Coronaviral

[Warning_Hazard 156]

19 minutes ago, Pizy said:

Vaccines work. FACT.

Booster shots work. FACT.

You want to go around believing conspiracy theories about loads of “young folks in their prime” dying (absolutely NOT true) or 5g microchips, or the Jewish cabal behind the whole thing you can fuck off back to 4chan or the Donald Trump subreddit.

“Masters in the tele…” fucking hell. Take the tinfoil hat off. 

You say facts but cherry pick some and ignore others.

vaccines yes but no vaccine should now need a 4th and counting dose to be 70% effective for 10weeks.

Look into how big pharma conducted their trials, Its wild and fact from the courts

encorage the debate and ALL facts.

[Atomiswave 6,117]

3 minutes ago, Warning_Hazard said:

You say facts but cherry pick some and ignore others.

vaccines yes but no vaccine should now need a 4th and counting dose to be 70% effective for 10weeks.

Look into how big pharma conducted their trials, Its wild and fact from the courts

encorage the debate and ALL facts.

They dont see the other side of the coin in the tele and thus its disregarded, its called demoralization.

[Pizy 18,918]

17 minutes ago, Atomiswave said:

If your truth was so true you wouldnt fear what I or others say, and for your info we are more than you can imagine. But I guess all the sports people collapsing left and right are also bogus. And talk politely, I didnt diss you did I. I have my views, your the one butthurt not I.

Give me literally ONE example of a professional athlete collapsing STRICTLY due to the vaccine. In what world are sports people “collapsing left and right?”

16 minutes ago, Warning_Hazard said:

You say facts but cherry pick some and ignore others.

vaccines yes but no vaccine should now need a 4th and counting dose to be 70% effective for 10weeks.

Look into how big pharma conducted their trials, Its wild and fact from the courts

encorage the debate and ALL facts.

You are encouraged to get a flu shot every year, right? The COVID vaccine never was and never will be a 100% effective force field around your body. New variants that are resistant to vaccines means boosters are necessary.

Perhaps if all you antivaxx, anti-any preventative measures weren’t around we’d be long past these surging cases, lockdowns, and overwhelmed hospitals.

[Atomiswave 6,117]

4 minutes ago, Pizy said:

Give me literally ONE example of a professional athlete collapsing STRICTLY due to the vaccine. In what world are sports people “collapsing left and right?”

You are encouraged to get a flu shot every year, right? The COVID vaccine never was and never will be a 100% effective force field around your body. New variants that are resistant to vaccines means boosters are necessary.

Perhaps if all you antivaxx, anti-any preventative measures weren’t around we’d be long past these surging cases, lockdowns, and overwhelmed hospitals.

Yeah so overwhelmed that the doctors and nurses are so bored that they make dance vids daily around the world. And maybe if there wasnt so many gullibale folks around we wouldnt be living in a world like this huh Pizy, you see it goes both rounds. Anyone willing to throw their liberty for temporary safety deserve neither.

[Pizy 18,918]

1 minute ago, Atomiswave said:

Yeah so overwhelmed that the doctors and nurses are so bored that they make dance vids daily around the world. And maybe if there wasnt so many gullibale folks around we wouldnt be living in a world like this huh Pizy, you see it goes both rounds. Anyone willing to throw their liberty for temporary safety deserve neither.

“My freedoms, my liberties…”

Oh, no! I may have to wear a lightweight pice of cloth on my face when I’m in a crowded area. The humanity! The inconvenience! My freedoms are being trampled on! I may have to get a shot that reduces the likelihood of hospitalization and severe illness by 90%, oh my word!

800,000+ dead here in the US from this shit. The OVERWHELMING, massive majority unvaccinated. Doctors and nurses quitting due to the stress of being overwhelmed. All because of millions of people like you who probably chill on Facebook all day reading about the Illuminati and George Soros brainwashing everyone about vaccines.

[Vesper 30,187]

The anti-science, any-vaxx gaslighting here is reaching olympian levels.

Atm, in most advanced nations, 95% or so of hospitalisations are the unvaxxed, around 99% of the deaths are the unvaxxed.

Pandemic to date, you are over 1000 times less likely to die from Covid if you are vaxxed versus unvaxxed.

Vaccines have been for centuries, and are now, designed to prevent serious illness and death, not to stop ALL transmission. 

Masks are to stop transmission first and foremost. Self-protraction is secondary until you move up into the realm of ultra strict protocols for health care workers, etc.

Because masks are primarily an altruistic act, you have a tonne of pricks, who do not give a fuck about their fellow humans, refuse to wear them as they are selfish, narcissistic, navel-gazing cunts at heart.

Antivaxxers cherry pick out TINY exceptions, extremely small (and often explained upon further revue) numbers of people with adverse reactions, and then lie and use sophistry and pettifogging to blow them up to try and frame then as being FAR greater in number and impact than they ever were. They are full of SHIT.

Because Omicron is so contagious, you have HUGE amounts of new infections, and a certain percentage, almost all unvaxxed, are getting sick, despite it being milder, in numbers large enough to swamp the heath care systems and hospitals.

IF the anti-vaxxers TRULY had the courage of their anti-science convictions, then they would never go to to the hospital when they get seriously ill. They all completely deny science and spin up wild fables of CT dross about the health care system, governments, pharma firms, etc, YET, when faced with real illness, they go running like little bitches into the ER, screaming save me! save me!

ALL of their pseudo-cures, preventions etc, all of them, have been destroyed, eviscerated by tens, hundreds of thousands of actual scientists and doctors over the span of going on 2 years now. Yet they keep spinning up new miracle cures, one after the other, like the dupes and lemmings they are.

