The Disinformation Dozen + 4
These are the people responsible for prolonging the pandemic
We all know there is a problem with disinformation about vaccines in general and the COVID vaccines in particular. This is not a new phenomenon. It has just gotten much worse. COVID and social media threw fuel on the fire of vaccine disinformation.
You have all heard that some of these folks have been thrown of Twitter and other social media platforms. But when they get bumped off one, they show up another.
The Center for Countering Digital Hate authored a terrific report on the 12 people responsible for most of the COVID disinformation on social media. Who are these 12 people? From the CCDH report…
“The Disinformation Dozen are responsible for up to 65% of antivaccine content At the outset of this research, we identified a dozen individuals who appeared to be extremely influential creators of digital anti-vaccine content. These individuals were selected either because they run anti-vaccine social media accounts with large numbers of followers, because they produce high volumes of anti-vaccine content or because their growth was accelerating rapidly at the outset of our research in February. Full profiles of each are available at the end of this report.
Joseph Mercola
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Ty and Charlene Bollinger
Sherri Tenpenny
Rizza Islam
Rashid Buttar
Erin Elizabeth
Sayer Ji
Kelly Brogan
Christiane Northrup
Ben Tapper
Kevin Jenkins"
However, since this report was written, new stars of disinformation have emerged and taken center stage. Hence I have coined the term the “disinformation dozen + 4”.
In addition to the 12 individuals named above, I believe we need to add:
Dr. Robert Malone
Dr. Peter McCullough
Dr. Ryan Cole
Dr. Pierre Kory
Each have been the subject of innumerable articles detailing their disinformation, banishment from various social media platforms, retraction of publications, revocation of medical staff membership and medical board investigations.
But it isn’t so much the disinformation that is the problem, it’s what the disinformation led to. These are the folks responsible for the failure to achieve sufficient immunization levels to thwart the pandemic. By their words they prolonged the pandemic increasing the toll of morbidity and mortality. They also contributed to overwhelming hospitals and emergency rooms, burnout of doctors and nurses and delayed treatment of other illnesses. Finally, by discouraging vaccination they increased the number of people who could be infected and serve a host reservoir for the virus within which it could replicate, mutate and disseminate.