HANTA VIRUS MISINFORMATION

They’re baaaaack! Actually, they never went away. It’s just that Hanta virus gave them a new opportunity to spread incorrect information.

Public Health Opponents Leverage Hantavirus Outbreak to Spread Conspiracies and Misinformation

We can argue about who holds the title of misinformation heavyweight champion of the world, but for my money it’s Dr. Robert Malone, the doctor who leveraged his medical student research experience and one year of internship for title of undisputed “most knowledgable person in the world’ with regard to mRNA vaccines. If Malone were a baseball player, he would be in Cooperstown for stretching more singles into triples than anyone in history.

In the audio attached below, he makes an excellent argument about how the passengers were wrongly confined to their quarters. His argument would be right, if only the culprit virus was the one transmitted by rodent droppings. It wasn’t. This strain of Hanta virus is spread person to person. Ooops! Sound argument, wrong virus. But, hey. what would you expect from a doctor who never completed a residency and isn’t even board eligible let alone certified?

The Floating Petri Dish

Now Peter McCullough is not one to be left out of the playoffs when it come to crowning the champion of misinformation. In a video that saturated LinkedIn, McCullough, who was stripped of his board certification in a disciplinary sanction for spreading misinformation, echoes the same error that Malone made, but he upped the ante by arguing that the passengers should have been out on the deck enjoying the ocean breeze instead of in their state rooms. There just one inconvenient reality that makes his recommenation laughable, this was an antarctic cruise. The passengers would not have not have to worry about Hanta virus, they would have frozen to death if they sent more than a short period of time out on the deck.

The reality is most Hanta virus is transmitted by aerosolized rodent droppngs but there is no evidence that the cruise ship involved in this incident had a rodent infestation.

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/medicalfreedom-ugcPost-7460062934598094854-DRPh?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAANH-QEBypM5FoE-wQsK8UqzIbAJCLnVjqg

When the Hanta virus story first broke, it was reasonable to suspect a rodent infestation. In fact, I made that case first in early May, two weeks before either of the M&M brothers read up enough about it to opine.

But as the days went by it became clear, this was a different strain of the virus, one that is transmitted person to person, so the narrative shifted as did my assessment.

It didn’t take long for the ivermectin crowd to jump on board the MV Hondius.

At this point, there is no publicly confirmed evidence that the MV Hondius had an established or ongoing rodent infestation problem.

What has been reported is:

• The 2026 hantavirus outbreak aboard the ship raised immediate speculation about possible rodent exposure because hantaviruses are classically associated with rodents and their droppings.

• Some infectious disease experts discussed the possibility that infected rodents on the ship could theoretically have played a role. For example, a Forbes analysis noted that ships historically can harbor rats and said “if the Hondius harbored infected rodents” exposure could occur from aerosolized droppings. But this was presented as a hypothesis, not evidence.

• Media reports repeatedly described hantavirus as “rodent-borne” or linked to rats/mice, which understandably led readers to infer there may have been rats aboard.

However:

• I could not find any credible report from WHO, Oceanwide Expeditions, Dutch authorities, or maritime inspectors documenting:

  • rodent sightings aboard,

  • sanitation violations,

  • failed inspections,

  • trapped rodents,

  • rodent droppings found on the vessel,

  • or a confirmed onboard infestation.

• In fact, some reporting specifically suggested investigators believed the virus may have originated from passengers’ exposure in South America before boarding, rather than from the ship itself. One report cited a theory involving exposure at a landfill visit in Argentina.

• AP reporting also noted experts believed future passengers were “likely safe” after cleaning/disinfection and mentioned there was no confirmed rodent detection publicly disclosed.

So the current state of evidence is:

1. Rodent transmission is biologically plausible.

2. An onboard rodent source was discussed as a possibility.

3. But there is no confirmed public evidence of an infestation on the MV Hondius.

Given how serious a finding of shipboard infestation would be for an expedition cruise operator, it is likely that if authorities had documented a major infestation, it would have become public through maritime health or port inspection records fairly quickly.

But that doesn’t sell nearly as well as the incorrect version and that’s ultimately what this is all about. Malone’s post got thousands of views, hundreds of likes and was widely shared on social meda by his loyal subscribers.