What would I say (as someone who has been a lead target of anti-science disinformation campaigns around vaccines, and has a front seat to their nefarious activities)? What we see from Wash DC + White House in 2020 exhibits the key elements of a similar disinformation initiative
As we recently stated in our @TheLancet Commission on #COVID19, what's happening in Wash DC, also resembles the elements of disinformation in #Brasil#Philippines...
...political leaders “simplifying the pandemic by downplaying its impacts or touting easy solutions or treatments, spectacularizing their responses to crisis, forging divisions between the ‘people’ and dangerous ‘others’, and making medical knowledge claims to support the above"
"the wearing of face masks has become increasingly politicised in several countries in Europe and the Americas, with some protesters demanding the freedom to dispense with the use of face masks"
Sadly we’ve learned how the 1.2 million Covid deaths in U.S. overwhelmingly among the unvaccinated = just a start. It’s also heart attacks/strokes from the virus/long Covid/dementia preventable by vaccines. Our low-cost vaccine from @TexasChildrens 100 million doses administered
I see Gov Cuomo getting beat up for his Covid response, I don’t have the inside baseball but watching this in 2020 I felt the big failing: CDC/Trump WH so fixated on travel restrictions from China they missed entry of SARS-2 from S Europe into NY going undetected for 4-6 wks
Pandemics by design make elected officials look bad. I’m sure Gov Cuomo made mistakes as did every Gov in America. But for me, the head scratcher: how our public health infrastructure allowed COVID to come into America from Italy/Spain from genomic sequencing and go unannounced
The heroes in this story from my perspective: the ER, ICU attendings, fellows, residents, nurses, respiratory therapists in NY Hospitals who figured out pretty fast use of steroids/anticoagulants. And the NY Hospital Administrators and Boards who said spare no expense: save lives
At some point mainstream media must accept we have a half-dozen articles in the world’s best scientific journals on the natural origins/zoonotic spillover of SARS-2 that emerged just like SARS, whereas 0 papers on GoF/lab leak bc it never happened:
During the day today I will attach some of the major papers on natural origins/zoonotic spillover of COVID19, whereas I will not attach any on GoF/lab leak - for the simple reason that none exist (and most probably never will)
1/n No, but it is anti-science to run a committee comprised of House members who led a health disinformation campaign against mRNA vaccines in 2021-22, which led to the unnecessary deaths of 200,000 Americans
2/n and it is anti-science for a committee charged to investigate Covid yet failed to investigate the role of 2 U.S. Senators and several House Freedom Caucus members, together with Fox News and several podcasters that created a predatory campaign that led to needless deaths
3/n and it is anti-science for a committee that failed to investigate the true origins of Covid through zoonotic spillover and instead spent millions of taxpayer dollars doing all it could to support Qanon conspiracies
1/n You are correct @Maroxad this is one of the tactics the anti-science extremists use to relabel science as “Communism” or dehumanize American scientists as “Communists”. It’s a bit of a throwback to the McCarthy era in the hope that it worked back then, maybe now. The irony…
2/n The irony (and as I highlighted in my @PLOSBiology article) the approach the anti-science ringleaders, including 2 U.S. Senators and several House members from the freedom caucus, employ is right out of the Stalinist playbook. journals.plos.org/plosbiology/ar…
@PLOSBiology 3/n exemplified by those awful House Covid Subcommittee hearings, parading prominent U.S. scientists in front of CSPN cameras on trumped up allegations to humiliate them. They are little more than Stalin show trials. Their X postings read like they were posted by Lavrentiy Beria
1/n Cy-Fair ISD board votes to remove chapters teaching vaccines from textbooks.
My view: the reason we need to care about this is because antivaccine activism has become a deadly force here in Texas. My estimate: 40,000 needless deaths in 2021-22.
2/n here’s my paper in @PLOS @PLOSGPH detailing the 40,000 excess deaths in Texas from antivaccine anti-science activism journals.plos.org/globalpubliche…
@PLOS @PLOSGPH 3/n Author and reporter Chris Tomlinson @cltomlinson from @HoustonChron @ExpressNews has an opinion out today on the removal of vaccines from school textbooks