Fox 'News' in the US is now hyping VIAGRA as a miracle cure. Apparently they are so disingenuous that they will disregard the fact that Viagra is manufactured by the very same pharma firm they have railed against as the great Satan for the last year plus (Pfizer). Big dick energy doesn't do you much good when you are literally drowning on liquid build-up in your own lungs and/or are intubated with a hose rammed down yer fucking throat.

99.9% of anti-vaxx, anti-mask posturing is the stuff of lunacy and lies, spewed forth by cleverclogs fools, crackpots, charlatans, bad actors who see profit and power by turning to the disinfo gravy train and monetising their credentials, plus their million of marks, shills. and dupes.

A a globalised tidal wave of dumbfuckery and death cult behaviour..

Edited January 9, 2022 by Vesper

[Atomiswave 6,117]

27 minutes ago, Pizy said:

“My freedoms, my liberties…”

Oh, no! I may have to wear a lightweight pice of cloth on my face when I’m in a crowded area. The humanity! The inconvenience! My freedoms are being trampled on! I may have to get a shot that reduces the likelihood of hospitalization and severe illness by 90%, oh my word!

800,000+ dead here in the US from this shit. The OVERWHELMING, massive majority unvaccinated. Doctors and nurses quitting due to the stress of being overwhelmed. All because of millions of people like you who probably chill on Facebook all day reading about the Illuminati and George Soros brainwashing everyone about vaccines.

Oh no Pizy, I have something called common sense and critical thinking. I always research both sides, something you would never do and disregard everything thats not coming from the tele through their puppets. Why are you not crying for over 200k NHS members who will lose their livelyhood come feb cuz they dont want the vaxx? How about the countless doctors and nurses stopping cuz they know this is unethical? I dont need no damn 4chan or whatnot you mentioned. Hey if you want the vax and if you believe all that they tell you go right ahead, its your choice. But dont dare to rob me of mine yeah.

[Vesper 30,187]

2 minutes ago, Atomiswave said:

Oh no Pizy, I have something called common sense and critical thinking. I always research both sides, something you would never do and disregard everything thats not coming from the tele through their puppets. Why are you not crying for over 200k NHS members who will lose their livelyhood come feb cuz they dont want the vaxx? How about the countless doctors and nurses stopping cuz they know this is unethical? I dont need no damn 4chan or whatnot you mentioned. Hey if you want the vax and if you believe all that they tell you go right ahead, its your choice. But dont dare to rob me of mine yeah.

[Pizy 18,918]

1 minute ago, Atomiswave said:

Oh no Pizy, I have something called common sense and critical thinking. I always research both sides, something you would never do and disregard everything thats not coming from the tele through their puppets. Why are you not crying for over 200k NHS members who will lose their livelyhood come feb cuz they dont want the vaxx? How about the countless doctors and nurses stopping cuz they know this is unethical? I dont need no damn 4chan or whatnot you mentioned. Hey if you want the vax and if you believe all that they tell you go right ahead, its your choice. But dont dare to rob me of mine yeah.

Nah, someone with common sense and critical thinking would FOLLOW THE SCIENCE and get the shot. 
 

As for the NHS workers, sorry, you work in the healthcare industry surrounded by sick and vulnerable people. Don’t get the shot to protect them? Fuck off. Zero sympathy.

You think you’re being a “free thinker” and that those who listen to the science are being controlled by the government somehow. You aren’t. Trusting the experts and getting the vaccine is common sense.

[Atomiswave 6,117]

37 minutes ago, Pizy said:

Nah, someone with common sense and critical thinking would FOLLOW THE SCIENCE and get the shot. 
 

As for the NHS workers, sorry, you work in the healthcare industry surrounded by sick and vulnerable people. Don’t get the shot to protect them? Fuck off. Zero sympathy.

You think you’re being a “free thinker” and that those who listen to the science are being controlled by the government somehow. You aren’t. Trusting the experts and getting the vaccine is common sense.

For you it is, not for me. And again you just regurgitating what your tele tells with their puppets. I rather listen to experts whom have been silenced and their twitter and what not banned for daring to speak and put forth the right questions. I rather listen to the person whom pioneered this vax than boris and sajid and what not. You have been supremely indoctrinated, to a level that if I or anyone dare to say otherwise we are threathened to get banned........horrific stuff. The truth should not fear questioning.

In any case do as you like and I mine

[Atomiswave 6,117]

 

[DANILA 290]

The ridiculous thing is that I didn't even criticize the vaccine, yet my posts got deleted - what a disgrace. 

[Vesper 30,187]

9 minutes ago, Atomiswave said:

 

Who is Robert Malone? Joe Rogan’s guest was a vaccine scientist, became an anti-vaccine darling

https://www.politifact.com/article/2022/jan/06/who-robert-malone-joe-rogans-guest-was-vaccine-sci/

 

Video of Spotify host Joe Rogan’s controversial interview with a doctor known for making false claims about the COVID-19 vaccines was removed from YouTube, just days after Twitter banned the doctor’s account for violating its COVID-19 misinformation policies.

Dr. Robert Malone, who gained hundreds of thousands of Twitter followers in recent months as he promoted anti-vaccine falsehoods, drew a comparison in the interview between COVID-19 vaccination efforts in the U.S. and the environment in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s, when the Nazi party rose to power.

The platforms’ actions against Malone represent the latest efforts from Silicon Valley to crack down on harmful COVID-19 misinformation. Days earlier, Twitter suspended the personal account belonging to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., on the same grounds.

