Thread by @math_rachel

Corporate-funded efforts to downplay covid are using strategies straight out of the climate denial playbook, funding contrarian scientists, misleading petitions, social media bots,...

blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/09/13… @GYamey @gorskon 1/

In many cases, it is literally the same billionaires & corporations funding climate change denial and covid minimization, opposing public health measures 2/

It is critical for physicians, scientists, & public health officials to realize that they are not dealing with an orthodox scientific debate, but a well-funded sophisticated science denialist campaign based on ideological & corporate interests 3/

Approximately half of the profiles pushing the case for herd immunity are artificial accounts. These bot or bot-like accounts are generally characterized as engaging in abnormally high levels of retweets & low content diversity. (from Oct 2020) fas.org/blogs/fas/2020… 4/

Any strategy to mitigate [climate change, tobacco use, covid] will have economic & political implications that are incompatible with libertarian ideals of free markets. 5/
sciencedirect.com/science/articl… @STWorg

Pervasive scientific evidence has failed to keep influential political & economic actors from seeking to undermine tobacco control measures, climate-change mitigation policies, and now also public-health measures to control the COVID-19 pandemic.

sciencedirect.com/science/articl… 6/