with his right hand, and then fell backward about three seconds later and lay motionless.’” [Telegram, 1/2/23]
  • Q-Anon account We The Media posted a meme associating the Hamlin incident with vaccines/Pfizer. [Telegram, 1/3/23]
  • War Room host Steve Bannon said, “You’ve got to consider the vaccine issues in this regard.” [Real America’s Voice, War Room, 1/3/23]

Users in right-wing Facebook groups are sharing sentiments similar to the claims cited above. One user decried that people can’t “dare suggest” Hamlin’s collapse was vaccine-related, another complained that people “still can’t connect the dot[s]” between COVID-19 vaccines and heart failures, and another baselessly claimed that “there is mounting evidence that shows the #MRNA shot is directly related to the increase of cardiac issues in male athletes.”

Conservative media have previously spread baseless or misleading claims about links between COVID-19 vaccines and heart injuries and deaths. In mid-2021, Kirk speculated that over 1 million people could have died from the vaccines. Fox News primetime host Tucker Carlson repeatedly spread misinformation that the vaccines are harmful for heart health, especially for younger men. Far-right misinformers baselessly claimed that rapper DMX’s death following a heart attack was caused by COVID-19 vaccines, and The Daily Wire’s Candace Owens said the same following the death of comedian Bob Saget.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Mike Flynn, Crank Felon, Warns Vaccines Will Turn Us Into Zombies

Mike Flynn, Crank Felon, Warns Vaccines Will Turn Us Into Zombies

Retired Army Lieutenant General and disgraced ex-National Security Advisor Michael Flynn is a notorious peddler of outlandish conspiracy theories, especially those that originate inside QAnon or spew from the pouty lips of former President Donald Trump.

In particular, Flynn, a Trump-pardoned convicted felon, has focused much of his paranoia on ginning up opposition to COVID-19 vaccines and sowing doubts about the nature of SARS-COV-2. For example, Flynn has claimed that the inoculations were covertly added to salad dressings by the "Deep State" to secretly poison unsuspecting Americans. Flynn has also stated that a “global elite type of people” engineered the coronavirus pandemic to prepare the world for their next artificially-concocted outbreak, which Flynn believes "is potentially another type of virus that’s imposed on the public."

Part of that scheme, Flynn maintained, was that a shadowy cabal of international powerbrokers intended to exploit the crisis as a means of stealing the 2020 election away from Trump.

But on Sunday, Flynn endorsed yet another fringe – and absolutely looney – conservative delusion about COVID-19 vaccinations during an appearance on right-wing radio host Clay Clark's ReAwaken America Tour.

This latest ill-begotten contention was put forth on May 1st by disinformation podcaster Jeffrey Prather. Here are the basics:

  • Vaccines contain inactive "lipid nanoparticles" embedded with deadly "chimeric pathogens" which were genetically programmed to animate when properly triggered.
  • The germs supposedly lying dormant include E. Coli, Ebola, Marburg – a highly fatal viral hemorrhagic fever, and brewers yeast – an ingredient added to ferment beer and bake bread.
  • The "pathogens" will be activated when 5G towers thrice broadcast an 18 gigahertz signal for one minute.
  • The specified frequency subsequently causes "1P36 gene deletion," turning vaccine recipients into zombies. More on that one in a moment.
Clark summarized Prather's assertions and then asked Flynn to share his thoughts.

"This pathogen that you just talked about; I think that there's been some great articles written about how it relates to the 5G technology that is being input basically globally," Flynn said of thoroughly debunked "alterative" research. "But my statement is that because this is a good versus evil time. It is actually one of the most consequential periods in history to be alive."

Next, Clark aired a brief clip of Prather discussing his unfounded ideas, which disturbed him greatly.

"That would cause you to begin to have seizures, begin to bite people, and to have problems with your frontal lobe," he declared. "It's a lot. It's heavy."

Watch below via PatriotTakes:

Accumulating data on the safety of COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy from the v-safe pregnancy registry adds to the growing body of evidence of the safety of COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy.

  • No evidence of any increase in spontaneous abortion rate
  • No evidence of any disproportionate infant outcomes

The Twitterverse had a grand time mocking Flynn's misguided medical mania.









It takes some impressive careening off the rails to make Soviet-style propaganda seem legit. By golly, though, Flynn and his comrades are charging ahead at full speed. Perhaps somewhere down the line, a collapsed bridge awaits this hot mess express.







How Flynn managed to weasel his way into the uppermost echelons of American political power ignited some unsettling bewliderment.





Speaking of zombies...




Reprinted with permission from Alternet.