But unlike Greene, Malone has a medical degree. He bills himself as the "inventor" of mRNA vaccines and has leveraged that title to push one false claim after another. 

"He’s a legitimate scientist, or at least was until he started to make these false claims," said Dr. Paul Offit, chair of vaccinology at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine.

Malone’s rise to right-wing stardom and subsequent fall into social media purgatory underscore how accomplished doctors can exploit their credentials to spread harmful misinformation. They also show the limits of platforms’ whack-a-mole policing approach.

"Like all people, scientists can be flawed, can make mistakes, can be misguided, and can even spread misinformation on purpose," said Yotam Ophir, an assistant professor of communication at the University of Buffalo who has researched misinformation in health, science and politics.

Even as Twitter and YouTube sought to stem the spread of Malone’s claims, videos highlighting various segments from the doctor’s hours-long conversation with Rogan continued to circulate on both platforms and others such as Facebook and TikTok. They’ve been shared by the likes of Seb Gorka, a radio host and former Trump adviser, and Dr. Simone Gold, the founder of America’s Frontline Doctors, a group that has fought restrictions to curb the virus’ spread. Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, entered a full transcript of the interview into the congressional record. 

Concerned about being deplatformed, Rogan created an account on Gettr, a pro-Trump alternative social media platform, and told his followers to join him there. Malone went on Fox News host Laura Ingraham’s primetime TV show Jan. 3 to react to what he framed as an attempt to "suppress" him. 

Who is Malone, and why has he become so controversial? Here's what you need to know.

Who is Dr. Robert Malone?

Malone, who did not respond to an emailed request for comment, received a medical degree from Northwestern University in 1991 and specializes in immunology, according to his license with the Maryland Board of Physicians. As then-chief medical officer for a Florida pharmaceutical company called Alchem Laboratories Corp., he was involved during the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic in research looking into Pepcid, the heartburn medicine, as a potential COVID-19 treatment.

Malone markets himself as the "inventor" of mRNA and DNA vaccines on his website and LinkedIn profile. His Twitter account, before it was suspended, said the same thing.

There’s some merit to that claim, as several reporters and fact-checkers have documented.

Malone contributed to important early research. A pair of papers he coauthored with two other researchers in 1989 and six other researchers in 1990 showed that mRNA could be delivered into cells using lipids, and that doing so with mice could trigger the production of new proteins. The two papers were the first reference in a 2019 history of the mRNA vaccine technology.

But development of today’s COVID-19 vaccines was built on the work of many scientists and would not have been possible without other discoveries that cleared major hurdles. An early 2000s breakthrough from the University of Pennsylvania’s Drew Weissman and Katalin Karikó, for example, uncovered a way to keep the immune system from attacking injected mRNA. 

"That problem had to be solved," Offit said. "You can take the first step in the technology, but that doesn't mean that you invented the technology. All those other steps had to occur."

Malone admitted to Logically in July that he did not invent the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines of today, and instead claimed credit for creating the "vaccine technology platform." But in an Atlantic profile published a month later, Malone lamented the plaudits awarded to Karikó, who is also a senior vice president at BioNTech, saying he was "written out of the history."

Slowly, Malone has written himself back in — but as someone who has made inaccurate claims that cast doubt about the very vaccines he insists would not exist without him.

"On the one hand, he argues, ‘I’m the inventor of this technology.’ On the other hand, he's telling you that the technology is doing an enormous amount of harm," Offit said.

A welcome voice in anti-vaccine circles

Malone’s background has lent a level of credibility to his claims among anti-vaccine audiences and landed him a platform with influencers like Rogan, whose show was Spotify’s most popular podcast in 2021. He speaks the language of science, cites studies and explains things clearly.

"He comes across as very knowledgeable," said Dr. Davidson Hamer, a professor of global health and medicine at Boston University.

Malone has said he got both doses of the Moderna vaccine, although he has also claimed the shots worsened the prolonged symptoms he experienced from a previous COVID-19 infection. But he has emerged as one of several anti-vaccine voices who, touting their medical credentials, have gained online attention amid the pandemic. Besides Gold, PolitiFact has fact-checked problematic claims by Florida osteopathic physician Dr. Anthony Mercola, Minnesota family physician Dr. Scott Jensen and Ohio osteopath Dr. Sherry Tenpenny, all of whom have become often-cited "experts" in anti-vaccination circles.

But the role physicians can play in promoting vaccine hesitancy predates COVID-19. In 1988, Andrew Wakefield, a physician later stripped of his medical license, falsified research that wrongly claimed a link between the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine and autism. The paper, published in a prestigious medical journal that took years to retract it, fueled the kind of vaccine hesitancy that experts believe laid the groundwork for today’s anti-vaccine movement. 

In addition to appearing with Rogan, who has made and played host to several inaccurate claims about the COVID-19 vaccines, Malone has given interviews to Fox News host Tucker Carlson, InfoWars reporter Kristi Leigh, and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon — all of whom have captured audiences while spreading misinformation about the vaccines.

When Malone appeared on Bannon’s podcast in August, Bannon described him as "the opposite of an anti-vaxxer," according to the Atlantic.

Hamer said the vaccines went through a rigorous review process and have been repeatedly proven to be safe and effective, despite Malone’s commentary suggesting otherwise.

Though a spokesperson for Twitter did not say which of Malone’s tweets were in violation of the platform’s policies, archives of Malone’s page show it was littered with vaccine skepticism. 

In June, he tweeted that a study showed that for every three lives the vaccines saved, they caused two deaths. But the journal that published the study later appended a note to it calling its main conclusion incorrect, and then retracted it entirely.

