COVID Chronicles: War Against The Truth (Vaccine Wars Part I)
We continue our COVID Chronicles series. In this episode, my friend and colleague Vince straps on the body armor to start a war with the anti-vaccine cult.
In 2020, the big demon in the land was the SARS-CoV-2 virus, with (at the time) no sure way to stop it other than isolating infected people, and minimizing risk of infection by performing actions which we probably should have been doing all along in order to minimize spread of the flu and other easily-spread respiratory viruses… fellow medical providers will look back on the 2020-21 flu season and likely agree with me, “what flu season?”
Sure, we saw some flu cases, but not nearly as much as we normally see that time of year. And as we are beginning the 2021-22 flu season (at the time of this post), given all the mandates regarding masks, hand washing, physical distancing, and the like, it’s fair to presume we’ll see another very mild flu season this year.
The Demon in the Land
This year, the big demon in the land is not so much the virus, but the vaccines intended to protect us from the virus. The over-politicization of this entire pandemic has caused many in state and Federal governments to demand that every single American be vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2, even at the risk of their freedom of movement, activity, or even in a growing number of cases, their jobs and livelihoods.
This demon has continued to pit American against American. These wars stem from differences in peoples’ views of the viral pandemic and responses to it from various standpoints, including religious, individual freedom, personal health and disease, and political.
It is unfortunately the political standpoint that’s caused too much division in attitudes toward the pandemic responses, and it didn’t have to be – if the government would have stayed out of the issue in the first place and simply let medical professionals handle the pandemic response. Unfortunately, that horse is out of the barn, and there’s no way to get it back in.
If you’ve read anything from myself or Chaim here earlier, you’ll know that we both believe that the current mask and vaccine resistance arose from two things. First, the underlying views of a minority of far-right-wing extremists who have, despite no actual evidence, believed that vaccines are poisonous for humans. Second, the massive political interference we’ve seen since the early days of the pandemic, coupled with the fatal mistakes made by the then-CDC director, sealed the deal in the minds of people already predisposed to conspiracy-theory belief.
Government Tyranny
Last year, we didn’t have any vaccine for this virus. But the controversy over personal liberty regarding the mask issue tainted so many people in their thinking. When government overreach occurred – in many cases real, and some perceived – it was easy for people to spill a belief in government “tyranny” over to the vaccines.
But now, it’s not only the government that’s at fault to these people, they’re blaming the pharmaceutical companies who’ve created these vaccines for their “greed” and “arrogance” – charges that are somewhat mislaid in the era of Pharmacy Benefit Manager organizations, but that’s a whole discussion for a different time.
I have visited a few online social media outlets, not primarily to interact, but at least to see what others are saying about various topics. There seems to be a clear slant on one particular outlet – Gab.com – that the SARS-CoV-2 vaccines are anywhere and everywhere from just a bad idea, to evil concoctions created by Satan himself, or at least by Jews, and must be avoided at all costs.
Gab.com: Liars, Racists, and False Christians
A moment of explanation about Gab.com, for those of you who either don’t know, or are quick to dismiss it as a haven for white supremacists and other associated freaks of nature.
Created by a racist self-proclaimed “Christian”
Gab was created some years ago by Andrew Torba, a self-proclaimed “Christian” who apparently didn’t like the idea of rampant censoring of conservative/religious viewpoints on mainstream social media like Twitter and Facebook. Torba created Gab.com as a social media site intended as total freedom of speech – where literally anyone can post anything they want, whether truthful or not, without fear of being edited, censored, or banned.
Basically the worst that someone could receive for posting something that Torba or others didn’t like, was a few nasty name-calling and profanity-laden comments from other users. As you can imagine, this invited a whole host of ideas onto the site, under that knowledge that they could post literally anything, and know that there were no reprisals against anything they posted.
Gab attracts the maggots
This unfortunately brought to Gab, a whole host of people from social and political persuasions including conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones, to anti-government and tyranny apologists, and a rash of racists, antisemitics, and white supremacists like Nicholas Fuentes. Presumably, even former President Trump has an official Gab account.
I’ve even suspected that Torba himself, while consistently posting Bible phrases and touting his “Christianity”, may himself be a white supremacist, since I don’t know any REAL Christians who would stand for outright, naked antisemitism and racism being welcomed and promoted (he likes/reposts all of the white supremacist and antisemitic stuff) on something they own or run.
