Trump nominees should ‘steer clear’ of undermining polio vaccine, McConnell says

Published by: The Associated Press
Published on: December 15, 2024
By Moriah Balingit

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who had polio as a child, says any of President-elect Donald Trump’s nominees seeking Senate confirmation should “steer clear” of efforts to discredit the polio vaccine.

“Efforts to undermine public confidence in proven cures are not just uninformed — they’re dangerous,” McConnell said in a statement Friday. “Anyone seeking the Senate’s consent to serve in the incoming Administration would do well to steer clear of even the appearance of association with such efforts.”

The 82-year-old lawmaker’s statement appeared to be directed at Trump’s pick for health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., after a report that one of his advisers filed a petition to revoke approval for the polio vaccine in 2022. That vaccine is widely considered to have halted the disease in most parts of the world.

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Trump regime

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has a long record of promoting anti-vaccine views

Published November 14, 2024

Published by: The Associated Press
Published on: November 14, 2024
By Michelle R. Smith

Long before the COVID-19 pandemic, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was building up a following with his anti-vaccine nonprofit group, Children’s Health Defense, and becoming one of the world’s most influential spreaders of fear and distrust around vaccines.

Now, President-elect Donald Trump says he will nominate Kennedy to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, which regulates vaccines.

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anti-vaccine movement

Man charged for antisemitic threats against Ottawa family doctor

Published December 18, 2023

Published by: CTV News
Published on: December 18, 2023
By William Eltherington

Ottawa-Carleton District School Board trustee Dr. Nili Kaplan-Myrth says she was subject to a threatening and antisemitic phone call against her which has led to a 39-year-old man from British Columbia being charged with hate-motivated offences on Monday.

In a press release on Monday morning, the Ottawa Police Service Hate and Crime Bias Unit say they charged a man with several offences for a phone call against a healthcare professional which also included mysoginistic and intimidating threats, but did not name the victim.

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anti-vaccine movement

Public health officials detail threats, changed landscape post-pandemic

Published December 11, 2023

Published by: CIDRAP
Published on: December 11, 2023
By Stephanie Soucheray

Public health leaders, including state commissioners and directors, and frontline health workers experienced threats to their well-being and safety during the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to up to 30% to step down, retire, or leave the field, according to a recent study in Public Health in Practice.

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anti-vaccine movement

Column: RFK Jr. gets around to blaming the Jews

Published July 17, 2023

Published by: Los Angeles Times
Published on: July 17, 2023
By Michael Hiltzik

It has been well noted that, whatever their starting points, conspiracy theorists sooner or later get around to blaming the Jews.

During a press dinner in New York last week, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is hoping to convert his portfolio of chuckleheaded conspiracy theories about COVID-19 and all sorts of other things into the semblance of a presidential campaign, went there last week.

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anti-vaccine movement

Viral spread: Peter Hotez on the increase of anti-science aggression on social media

Published January 30, 2023

Published by: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
Published on: January 30, 2023
By Sara Goudarzi

Last November, Twitter announced it will no longer enforce “the COVID-19 misleading information policy.” The platform also allowed previously banned users to rejoin the site. Since then, anti-vaccination messaging has gained renewed energy, distressing scientists and researchers who have been combatting misinformation and disinformation on social media.

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anti-vaccine movement

Residents abandoned to a violent occupation during ‘Freedom Convoy’: Report

Published January 30, 2023

Published by: CBC News
Published on: January 30, 2023

People who live and work in downtown Ottawa endured several weeks of widespread human rights abuse, amidst a climate of threats, fear, sexual harassment and intimidation marked by racism, misogyny, antisemitism, Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, and other expressions of hate and intolerance.

While convoy organizers claimed there was diversity among the participants and supporters, and that was true to a limited extent, it is clear that the overwhelming majority of people involved in the protests were white males.

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anti-vaxxers

Anti-vaccine activism melded with US antisemitism – study

Published January 29, 2023

Published by: The Jerusalem Post
Published on: January 29, 2023
By Judy Siegel-Itzkovich

Because of rising anti-vaccine activism and some key global policy missteps, more than 70 years of global health gains are in danger of being eroded, according to a physician writing in the peer-reviewed Rambam Maimonides Medical Journal published by the Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa.

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antisemitism

Antisemitism surges during pandemic

Published January 26, 2023

Published by: The Whig Standard
Published on: January 26, 2023
By Geoffrey P. Johnston

“International Holocaust Remembrance Day is important to recognize, because it commemorates arguably the worst-case scenario for a liberal democracy,” declared Daniel Panneton, director of allyship and community engagement at the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies.

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anti-vaxxers

How COVID Truthers Breathed New Life Into an Antisemitic Symbol

Published November 29, 2022

Published by: Vice
Published on: November 29, 2022
By Tim Hume

The widespread appropriation by COVID truthers of the yellow star that the Nazis forced Jews to wear is a sign that public displays of antisemitism have become normalised in modern Germany to an unthinkable degree, experts say.

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convoy occupation

Anti-vaccine protest in Canada spurs outrage

Published February 1, 2022

Published by: The Associated Press
Published on: February 1, 2022
By Rob Gillies

In a scene at odds with Canadians’ reputation for niceness and rule-following, thousands of protesters railing against vaccine mandates and other COVID-19 restrictions descended on the capital over the weekend, deliberately blocking traffic around Parliament Hill.

Some urinated and parked on the National War Memorial. One danced on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. A number carried signs and flags with swastikas.

In the aftermath of Canada’s biggest pandemic protest to date, the demonstrators have found little sympathy in a country where more than 80% are vaccinated. Many people were outraged by some of the crude behavior.

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antisemitism

Germany’s Anti-vaccination History Is Riddled With Anti-Semitism

Published May 2, 2021

Published by: The Atlantic
Published on: May 2, 2021
By Edna Bonhomme

Jewish people were blamed for spreading disease, and considered expendable victims.

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