John Bye Profile picture
Aug 7, 2021 14 tweets 13 min read Read on X
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.

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More from @_johnbye

Aug 30
Aseem Malhotra has been confirmed as a speaker at next weekend's Reform UK conference. The increasingly anti-vaccine cardio crank is already Chief Health Advisor to Farage's anti-WHO "Action on World Health" campaign, and now seems to be angling for a job with Reform too. 🧵 Image
This intersection of far right politics and anti-vaccine health contrarians in the UK is no surprise, after Reform's 2024 manifesto pandered to conspiracy theorists, many of whom helped out on their campaign or even stood as candidates for the party.

Reform's links to anti-vaxxers in the UK go back years. Richard Tice was in contact with ivermectin pusher Tess Lawrie and pandemic denier Jonathan Engler in 2021 and several Reform / Brexit Party veterans were involved in the covid conspiracy movement.

Read 4 tweets
Aug 28
Advance UK recently announced its committee, which includes anti-vax data mangler Norman Fenton, racist conspiracy theorist Jim Ferguson, climate change denier Paul Burgess, and conspiracy theory website editor Kathy Gyngell. 🧵 Image
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Paul Burgess was environment spokesman for the far right For Britain Movement (a UKIP splinter group which, like Reform splinter group Advance UK, was backed by Tommy Robinson). He's also appeared on GB News as a "climate commentator".

Kathy Gyngell is the editor of Conservative Woman, a right wing website which during the pandemic went from attacking gay and trans rights and other culture wars nonsense to spreading anti-vaccine propaganda, covid conspiracy theories and AIDS denialism.

Read 5 tweets
Aug 20
The co-founder of "Operation Raise the Colours" (the recent spate of people putting English flags on lamp posts) is an old friend of Tommy Robinson who says he's been "16 years by his side", and had breakfast with Robinson after his release from jail earlier this year. 🧵 Image
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Tommy Robinson's mate Andy Saxon and his "Operation Raise the Colours" have also had support from UKIP leader / Turning Point UK COO Nick Tenconi (recently seen giving what looked like a Nazi salute), far right Britain First Party and its co-leader / ex BNP member Paul Golding. Image
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Before his "Operation Raise the Colours" gained momentum recently, Saxon posted support for Britain First and its "remigration" campaign to remove immigrants from the UK, as well as offensive and sometimes threatening Islamophobic content.

This is who's supplying those flags. Image
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Read 9 tweets
Jun 23
🧵 Kate Shemirani's daughter sadly died last year, after refusing chemotherapy for her cancer, in favour of the kind of extreme quackery promoted by her mum.

Refusing to take responsibility, Kate accused the NHS of homicide and subjecting her daughter to medical experimentation.
Kate Shemirani and her ex-husband issued a statement after their daughter's death, wildly claiming that it was part of "a systemic pattern of state-sponsored medical homicide and institutional cover-up" by the NHS, and suggesting that she was part of an "unregulated drug trial". Image
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Inevitably, Kate Shemirani and her allies are using the tragedy to raise money, claiming "they have taken her daughter". Their target is up to £100,000 to challenge the outcome of an inquest that hasn't even happened yet. So far they've only raised £2,455 from gullible followers. Image
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Read 8 tweets
May 26
Dilbert creator Scott Adams has sadly got prostate cancer. After going down a rabbit hole during the pandemic though, he turned to Canadian quack William Makis who (as always) recommended ivermectin and fenbendazole. Which did not work. Now they're in an unseemly row over it. 🧵 Image
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Ivermectin pusher William Makis responded to Scott Adams' post by claiming he didn't follow his "protocol" (which Adams denies), his cancer was "probably" caused by covid vaccines, and that he "didn't discount the possibility" that Adams was part of a plot to discredit him. 😬 Image
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Unsurprisingly Scott Adams is giving short shrift to Makis and other quacks and their followers, who are trying to blame his cancer on covid vaccines or encourage him to try anti-parasitics, vitamins, fasting, diets and other dodgy "cures" for his cancer. Image
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Read 4 tweets
Feb 17
This week sees the second "ARC Forum" in London, a right wing talking shop with overtones of Islamophobia, transphobia and climate change denial, funded by Paul Marshall and Legatum, who are also behind GB News.

Unsurprisingly there are a lot of familiar faces there... 🧵 Image
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Alan Miller from anti-lockdown turned anti-everything group Together is on a panel.

He was interviewed at ARC Forum by right wing channel Newsmax Australia, and was apparently "shocked to learn" that, according to them, Australia has no free speech and supports trans people. 🤷‍♂️ Image
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Toby Young founded Daily Sceptic, which like Together started out as anti-lockdown but then branched out into culture war outrage farming and omni-contrarianism.

It's still edited by a member of anti-vax misinformation group HART, who laundered their work through the site. Image
Read 8 tweets

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