The same month, PolitiFact rated False a video featuring Malone that claimed the spike proteins generated after vaccination are toxic to cells. Other fact-checkers debunked his related claim in another video that the spike proteins often cause irreparable damage to children’s vital organs.

Malone has also suggested that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines might actually be making the coronavirus more dangerous and that the Pfizer vaccine was not fully approved. 

And he said on Fox News host Sean Hannity’s radio show that the vaccines "created a whole huge bunch of super spreaders. So the truth is, it's the unvaccinated that are at risk from the vaccinated." That’s False.

Speaking to Rogan, Malone said it’s "nucking futs" for people who have had COVID-19 to get vaccinated. He cited the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, an unverified database that cannot be used to assess causality, and claimed that it shows an "explosion of vaccine-associated deaths." (It does not.) He said hospitals are so financially incentivized to claim COVID-19 as the cause of patient deaths that a hypothetical patient "with a bullet hole to the head" would be ruled as a COVID-19 fatality if they tested positive. (This is wrong; if anything, research indicates that COVID-19 deaths have been undercounted.) He said a state in India, Uttar Pradesh, "crushed COVID" using an early treatment package featuring ivermectin but resolved with the U.S. not to disclose that. (There’s no scientific basis for that assertion.) He said vaccine mandates are illegal. He said vaccinated people are more likely to be infected with the highly contagious omicron variant than unvaccinated people. (This is missing key context.) He wondered aloud whether the vaccine President Joe Biden took on live TV was "really a vaccine." (There’s no evidence to back that.)

And in the comment that has generated the most attention online, Malone likened the U.S. to Nazi Germany and said Americans are trapped in a "mass formation psychosis," in which "anybody who questions" the prevailing narrative is attacked.

"When you have a society that has become decoupled from each other, and has free-floating anxiety, in a sense that things don’t make sense, we can’t understand it. And then their attention gets focused by a leader or series of events on one small point, just like hypnosis, they literally become hypnotized and can be led anywhere," Malone said.

Speaking to Ingraham after the reports of YouTube’s actions against videos of those comments, Malone asserted that the social media penalties imposed against him "absolutely validated" that hypothesis.

Yet videos and video excerpts of those remarks and some of Malone’s past comments have continued to circulate elsewhere, including on Facebook, where they were flagged as part of the platform’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) They were also spreading on sites that have fewer regulations against misinformation, like Rumble.

"Those banned from mainstream social media can go elsewhere, and still have huge stages to spread their messages," said Ophir, the University of Buffalo professor of communication.

Malone’s messages carry strong appeal for people who are scared about getting the vaccines.

"He offers you a reason not to get it," Offit said. "It's all wrong. But it's what people want to hear."

 

Our Sources

Facebook posts, Jan. 1, 2022

The Joe Rogan Experience on Spotify, "#1757 - Dr. Robert Malone, MD," Dec. 31, 2021 

Robert Malone on Twitter (archived), accessed Jan. 5, 2022

Robert Malone’s website, accessed Jan. 5, 2022

Fox News, "Dr. Robert Malone on Joe Rogan interview censorship, Twitter ban: 'You can't suppress information,'" Jan. 4, 2022

Fox News, "The Ingraham Angle," Jan. 3, 2022

Congressman Troy Nehls, "Joe Rogan Experience #1757 – Dr. Robert Malone, MD Full Transcript," Jan. 3, 2022

The Independent, "YouTube takes down antivaxx Joe Rogan interview with Dr Robert Malone which likened vaccines to mass psychosis," Jan. 3, 2022

InfoWars, "Great Reset Exposed By Dr. Robert Malone In Powerful Infowars Interview," Jan. 1, 2022

USA Today, "Uncounted: Inaccurate death certificates across the country hide the true toll of COVID-19," Dec. 26, 2021

AFP Fact Check, "Video makes inaccurate claims about Covid-19 shots harming children," Dec. 23, 2021

AAP Fact Check, "Child vaccination video fails screen test for truth," Dec. 23, 2021

Health Feedback, "The benefits of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines for children outweigh the low risks, unlike what Robert Malone claimed," Dec. 20, 2021

Media Matters for America, "Hannity continues radio campaign to undermine COVID-19 vaccines, hosts guest who claims unvaccinated Americans 'are at risk from the vaccinated,'" Sept. 24, 2021

Nature, "The tangled history of mRNA vaccines," Sept. 14, 2021

FactCheck.org, "Researcher Distorts Facts on COVID-19 Vaccine Approval, Liability," Aug. 30, 2021

Health Feedback, "The development of mRNA vaccines was a collaborative effort; Robert Malone contributed to their development, but he is not their inventor," Aug. 26, 2021

The Atlantic, "The Vaccine Scientist Spreading Vaccine Misinformation," Aug. 12, 2021

Health Feedback, "COVID-19 vaccines effectively prevent severe disease; haven’t shown signs of antibody-dependent enhancement as claimed by Robert Malone," July 31, 2021

AFP Fact Check, "Flawed study misrepresents Covid-19 vaccination fatality rate," July 13, 2021

Logically, "Dr. Robert Malone invented mRNA vaccines," July 8, 2021

Fox News, "mRNA vaccine inventor speaks out on 'Tucker' after YouTube deletes video of him discussing risks," June 23, 2021

Stat News, "The story of mRNA: How a once-dismissed idea became a leading technology in the Covid vaccine race," Nov. 10, 2020

Science, "Direct Gene Transfer into Mouse Muscle in Vivo," March 23, 1990

PNAS, "Cationic liposome-mediated RNA transfection," May 12, 1989

PolitiFact, "Claim about omicron risk for the vaccinated is missing key context," Jan. 4, 2022

