How people judge anti-vaxxers who die from COVID-19

Some believe those who reject vaccines deserve worse outcomes

Peer-Reviewed Publication

OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY

COLUMBUS, Ohio – When people who publicly reject COVID-19 vaccines later die from the disease, observers have complex reactions to their fates, a new study suggests.

 

While very few rejoice in the deaths of anti-vaxxers, some people believe those who are dogmatic against vaccines are deserving of worse outcomes – and that reaction is related to the political party affiliation and vaccination status of the person evaluating the anti-vaxxer.

 

Democrats and those who were vaccinated were more likely than Republicans and the unvaccinated to think anti-vaxxers who died got what they deserved – but even 63% of Democrats in the study thought an anti-vaxxer deserved to have a full recovery from the disease (compared to 80% of Republicans).

 

Only 4.6% of people in the study thought an anti-vaxxer who contracted COVID-19 deserved death.

 

The study involved participants reading mock social media posts from an anti-vaxxer and reacting to different scenarios about how this anti-vaccine advocate reacted as he or she got sick and later died.

 

“What we found indicates that people may view those on social media as characters in a morality play,” said study co-author Matthew Grizzard, associate professor of communication at The Ohio State University.

 

“Our results show that people -- particularly those who were vaccinated themselves -- are likely to judge those who shared misinformation about the COVID vaccine as immoral and deserving of some level of retribution.”

 

The study was published July 22, 2023 in the journal New Media & Society.

 

The study was inspired by the “Herman Cain Award” forum (called a subreddit) on the social media site reddit.  Herman Cain was a Republican politician who contracted COVID-19 and died, and whose social media accounts continued to disseminate COVID-19 misinformation after his death. On the reddit forum, people share stories of anti-vaxxers and COVID deniers who died from the disease.

 

The Herman Cain Award site and others like it resulted in news coverage that categorized the sites as cruel and heartless.

 

But this study suggests a more nuanced interpretation of those who judged anti-vaxxers who got sick and died, said study co-author Rebecca Frazer, who recently earned her PhD in communication at Ohio State.

 

“We have people who are judging anti-vaxxers and considering them deserving of some level of suffering, but on the other hand, there’s very little positive emotion about watching them suffer,” Frazer said.

 

“Those two things seem in tension, but they are both in our findings.”

 

The researchers used a professional panel company to recruit an adult sample that was matched to the U.S. population on age, sex, race/ethnicity and region. The final sample included 932 people that was close to the U.S. population in political affiliation and vaccination status.

 

All participants were shown a series of mock Facebook status updates that mimicked the actual posts found in the Herman Cain Award subreddit.  The status updates were from a person named Terry Adams, with the gender intentionally unspecified.

 

In the first post, Terry expressed uncertainty about the COVID-19 vaccine or was dogmatically opposed to the vaccine.

 

In this case, all participants – Republicans and Democrats included – liked Terry more when he or she was less dogmatic and only expressed uncertainty about the vaccine.

 

But in later posts, when Terry contracted COVID and became critically ill, differences appeared in how people reacted to Terry, depending on whether he or she regretted not getting the vaccine or doubled down on not taking it.

 

Democrats had less positive evaluations of Terry than Republicans. In addition, vaccinated participants regardless of their political party also had less positive evaluations when Terry doubled down on not getting the vaccine.

 

“Republicans were more okay with Terry continuing to question the vaccine and less positive than Democrats when Terry regretted not getting the vaccine,” Grizzard said.

 

In the final Facebook post, Terry’s brother announced that Terry had died of COVID. Participants in the study were asked how “satisfied” they were with Terry’s death.  Overall, participants were more satisfied with his or her death when Terry maintained anti-vaccination views right up to death.

 

Vaccinated participants were more satisfied with Terry’s death than unvaccinated participants, and Democrats were more satisfied than Republicans.

 

But no group showed high levels of satisfaction, the results showed.  Participants rated their satisfaction on a scale of 1 to 7, with 7 being the most satisfied. The average score was 2.93 for Democrats, compared to 2.51 for Republicans.

 

The researchers also asked participants to rate how happy they were with Terry’s death – a question that aimed to get at the German concept of “schadenfreude,” which has been defined as “feelings of pleasure that a person experiences in response to another person’s failures or misfortunes.”

 

Participants rated their happiness on a scale of 0 to 6, with six being the most happy.  Results showed that even participants who thought Terry deserved death had an average happiness rating of only 1.6 on the scale, compared to 0.54 for those who thought Terry deserved to fully recover.

 

“We saw a moral judgment by those who thought Terry deserved some level of suffering or death, and they wanted justice to be served, or at least what they considered justice,” Frazer said.

 

“But even they didn’t express a lot of happiness at Terry’s death.”

 

Overall, the results suggest that most people don’t take pleasure in anti-vaxxers dying, even if they believe they deserve it, Grizzard said.

 

“It is more a feeling that anti-vaxxers acted immorally and maybe put others at risk. And because of that, they deserve some level of suffering. But even those who are judging these anti-vaxxers most harshly are typically not rejoicing in their suffering or death,” Grizzard said.

---

JOURNAL

New Media & Society

DOI

10.1177/14614448231184868 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Demystifying Schadenfreude: How disposition theorizing explains responses to social media stories of unvaccinated COVID-19 deaths

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

22-Jul-2023

Excess death rates for Republican and Democratic registered voters in Florida and Ohio during pandemic

JAMA Internal Medicine

Peer-Reviewed Publication

JAMA NETWORK

About The Study:

 In this study evaluating 538,000 deaths in individuals ages 25 and older in Florida and Ohio between March 2020 and December 2021, excess mortality was significantly higher for Republican voters than Democratic voters after COVID-19 vaccines were available to all adults, but not before. These findings suggest that differences in vaccination attitudes and reported uptake between Republican and Democratic voters may have been factors in the severity and trajectory of the pandemic in the U.S. 