A free-for-all of misinformation
The practically non-moderated free-speech free-for-all that Gab has become, has enabled a host of anti-vaccine propaganda and misinformation to find a home, with thousands of willing believers ready to soak up like a sponge, anything that’s being said against the vaccines, despite their lack of proof, or (more often the case) rebranding inaccurate or incomplete information as “alternative proof” while calling actual scientific data “fake news” (and you wonder where they got that).
It’s a sad thing to me that Gab has devolved now into just another crowd of stupid people willing to believe anything that’s being told to them, and willing to believe it simply because they mistrust the government and “Big Tech”, without so much as bothering with anything so trivial as “proof.”
A white supremacist’s alternative to Twitter
After a good review of what’s going on there, I highly doubt that Gab was actually started with anything other than the clear intent to give white supremacists, racists, fascists, and fake Christians an echo chamber for their views that can’t be taken down by other media outlets like Twitter or Facebook where their disgusting extremism would instantly have been banned.
Andrew Torba is a liar and a fraud
I’ll go so far as to put in “print”, my direct accusation that Andrew Torba is not actually a Christian, but is a racist and white supremacist. He is clearly abusing the concepts of Christianity, just like all white supremacists do, believing that G-d made them superior to all others. Let him come after me… bring it, you fool. In my view, you’re destined for Hell.
His white supremacist platform has now devolved into a massive number of their subscribers who are no better than their political and/or ideological counterparts on other social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, where a crowd of stupid people who believe the government should control everything.
The Evil of Both Extremes
Both extremes – far-right and far-left – are equally moronic, equally as willing to suck up any piece of garbage that anyone posts who agrees with their point of view, without ever bothering to say “prove it to me.”
Obviously Gab.com is not the only place where people are either promulgating or mindlessly believing lies about the vaccines, but it’s an easy place to glean the lies that people are telling about the vaccines, since all of the arguments against the SARS-CoV-2 vaccines that probably every medical provider in America has heard from his or her patients at some point, are there on Gab in one neat package.
Anti-Vaccine Propaganda
Though there are a number of anti-vaccine arguments, the most popular ones include “it’ll alter my DNA”, “I’ll get blood clots”, “the vaccines are experimental”, “the government is putting nano-chips in the vaccines to track us”, “the vaccines will make spike proteins and give me COVID-19”, and “they’re injecting foreign antibodies into me”.
One video I saw featured a so-called physician (whose identity and credentials couldn’t be confirmed) attempting to provide “proof” for another anti-vaccine argument, “I already have protection because my immune system will protect me”, a suspiciously misleading argument for a supposed physician to claim, since this would only be true if one had previous exposure to SARS-CoV-2, giving one’s immune system the capability to memorize the virus’ “code” and thus create its own antibodies without the vaccine, which is what happens to nearly everyone who’s contracted COVID-19 and recovered.
Fake Vaccine Exemptions
It’s this absolute lying trash that’s now gaining more steam and a sense of credibility among those prone to believe such things, precisely because of the call for vaccine mandates. Those who felt their liberty threatened because of mask mandates, are now thinking the same way about vaccines, and are coming up with excuses why they “can’t” or “won’t” get the jab, and as the push for vaccine mandates becomes more widespread particularly in the workplace, a number of these people are coming to their medical providers seeking “exemption letters” excusing them from a vaccine mandate.
But unlike mask exemptions that have a fair number of qualifying conditions for exemption, medical reasons for exempting a vaccine are extremely few, and without violating anyone’s HIPAA rights, I will say for my own practice, anyone who actually would qualify for a real medical exemption for a vaccine, will have their exemption very clearly and thoroughly documented to actually prove the exemption condition exists. Religious exemptions are a different issue that I won’t get into here.
Timmy and the Hot Stove
But, as much as I recommend and encourage everyone to get vaccinated, I absolutely oppose the forcing of people to be vaccinated. Why? It goes back to Timmy and the hot stove.
We are already seeing now with vaccine mandates, what we saw last year with mask mandates. People are refusing to comply, simply because the government told them they had to comply. But just as with the mask issue, no one from any level of government (local, state, or Federal) is bothering to explain to the American public why they want everyone to be vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2. No one is making public a clear and cohesive explanation of what the vaccines are, what they are not, and how they work, including an honest and open explanation of the risks and benefits associated with the vaccines.
It’s no wonder then, that people are so easily able to spread misinformation about these vaccines, including why they should be received.
So fine, I’ll do it.
Check in next time, when I nail down exactly what these vaccines are – and what they’re not, and why we generally shouldn’t fear them.