PolitiFact, "No scientific basis for claims of ivermectin’s success in Uttar Pradesh, India," Nov. 12, 2021

PolitiFact, "COVID-19 death rate in England much higher among unvaccinated than vaccinated," Oct. 29, 2021

PolitiFact, "Key threat to unvaccinated people is other unvaccinated people," Oct. 27, 2021

PolitiFact, "No, White House didn’t create fake set just for Joe Biden’s booster shot," Sept. 30, 2021

PolitiFact, "Licensed doctors who spread COVID-19 disinformation face no consequences, report shows," Sept. 22, 2021

PolitiFact, "Joe Rogan falsely says mRNA vaccines are ‘gene therapy,'" Aug. 31, 2021

PolitiFact, "Here’s why experts say people who had COVID-19 should be vaccinated," July 27, 2021

PolitiFact, "Journal discredits study it published claiming a COVID-19 vaccine causes deaths," July 2, 2021

PolitiFact, "No sign that the COVID-19 vaccines’ spike protein is toxic or ‘cytotoxic,'" June 16, 2021

PolitiFact, "Tucker Carlson’s misleading claim about deaths after COVID-19 vaccine," May 6, 2021

PolitiFact, "Federal VAERS database is a critical tool for researchers, but a breeding ground for misinformation,' May 3, 2021

PolitiFact, "‘Youth is not invincible’: 9 experts dispute Joe Rogan’s vaccine advice for healthy 21-year-olds," April 28, 2021

PolitiFact, "How COVID-19 death counts become the stuff of conspiracy theories," Nov. 2, 2020

PolitiFact, "Donald Trump’s false claim that doctors inflate COVID-19 deaths to make more money," Nov. 1, 2020

PolitiFact, "Fact-check: Hospitals and COVID-19 payments," April 21, 2020

PolitiFact, "5 facts about vaccines," Nov. 1, 2019

Phone interview with Dr. Davidson Hamer, professor of global health and medicine at Boston University School of Public Health and School of Medicine, Jan. 5, 2022

Phone interview with Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and chair of vaccinology at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, Jan. 5, 2022

Email interview with Yotam Ophir, assistant professor of communication at Buffalo University, Jan. 5, 2022

Email correspondence with Twitter, Jan. 4, 2022

Edited January 8, 2022 by Vesper

[Atomiswave 6,117]

53 minutes ago, Vesper said:

Who is Robert Malone? Joe Rogan’s guest was a vaccine scientist, became an anti-vaccine darling

https://www.politifact.com/article/2022/jan/06/who-robert-malone-joe-rogans-guest-was-vaccine-sci/

 

Video of Spotify host Joe Rogan’s controversial interview with a doctor known for making false claims about the COVID-19 vaccines was removed from YouTube, just days after Twitter banned the doctor’s account for violating its COVID-19 misinformation policies.

Dr. Robert Malone, who gained hundreds of thousands of Twitter followers in recent months as he promoted anti-vaccine falsehoods, drew a comparison in the interview between COVID-19 vaccination efforts in the U.S. and the environment in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s, when the Nazi party rose to power.

The platforms’ actions against Malone represent the latest efforts from Silicon Valley to crack down on harmful COVID-19 misinformation. Days earlier, Twitter suspended the personal account belonging to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., on the same grounds.

But unlike Greene, Malone has a medical degree. He bills himself as the "inventor" of mRNA vaccines and has leveraged that title to push one false claim after another. 

"He’s a legitimate scientist, or at least was until he started to make these false claims," said Dr. Paul Offit, chair of vaccinology at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine.

Malone’s rise to right-wing stardom and subsequent fall into social media purgatory underscore how accomplished doctors can exploit their credentials to spread harmful misinformation. They also show the limits of platforms’ whack-a-mole policing approach.

"Like all people, scientists can be flawed, can make mistakes, can be misguided, and can even spread misinformation on purpose," said Yotam Ophir, an assistant professor of communication at the University of Buffalo who has researched misinformation in health, science and politics.

Even as Twitter and YouTube sought to stem the spread of Malone’s claims, videos highlighting various segments from the doctor’s hours-long conversation with Rogan continued to circulate on both platforms and others such as Facebook and TikTok. They’ve been shared by the likes of Seb Gorka, a radio host and former Trump adviser, and Dr. Simone Gold, the founder of America’s Frontline Doctors, a group that has fought restrictions to curb the virus’ spread. Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, entered a full transcript of the interview into the congressional record. 

Concerned about being deplatformed, Rogan created an account on Gettr, a pro-Trump alternative social media platform, and told his followers to join him there. Malone went on Fox News host Laura Ingraham’s primetime TV show Jan. 3 to react to what he framed as an attempt to "suppress" him. 

Who is Malone, and why has he become so controversial? Here's what you need to know.

Who is Dr. Robert Malone?

Malone, who did not respond to an emailed request for comment, received a medical degree from Northwestern University in 1991 and specializes in immunology, according to his license with the Maryland Board of Physicians. As then-chief medical officer for a Florida pharmaceutical company called Alchem Laboratories Corp., he was involved during the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic in research looking into Pepcid, the heartburn medicine, as a potential COVID-19 treatment.

Malone markets himself as the "inventor" of mRNA and DNA vaccines on his website and LinkedIn profile. His Twitter account, before it was suspended, said the same thing.

There’s some merit to that claim, as several reporters and fact-checkers have documented.

