HART caim to be " a group of highly qualified UK doctors, scientists .. and other academic experts", but in private they have some truly bizarre beliefs, including that vaccines make you magnetic or are designed to turn us into zombies that can be remote controlled using 5G. 🤪
Many HART members believe that covid vaccines cause "shedding". Basically, they think vaccinated people walk around in a cloud of spike proteins that can "infect" those around them. They blamed everying from unusual periods to rising covid cases on alleged "vaccine shedding".
Christine Padgham was particularly active in "vaccine shedding" discussions. Initially questioning if it was "mass hysteria" or "nonsense", within weeks she was asking fellow members if anything from a child with shingles to a baby with a temperature could be due to shedding.
Members wondered if mask mandates were lifted so that vaccinated people could spread "whatever it is being shedded", and seriously suggested "removing" vaccinated teachers to stop them shedding on pupils, or even that unvaccinated people should wear masks to protect themselves!
This paranoia took its toll. One member asked if he should stop his vaccinated sister holding his baby in case she shed on it! Ros Jones and Clare Craig both advised him to steer clear. So masks and social distancing don't stop covid spreading but do protect you from vaccines? 🤔
Another popular belief amongst HART members that has no basis in reality is that covid vaccines are mostly made up of graphene oxide and make you magnetic. Liz Evans in particular fell for this story, even sharing a Not On The Beeb petition calling it a "crime against humanity".
Liz Evans' obsession with the ridiculous graphene oxide story included calling it "an unprecedented and deliberately orchestrated health crisis", questioning whether vaccinated mothers could pass the substance on to their babies, and even suggesting analysing their breast milk!
Other members discussed unbelievable stories about "EMF readings" coming from the spot where people were injected, whether graphene oxide rather than a virus was causing covid, or whether blood clots were causing the magnetism because haemoglobin contains iron, so .. er. 🤦♂️
"This culminated in a group of well refreshed HART members sticking magnets to Tony Hinton's arm in a London pub after a protest march!
The man with the magnets, Colin Natali, later revealed he'd been sticking them to his patients too! Did @SchoenClinicLON know about this?"
But wait, it gets worse. HART members wondered if the graphene oxide they wrongly believe is making people magnetic could be used for "brain control", while Liz Evans thought covid vaccines might contain "nanotech" to build a "platform for wireless interaction with humans".
HART had long wanted to examine covid vaccines themselves, and they finally got their chance recently when UK Citizen 2021 provided a stolen vial to Tess Lawrie. Unfortunately the "lab report" she commissioned was so poor even Michael Yeadon trashed it.
Having mistaken a dirty microscope slide for graphene oxide nanotech in vaccines, it's no surprise HART also spent several days arguing over whether textile fibres in a mask were really tiny parasitic worms. 🤦♂️
Despite more sceptical members repeatedly saying the supposed mask worms were just inorganic fibres, other HART members insisted "we need to get them analysed to be sure", and suggested testing covid test swabs for them as well.
Even though she thought they might just be inorganic fibres, Clare Craig was keen to put them under a better microscope, and worried they might be lung worm larvae! Eventually Ros Jones asked a nematode expert to clear it up. Unsurprisingly he thought it was just a fibre. 🤷♂️
While HART members believe in a lot of crazy things, some don't seem to believe that viruses can be transmitted and cause disease ("germ theory"). Members repeatedly cite leading virus deniers like Zach Bush and Thomas Cowan (who last year lost his medical license).
And in recent weeks, HART's Michael Yeadon repeatedly questioned if a pandemic happened at all and whether viruses in general or SARS-CoV-2 in particular cause diseases. He even co-signed a letter by Thomas Cowan challenging virologists to prove they do!
A year ago today @LogicallyAI posted an exposé of HART based on a huge chat server leak. This showed them privately discussing wild conspiracy theories and sharing anti-vax and extremist content, while trying to maintain a public facade of respectability.
A year on, many HART members have followed the more extreme elements down a rabbit hole of increasingly wild accusations, having spent 18 months in an anti-vax echo chamber.
My DMs are open if any remaining moderates would like to get out and let us know what's been going on...
HART and Together member Tony "Magneto" Hinton has finally been suspended by Twitter, with cranks running a copy-and-paste campaign to reinstate him.
In memoriam, here are a few of his greatest "hits"... 🧵
Tony Hinton got his nickname "Magneto" after we found out his fellow HART members had stuck magnets to his arm in a pub after a protest march in London last year. Many of them believed crazy stories about covid vaccines making you magnetic, and used Hinton as their guinea pig. 🤦♂️
Tony Hinton apparently thinks that the SARS-CoV-2 virus has never been "properly isolated".
This is, of course, completely and utterly wrong.
And a common trope for conspiracy theorists and outright covid deniers.
Crank Twitter is having a meltdown over the Tory leadership contest. Unsurprisingly nobody meets their approval, especially after their pal Steve Baker pulled out, while the nuttier end of the spectrum think the whole thing is rigged by the WEF anyway. 🙄
🧵
The main issue for cranks is most candidates were in the Cabinet, and therefore voted for "vaccine passports".
Side note: the UK has never had vaccine passports. You could also get a covid pass by testing negative or (until Omicron) having had covid before and recovered from it.
1) Jeremy Hunt (called a "lockdown fanatic" by one Cabinet minister) clearly isn't popular with cranks, and they're angry that Esther McVey is backing him.
McVey is an UsForThem fan and chairs an All Party Parliamentary Group run by anti-vax conspiracy theorists from HART. 🤦♂️
Before you get too excited about Boris Johnson resigning, whoever replaces him may be even worse. Take @SteveBakerHW, who has worked with anti-vaxxers, climate change deniers and other assorted nuts, and is "seriously thinking" about a run for the top job. 😬
Naturally covid cranks are rallying around Steve Baker. Hopefully his fellow Tory MPs aren't that daft. But they voted for Boris Johnson, despite knowing full well that he was a liar and a cheat, so...
More endorsements for Steve Baker from the covid cranks.
Crank pros: he opposed lockdowns and doesn't think we need to worry about climate change.
Crank cons: he "needs time to educate himself" about vaccines, because apparently he's still in favour of them. 🤦♂️
This week on GB News: HART member David Paton blames all our economic woes on lockdown, and UsForThem co-founder Molly Kingsley blames school absenteeism and parental abuse on lockdown.
This week on GB News: Dominique Samuels nominates suspiciously well connected and opaquely funded "children's campaign group" UsForThem as this week's "Greatest Briton".
UsForThem spent the entire pandemic campaigning to get as many children sick as possible. 🤦♂️
Meanwhile on the other side, Talk TV has UsForThem founders Molly Kingsley and Liz Cole on to promote their new book, and HART ally Laura Dodsworth (who has 79,000 followers) complains about Twitter's algorithm. 🤨
While supporters of the Great Barrington Declaration frequently whinge about being "silenced", a report today from a US Select Committee details how the Trump administration held meetings with its authors and embraced a herd immunity strategy.
The report mostly focuses on herd immunity enthusiast Scott Atlas, who (despite initially claiming that covid would only kill about 10,000 people in the USA) was hired as a White House advisor. Once there, he pushed for a strategy of getting "low risk" people infected.
Bizarrely though, Atlas spent his first two weeks at the White House trying to hide the fact that he was on the payroll from other officials and the public, under the direction of Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner. 🤔