Lies and the liars who tell them

Turns out anti-vaxxers are being led by just a few sad people

In May, a Center for Countering Digital Hate study named the Disinformation Dozen (yes, just 12, and among them, a Kennedy) who are responsible for 65% of online lies around vaccinations and COVID-19.

The 12, whose lies have helped kill 648,000 people — with vulnerable populations hit hardest — include:

• Joseph Mercola, Organic Consumers Association (OCA), who has made his fortune peddling dietary supplements.

• Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Children’s Health Defense, a dedicated anti-vaxxer whose nonsense got him banned from Instagram earlier this year.

• Ty and Charlene Bollinger, two of the people behind the Bill-Gates-Wants-To-Inject-Microchips-To-Chart-Your-Movements conspiracy theory.

• Sherri Tenpenny, a committed anti-mask/anti-vaxxer who has gotten rich pushing junk science.

• Rizza Islam 6. Rashid Buttar, anti-vaxxers convinced — there is no science behind this — that the COVID vaccine makes women infertile.

• Erin Elizabeth, where to even start with ol’ Erin? Ol’ Erin wins the head cheerleader in the anti-vax tournament.

• Sayer Ji, who runs an alternative health website, and is committed to conspiracy theories; falsely insists the Pfizer vaccine has killed more elderly people than COVID (Hi, Sayer; Pfizer vaccine here. Bite me.).

• Kelly Brogan, pushes crap so nonsensical that she’s off of Facebook.

• Christiane Northrup, anti-vaxxer committed to giving people animal worming medicine as an alternative to vaccines.

• Ben Tapper, anti-vaxxing chiropractor who insists that positive cases of COVID are false positives. So I suppose that means the positive deaths are fake, as well?

• Kevin Jenkins, who is a pal of Kennedy’s (see above) and says the vaccine is meant to destroy the Black population, a false claim that flies directly in the face of the data.

The study said social media platforms tend to act on just 5% of the bad actors who are reported to them. So we are up against it. The antidote? Bigger bullhorns. Patiently-delivered explanations. You do the explanations. I’ll take the bullhorn.