Malone contributed to important early research. A pair of papers he coauthored with two other researchers in 1989 and six other researchers in 1990 showed that mRNA could be delivered into cells using lipids, and that doing so with mice could trigger the production of new proteins. The two papers were the first reference in a 2019 history of the mRNA vaccine technology.

But development of today’s COVID-19 vaccines was built on the work of many scientists and would not have been possible without other discoveries that cleared major hurdles. An early 2000s breakthrough from the University of Pennsylvania’s Drew Weissman and Katalin Karikó, for example, uncovered a way to keep the immune system from attacking injected mRNA. 

"That problem had to be solved," Offit said. "You can take the first step in the technology, but that doesn't mean that you invented the technology. All those other steps had to occur."

Malone admitted to Logically in July that he did not invent the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines of today, and instead claimed credit for creating the "vaccine technology platform." But in an Atlantic profile published a month later, Malone lamented the plaudits awarded to Karikó, who is also a senior vice president at BioNTech, saying he was "written out of the history."

Slowly, Malone has written himself back in — but as someone who has made inaccurate claims that cast doubt about the very vaccines he insists would not exist without him.

"On the one hand, he argues, ‘I’m the inventor of this technology.’ On the other hand, he's telling you that the technology is doing an enormous amount of harm," Offit said.

A welcome voice in anti-vaccine circles

Malone’s background has lent a level of credibility to his claims among anti-vaccine audiences and landed him a platform with influencers like Rogan, whose show was Spotify’s most popular podcast in 2021. He speaks the language of science, cites studies and explains things clearly.

"He comes across as very knowledgeable," said Dr. Davidson Hamer, a professor of global health and medicine at Boston University.

Malone has said he got both doses of the Moderna vaccine, although he has also claimed the shots worsened the prolonged symptoms he experienced from a previous COVID-19 infection. But he has emerged as one of several anti-vaccine voices who, touting their medical credentials, have gained online attention amid the pandemic. Besides Gold, PolitiFact has fact-checked problematic claims by Florida osteopathic physician Dr. Anthony Mercola, Minnesota family physician Dr. Scott Jensen and Ohio osteopath Dr. Sherry Tenpenny, all of whom have become often-cited "experts" in anti-vaccination circles.

But the role physicians can play in promoting vaccine hesitancy predates COVID-19. In 1988, Andrew Wakefield, a physician later stripped of his medical license, falsified research that wrongly claimed a link between the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine and autism. The paper, published in a prestigious medical journal that took years to retract it, fueled the kind of vaccine hesitancy that experts believe laid the groundwork for today’s anti-vaccine movement. 

In addition to appearing with Rogan, who has made and played host to several inaccurate claims about the COVID-19 vaccines, Malone has given interviews to Fox News host Tucker Carlson, InfoWars reporter Kristi Leigh, and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon — all of whom have captured audiences while spreading misinformation about the vaccines.

When Malone appeared on Bannon’s podcast in August, Bannon described him as "the opposite of an anti-vaxxer," according to the Atlantic.

Hamer said the vaccines went through a rigorous review process and have been repeatedly proven to be safe and effective, despite Malone’s commentary suggesting otherwise.

Though a spokesperson for Twitter did not say which of Malone’s tweets were in violation of the platform’s policies, archives of Malone’s page show it was littered with vaccine skepticism. 

In June, he tweeted that a study showed that for every three lives the vaccines saved, they caused two deaths. But the journal that published the study later appended a note to it calling its main conclusion incorrect, and then retracted it entirely.

The same month, PolitiFact rated False a video featuring Malone that claimed the spike proteins generated after vaccination are toxic to cells. Other fact-checkers debunked his related claim in another video that the spike proteins often cause irreparable damage to children’s vital organs.

Malone has also suggested that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines might actually be making the coronavirus more dangerous and that the Pfizer vaccine was not fully approved. 

And he said on Fox News host Sean Hannity’s radio show that the vaccines "created a whole huge bunch of super spreaders. So the truth is, it's the unvaccinated that are at risk from the vaccinated." That’s False.

Speaking to Rogan, Malone said it’s "nucking futs" for people who have had COVID-19 to get vaccinated. He cited the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, an unverified database that cannot be used to assess causality, and claimed that it shows an "explosion of vaccine-associated deaths." (It does not.) He said hospitals are so financially incentivized to claim COVID-19 as the cause of patient deaths that a hypothetical patient "with a bullet hole to the head" would be ruled as a COVID-19 fatality if they tested positive. (This is wrong; if anything, research indicates that COVID-19 deaths have been undercounted.) He said a state in India, Uttar Pradesh, "crushed COVID" using an early treatment package featuring ivermectin but resolved with the U.S. not to disclose that. (There’s no scientific basis for that assertion.) He said vaccine mandates are illegal. He said vaccinated people are more likely to be infected with the highly contagious omicron variant than unvaccinated people. (This is missing key context.) He wondered aloud whether the vaccine President Joe Biden took on live TV was "really a vaccine." (There’s no evidence to back that.)

And in the comment that has generated the most attention online, Malone likened the U.S. to Nazi Germany and said Americans are trapped in a "mass formation psychosis," in which "anybody who questions" the prevailing narrative is attacked.

"When you have a society that has become decoupled from each other, and has free-floating anxiety, in a sense that things don’t make sense, we can’t understand it. And then their attention gets focused by a leader or series of events on one small point, just like hypnosis, they literally become hypnotized and can be led anywhere," Malone said.

Speaking to Ingraham after the reports of YouTube’s actions against videos of those comments, Malone asserted that the social media penalties imposed against him "absolutely validated" that hypothesis.

