There is, finally, good news from the anti-vaccine beat.
It’s wrapped in some bad news.
The good: Mandates are working. Anti-vaxxers are exhausted, giving in and getting the shot.
The bad: They’re running home to “detox” in weird ways, hoping to “undo” it.
Antivaxxers on Facebook/TikTok are begging for advice on how to “detox” loved ones who got the shot.
They caved to mandates and want help from influencers.
Some say they’re doomed to death, infertility, or government tracking.
But others have “remedies.”
Like this:
On TikTok, anti-vaxxers have rallied around influencer Carrie Madej, who claims she can “detoxx the vaxx.”
Her solution? A bath with baking soda for “radiation” and epsom salt for “poisons.”
Then, she says, add Borax to clean out “nanotechnologies.”
(Don’t do this.)
When Madej talks about “nanotechnologies,” she’s referencing the “liquified computing systems” she falsely believes are in the vaccines.
Most people on TikTok don’t know who she is, but they do see “Dr.” next to her name, so some are pouring themselves a borax bath.
Borax is banned in foods by the FDA and generally by the EU. It’s a pretty harsh cleaning agent, a potential skin and eye irritant. If you’ve used it to kill pests in your basement before, you’d know.
But TikTok is littered with people taking borax baths to “undo” the vaccine.
Obviously, taking a bath in borax to “undo” the vaccine doesn’t work.
But people are trying.
“Once you’re injected, the lifesaving vaccination process has already begun," virologist Angela Rasmussen told me.
"You can’t unring a bell. It’s just not physically possible."
Some antivaxxers who are caving to mandates are immediately racing back to their houses to try to “uninject” the vaccine. Some are using syringes or snakebite kits.
Others are slicing the injection site and then self-administering cupping therapy.
This also does not work.
There's been a shift among online antivaxx communities in the last few weeks.
Almost 80 percent of eligible Americans have received one dose.
On social media, antivaxx influencers realize they’re losing.
They’re trying to hold onto followers who are increasingly giving in.
That’s where the good news comes in: Antivaxxers realize that they’re losing the war.
They’re attempting to adapt to a largely vaccinated world with ludicrous post-shot remedies.
But the outcome is not terrible: more vaccinated people, taking very itchy borax baths.
Here’s my full story on how anti-vaxxers are giving in and getting the shot, then trying to “undo” it with chemical baths and, basically, new age bloodletting.
I wanted to give a quick update on The Onion’s purchase of InfoWars, which we can’t wait to relaunch as the dumbest site on the internet.
Long and short of it: We won the bid and — you're not going to believe it — the previous InfoWars folks aren't taking it well.
On Thursday, the person overseeing the auction told us that The Onion’s bid for InfoWars, along with the Connecticut Sandy Hook families, won.
We haven’t heard anything that changed that — except, of course, from the guys currently running InfoWars, doing InfoWars stuff.
There was a status conference with the judge overseeing the auction on Thursday shortly after we were deemed winners.
The judge had some questions about process and assets. We’re glad he’s doing that, since our bid with the families is clearly the best and transparency is even better.
Didn’t see much mainstream credentialed press covering this, so I’m at Grand Central. Definitely still hundreds here at this protest calling for a ceasefire.
A lot of people still inside Grand Central Terminal, cops saying the whole terminal is shut down, telling people to head up to 125th St to take the trains headed out of the city. Every entrance blocked off.
Not a ton of people dipping off from the outside. Occasional person will yell occasional pro-Israel (or just general frustration at shutting down the terminal) at the crowd, but it’s very calm right now, at least on the outside.
Yes, this video is about how dumb the Target controversy is, how much the people pushing it are actively lying to people, and how some mainstream outlets are eating it all up.