Thread by @PeterHotez

1/5: I’ve severely criticized Dr Atlas since his appointment, but make no mistake he was only one of several mouthpieces for a far reaching and deliberate antiscience disinformation initiative led by the White House foxnews.com/politics/dr-sc…

2/5: It’s major tenets: 1) downplaying severity of the pandemic, 2) attributing COVID19 deaths to other causes, 3) fake herd immunity, 4) discrediting masks, 5) discrediting scientists (including me), 6) spectacularizing their abilities, 7) hydroxychloroquine

3/5: Soon other “populist” (almost fascist, but here I need advice from the political scientists) regimes adopted similar tactics, Bolsanaro-Brasil, Duterte-Philippines, Ortega-Nicaragua, mostly far right, with devastating consequences, especially for low income essential workers

4/5: Their supporters? In US linked to far right wing extremist groups under the banner of “health freedom” “medical freedom” coming out of Texas and Oklahoma, I was the obvious target also national groups led by RFKJR who really went after me, my family, then it globalized...

5/5: In terms of globalization, the Russians, Russia 🇷🇺 Today, launched “weaponized health communication”, but we learned from CBS other news outlets how the Berlin protests with RFKJr brought on QAnon, stormed German Parliament, now protests in London sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

I have a paper under review attempting to spell out this whole dark chapter. We can trace our modern Antiscience movement to forces going back much earlier. Hoping my experience in hand-to-hand combat with antivaccine groups might make up for my deficiencies as science historian