Yet videos and video excerpts of those remarks and some of Malone’s past comments have continued to circulate elsewhere, including on Facebook, where they were flagged as part of the platform’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) They were also spreading on sites that have fewer regulations against misinformation, like Rumble.

"Those banned from mainstream social media can go elsewhere, and still have huge stages to spread their messages," said Ophir, the University of Buffalo professor of communication.

Malone’s messages carry strong appeal for people who are scared about getting the vaccines.

"He offers you a reason not to get it," Offit said. "It's all wrong. But it's what people want to hear."

 

Our Sources

Facebook posts, Jan. 1, 2022

The Joe Rogan Experience on Spotify, "#1757 - Dr. Robert Malone, MD," Dec. 31, 2021 

Robert Malone on Twitter (archived), accessed Jan. 5, 2022

Robert Malone’s website, accessed Jan. 5, 2022

Fox News, "Dr. Robert Malone on Joe Rogan interview censorship, Twitter ban: 'You can't suppress information,'" Jan. 4, 2022

Fox News, "The Ingraham Angle," Jan. 3, 2022

Congressman Troy Nehls, "Joe Rogan Experience #1757 – Dr. Robert Malone, MD Full Transcript," Jan. 3, 2022

The Independent, "YouTube takes down antivaxx Joe Rogan interview with Dr Robert Malone which likened vaccines to mass psychosis," Jan. 3, 2022

InfoWars, "Great Reset Exposed By Dr. Robert Malone In Powerful Infowars Interview," Jan. 1, 2022

USA Today, "Uncounted: Inaccurate death certificates across the country hide the true toll of COVID-19," Dec. 26, 2021

AFP Fact Check, "Video makes inaccurate claims about Covid-19 shots harming children," Dec. 23, 2021

AAP Fact Check, "Child vaccination video fails screen test for truth," Dec. 23, 2021

Health Feedback, "The benefits of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines for children outweigh the low risks, unlike what Robert Malone claimed," Dec. 20, 2021

Media Matters for America, "Hannity continues radio campaign to undermine COVID-19 vaccines, hosts guest who claims unvaccinated Americans 'are at risk from the vaccinated,'" Sept. 24, 2021

Nature, "The tangled history of mRNA vaccines," Sept. 14, 2021

FactCheck.org, "Researcher Distorts Facts on COVID-19 Vaccine Approval, Liability," Aug. 30, 2021

Health Feedback, "The development of mRNA vaccines was a collaborative effort; Robert Malone contributed to their development, but he is not their inventor," Aug. 26, 2021

The Atlantic, "The Vaccine Scientist Spreading Vaccine Misinformation," Aug. 12, 2021

Health Feedback, "COVID-19 vaccines effectively prevent severe disease; haven’t shown signs of antibody-dependent enhancement as claimed by Robert Malone," July 31, 2021

AFP Fact Check, "Flawed study misrepresents Covid-19 vaccination fatality rate," July 13, 2021

Logically, "Dr. Robert Malone invented mRNA vaccines," July 8, 2021

Fox News, "mRNA vaccine inventor speaks out on 'Tucker' after YouTube deletes video of him discussing risks," June 23, 2021

Stat News, "The story of mRNA: How a once-dismissed idea became a leading technology in the Covid vaccine race," Nov. 10, 2020

Science, "Direct Gene Transfer into Mouse Muscle in Vivo," March 23, 1990

PNAS, "Cationic liposome-mediated RNA transfection," May 12, 1989

PolitiFact, "Claim about omicron risk for the vaccinated is missing key context," Jan. 4, 2022

PolitiFact, "No scientific basis for claims of ivermectin’s success in Uttar Pradesh, India," Nov. 12, 2021

PolitiFact, "COVID-19 death rate in England much higher among unvaccinated than vaccinated," Oct. 29, 2021

PolitiFact, "Key threat to unvaccinated people is other unvaccinated people," Oct. 27, 2021

PolitiFact, "No, White House didn’t create fake set just for Joe Biden’s booster shot," Sept. 30, 2021

PolitiFact, "Licensed doctors who spread COVID-19 disinformation face no consequences, report shows," Sept. 22, 2021

PolitiFact, "Joe Rogan falsely says mRNA vaccines are ‘gene therapy,'" Aug. 31, 2021

PolitiFact, "Here’s why experts say people who had COVID-19 should be vaccinated," July 27, 2021

PolitiFact, "Journal discredits study it published claiming a COVID-19 vaccine causes deaths," July 2, 2021

PolitiFact, "No sign that the COVID-19 vaccines’ spike protein is toxic or ‘cytotoxic,'" June 16, 2021

PolitiFact, "Tucker Carlson’s misleading claim about deaths after COVID-19 vaccine," May 6, 2021

PolitiFact, "Federal VAERS database is a critical tool for researchers, but a breeding ground for misinformation,' May 3, 2021

PolitiFact, "‘Youth is not invincible’: 9 experts dispute Joe Rogan’s vaccine advice for healthy 21-year-olds," April 28, 2021

PolitiFact, "How COVID-19 death counts become the stuff of conspiracy theories," Nov. 2, 2020

PolitiFact, "Donald Trump’s false claim that doctors inflate COVID-19 deaths to make more money," Nov. 1, 2020

PolitiFact, "Fact-check: Hospitals and COVID-19 payments," April 21, 2020

PolitiFact, "5 facts about vaccines," Nov. 1, 2019

Phone interview with Dr. Davidson Hamer, professor of global health and medicine at Boston University School of Public Health and School of Medicine, Jan. 5, 2022

Phone interview with Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and chair of vaccinology at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, Jan. 5, 2022

Email interview with Yotam Ophir, assistant professor of communication at Buffalo University, Jan. 5, 2022

Email correspondence with Twitter, Jan. 4, 2022

Sure, I mean he only has 10 patents on the subject but ok.

