Thread by @_johnbye

While @hartgroup_org pull their punches in public, in private they share crazy stories from notorious anti-vaxxers and conspiracy nuts.

Including claims that covid doesn't exist, the vaccines are bioweapons, and other treatments are being sabotaged by governments.

For starters there's Anna Rayner, named in documents seen by logically.ai as HART's coordinator, but choosing to stay "in the shadows" because of her work "in a maligned area of healthcare".

More specifically, "treating" autism and "vaccine damage" with homeopathy.

Unsurprisingly she's a follower of Andrew Wakefield, the discredited former doctor who helped spark the anti-vax movement with claims that childhood vaccines cause autism.

Here she is praising Wakefield's "bravery" on her blog, and in HART's chat group suggesting he was smeared.

And she's not alone. One of HART's public facing members, education adviser Val Fraser, says she "did the research" on childhood vaccines when "it was all freely available", before it was "censored after the Wakefield reports".

Does she too believe the MMR jab causes autism?

Another public member, Harrie Bunker-Smith, cites Tomas Cowan, a former doctor who claims viruses don't cause diseases, vaccines don't stop them, and that covid is caused by 5G.

Oliver Stokes asks if "there is anything in" Cowan's claim that the SARS-COV-2 virus doesn't exist.

Public member Liz Evans shared a video (twice!) titled "5 Doctors Agree Covid-19 Injections Are Bioweapons".

She says it's a "very sensible and informed discussion" despite the "dramatic title".

It's really 5 notorious anti-vaxxers saying covid vaccines are "designed to kill".

The five doctors are long term anti-vaxxers Sherri Tenpenny, Larry Palevsky and Christiane Northrup, QAnon nut Carrie Madej, and Lee Merritt of far right extremists America's Frontline Doctors.

That's the group whose founders were arrested for taking part in the Capitol riots.

A week later Liz Evans shares a video claiming covid itself is a bioweapon.

In it Dr Richard Fleming (a convicted fraudster who believes covid was engineered and intentionally released in Wuhan) is interviewed by Del Bigtree (producer of Andrew Wakefield's "Vaxxed" documentary).

Physician Sam McBride is another prolific poster of nonsense from questionable sources.

Here he is sharing an article by Operation Rescue, an American anti-abortion group implicated in the murder of a doctor. Their co-founder spent 2 years in prison for her part in a bomb plot.

He's also a big fan of Medical Kidnap, part of Brian Shilhavy's anti-vax Health Impact News network, frequently sharing their stories on alleged adverse reactions to covid vaccines and other topics.

Shilhavy "explains real health from a biblical, non-Darwinian perspective".

Basically Shilhavy's a quack, who got in trouble with the FDA for claiming coconut oil can cure anything from dementia to rashes.

He thinks covid is a plandemic, freemasons are taking over the world, and you can cure "vaccine injuries" with pineapples.

Sounds credible.

Meanwhile pretty much the whole of HART seems to be glued to Children's Health Defense, RFK Jr's anti-vax site.

The group claims everything from vaccines and fluoride to wireless signals and paracetamol cause autism, ADHD and other issues.

Highlights from Children's Health Defense that HART seem to consider credible include claims that alternative treatments for covid such as hydroxychloroquin are being sabotaged by governments, and that Bill Gates is trying to "control the food system" and "own everything".

The fact that so many of HART's members follow anti-vax and extremist groups, and seem to take their often bizarre claims seriously, suggests their public caution due to fears of being labelled anti-vaxxers is just a fig leaf to cover what many of them really believe in private.