The Nexus Between Trump and the Antivaxx Movement Exposed.
The antivaxx movement has been around for a long time. It got a shot in the arm in the 1980s when discredited researcher, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, promoted the now debunked association between the DPT (Diptheria- Pertussis - Tetanus) vaccine and autism. Robert Kennedy Jr., has made a career out that false association.
But when COVID came along, the antivaxx movement accelerated dramatically. Propelled by false claims from physicians lacking fellowship training in infectious diseases on Fox News and on social media, the movement got a boost from an unusual source, the 45th President of the United States.
That association was opaque at first but with the Congressional investigations of the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, it has become increasingly clear. Donald Trump is behind the COVID antivaxx disinformation campaign.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/09/a-jury-just-found-the-insurrectionist-underwear-model-guilty-on-all-charges/
John Strand, underwear model and spokesperson for the Trump supported organization, “America’s Frontline Doctors”, one of the leading voices of COVID vaccine disinformation, was recently convicted on all counts for his role in the January 6 uprising.
https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/20vsorv22/10/21/trumps-former-adviser-steve-bannon-gets-four-months-in-prison
Trump advisor, Steve Bannon, was recently convicted of contempt of Congress for his role in the uprising. His organization, “The Rule of Law Society” was also behind the publication of the now discredited paper by Dr. Li-Meng Yan that suggested SARS COV2 was a biological weapon cited by the antivaxx movement as part of their disinformation campaign.
“In November 2020, The New York Times reported that Yan's "trajectory was carefully crafted" by Steve Bannon and Guo Wengui, who played to rising anti-Chinese sentiments, with the goal of bringing down China's government and distracting from the Trump administration's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Times article pointed out that Guo and Bannon arranged for Yan to fly first class to the United States, arranged lodging, coached her on media appearances, and arranged interviews for her with conservative media hosts such as Lou Dobbs and Tucker Carlson.”
Dr. Simone Gold, the leader of America’s Frontline Doctors, a prominent COVID antivaxxer was convicted for her role in the January 6th event.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/06/16/simone-gold-sentenced/
So it has become increasingly clear, the 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump, is supporting and promoting the antivaxx COVID disinformation campaign. It is a cruel politcal calculation. As a physician myself, I find his ability to involve physicians in this scam disturbing. His ability to influence the media to put non infectious disease trained doctors on prime time cable news as COVID experts is alarming. They are not. None of them have medical staff privileges to perform infectious disease consultations. They are misleading the public. What’s even more disturbing is the fact that state medical boards are largely ignoring it.