 

[Vesper 30,187]

35 minutes ago, Atomiswave said:

Sure, I mean he only has 10 patents on the subject but ok.

 

he is a proven lying cunt and fully deserved the ban

dog knows who many people he and his vermin ilk have killed and long term fucked up with his crackpot quackery

[Vesper 30,187]

if this (FAR too early to say how or if this will pan out) combines the transmissibility of Omicron with the lethality of Delta we are well fucked

the anti-vaxxers/anti-maskers may well be decimated

New 'Deltacron' coronavirus variant discovered in Cyprus

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/08/cyprus-reportedly-discovers-a-covid-variant-that-combines-omicron-and-delta.html

 

A researcher in Cyprus has discovered a strain of the coronavirus that combines the delta and omicron variant, Bloomberg News reported Saturday.
Leondios Kostrikis, professor of biological sciences at the University of Cyprus, called the strain “deltacron.”
It’s still too early to tell whether there are more cases of the strain or what impacts it could have.

A researcher in Cyprus has discovered a strain of the coronavirus that combines the delta and omicron variant, Bloomberg News reported on Saturday.

Leondios Kostrikis, professor of biological sciences at the University of Cyprus, called the strain “deltacron,” because of its omicron-like genetic signatures within the delta genomes, Bloomberg said.

So far, Kostrikis and his team have found 25 cases of the virus, according to the report. It’s still too early to tell whether there are more cases of the strain or what impacts it could have.

“We will see in the future if this strain is more pathological or more contagious or if it will prevail” against the two dominant strains, delta and omicron, Kostrikis said in an interview with Sigma TV Friday. He believes omicron will also overtake deltacron, he added.

The researchers sent their findings this week to GISAID, an international database that tracks viruses, according to Bloomberg.

The deltacron variant comes as omicron continues its rapid spread across the globe, causing a surge in Covid-19 cases. The U.S. is reporting a seven-day average of more than 600,000 new cases daily, according to a CNBC analysis Friday of data from Johns Hopkins University. That’s a 72% increase from the previous week and a pandemic record.

[Tomo 21,751]

14 hours ago, Pizy said:

Vaccines work. FACT.

Booster shots work. FACT.

You want to go around believing conspiracy theories about loads of “young folks in their prime” dying (absolutely NOT true) or 5g microchips, or the Jewish cabal behind the whole thing you can fuck off back to 4chan or the Donald Trump subreddit.

“Masters in the tele…” fucking hell. Take the tinfoil hat off. 

The funniest thing is, if the goverment REALLY wanted the control that the conspiracy theoriest claim they're working towards it could be done within weeks, if not days.

And if they are actually working towards a North Korea esque new normal they're doing a shit job of it as apart from Christmas (when Covid in my family saw to the usual routine) I've had total normality in my life since last July.

[Warning_Hazard 156]

18 hours ago, Pizy said:

Give me literally ONE example of a professional athlete collapsing STRICTLY due to the vaccine. In what world are sports people “collapsing left and right?”

You are encouraged to get a flu shot every year, right? The COVID vaccine never was and never will be a 100% effective force field around your body. New variants that are resistant to vaccines means boosters are necessary.

Perhaps if all you antivaxx, anti-any preventative measures weren’t around we’d be long past these surging cases, lockdowns, and overwhelmed hospitals.

Im not anti Vax and no I'm not, I'm in my thirties. 90yr olds have the flu vaccine which is completely different and guess what, they change it every year and more people die from flu and it's knock on effects than Rona.

Wtf lol

I have a PhD in bilology and half of that covers virology.

I've had many vaccines

More men under 48 died from drug overdose in 2021 than Rona, In the US it was like 100,000.

Here's another fun fact: Of those who died from Rona, The average co mobility rate was 4. That's right on average people had 4 co mobility's i.e things that could easily kill them.

Another fact dying from with and of Corona all have different implications and it all goes back to disease control at hospitals.

Died of a heart attack but had the snivles? Rona death. Then the hospital's often get more funding (each death or high death toll at that hospital etc) they get allocated funds and round we go etc.

Do I think the world's flat and it's all a giant conspiracy no, Do I think this is about money....yes!

All the research and facts are out there!

 

 

Edited January 9, 2022 by Warning_Hazard

[Atomiswave 6,117]

15 hours ago, Vesper said:

he is a proven lying cunt and fully deserved the ban

dog knows who many people he and his vermin ilk have killed and long term fucked up with his crackpot quackery

Wow, indoctrination is big here with you. Again you have been conditioned to only take what your tele informs you. Its called mass formation.

Time will tell everything. Removing a mans tongue doesnt prove him a deceiver, it only proves you have something to hide.

[Vesper 30,187]

10 minutes ago, Atomiswave said:

Wow, indoctrination is big here with you. Again you have been conditioned to only take what your tele informs you. Its called mass formation.

Time will tell everything. Removing a mans tongue doesnt prove him a deceiver, it only proves you have something to hide.

Indoctrination my scrawny brown arse

I just DESTROYED the creditability of that disinfo agent doctor with a massively documentws post

you are the one acting like an indoctrinated person

you are so eager to go all edgelord contrarian that you have tossed most all logic out the window in favour of wild conspiracy theories and have adopted the rantings of lunatics, crackpots, and conmen/women as some sort of gospel truth

Occam's razor my friend

not everything in life is some grand conspiracy

Edited January 9, 2022 by Vesper