Authors: Jacob Wallace, Ph.D., of the Yale School of Public Health in New Haven, Connecticut, is the corresponding author.

(doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2023.1154)

Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

#  #  #

 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/10.1001/jamainternmed.2023.1154?guestAccessKey=f5237917-e2bc-4cba-9f0d-ee6d516b3d85&utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_content=tfl&utm_term=072423

---

JOURNAL

JAMA Internal Medicine

AUSTRALIA

Anti-vaxxers and Facebook have found a way to co-exist

This week: the stalemate between anti-vaxxers and Facebook, shark attack videos, and pictures of Scott Morrison's feet.


CAM WILSON
FEB 22, 2022

ANTI-VAXXERS AND OTHER PROTESTERS MARCHING ON CANBERRA, AND IMAGES OF SCOTT MORRISON ON HIS WIKIFEET PROFILE (IMAGES: SUPPLIED, WIKIFEET)

Trending

The anti-vaccine, anti-government “Convoy” protests in Australia and Canada were mostly organised on Telegram and Facebook, two very different tech platforms. The former is a company with 30 employees, founded in Russia, that largely doesn’t do any content moderation despite having more than 500 million users.

The latter? Well, the US-based, highly profitable company’s problems with misinformation are well documented. Incredibly, it was only in 2019 — when Facebook earned US$70 billion from their 2.5 billion users after 15 years of operation — that the company said it would stop recommending anti-vaccine pages and groups, and taking money to promote anti-vaccine content through ads. Since then, the company, now rebranded as Meta, has tightened the rules a few times further after facing increasingly intense scrutiny. Throughout this period, it’s felt a lot like whack-a-mole: major Facebook pages and groups were often banned. Sometimes they’d spring back up, but sometimes they’d go elsewhere.

Recently I’ve noticed a lot of the major anti-vaccine groups and creators have all found ways to evade bans and continue to exist on the platform. In October last year I wrote about how Craig Kelly, Pete Evans and Australia’s biggest anti-vaxxer groups were able to avoid Facebook bans. Many of the major groups and figures promoting this week’s protests are all on Facebook. Four of the top five pieces of content about the protests, as measured by Facebook engagements, are pro-Convoy to Canberra, and are largely being shared by anti-vaccine groups.

THE TOP FIVE PIECES OF WEB CONTENT ABOUT THE CONVOY TO CANBERRA BASED ON SOCIAL MEDIA ENGAGEMENTS (IMAGE: BUZZSUMO)

How are they doing it? Perhaps the biggest change I’ve seen recently is the way that anti-vaccine actors have learned to weave their messages through platforms and mediums in a way that evades Facebook’s ban. They’ll post YouTube videos (around three-quarters of the Convoy to Canberra content was hosted on YouTube) featuring claims that would get them banned on Facebook. They link people to their Telegram channel where they can say whatever they want without repercussions. Or they’ll host livestreams of rallies and interviews that seem largely unmoderated too.

And there’s also just an increased wiliness: everything from avoiding the word “vaccine” to calling anti-vaccine groups “dinner parties”.

Whatever the reason, it feels as though we’ve gotten to an impasse. Facebook has set rules to stop medical misinformation (even though it’s still all over the platform). Anti-vaxxers are able, with a few limitations, to use the world’s most popular social media platform to spread their misinformation further.

In fairness to Meta, it’s not like it invented anti-vaxxers. The pandemic has made it a salient issue that was played up by even mainstream political actors. Plus anti-vaccine content is all over other platforms too, particularly YouTube, Instagram (owned by Meta), TikTok, Twi- well, I guess most of them. Meta certainly seems to do more than YouTube or TikTok.

But it all boils down to this: Meta is a private enterprise. It makes an insane amount of money. It decides who’s allowed on its platform. And at the moment it’s allowed a situation where anti-vaxxers are still able to make Facebook their home.

Fake, international Facebook accounts behind the Convoy to Canberra protests

I spotted some unusual accounts behind some of the groups being used to promote and organise the Convoy to Canberra protests. Why were these international accounts doing this? Not sure! But there’s a few reasons people might want to. (Crikey)

Leaked data from Canadian convoy protest fundraiser reveals hundreds of Australian donors

Aaaand here’s why some people want to give money to these protests. (ABC)

Former SAS officer Riccardo Bosi leading dangerous anti-vax revolution across Australia

A deep dive into one of the leading online conspiracy figures in Australia who has in the past called for politicians and media to be hanged. Worth noting, this piece was posted without a byline. (The West)

Sick, paranoid, poorer and disorganised: the aftermath of the Convoy to Canberra protests An estimated 10,000 protesters, with a grab-bag of grievances, made up the Convoy to Canberra. It didn't take long, however, for the movement to fall apart.

Content Corner

There is a popular website that most journalists dare not speak about, fearing repercussions from the shadowy cabal of elites who pull the strings from behind the veil. But I am not most journalists. Without further ado, presenting: WikiFeet.

Called the encyclopedia for foot fetishists, WikiFeet has run for 14 years entirely off the back of volunteers who upload, curate and rate feet of notable people. It’s played a role in politics before. In 2019, the website was crucial in debunking a fake nude image of Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

With a federal election looming, I wondered what the feet of our political elites would tell us. My first search was of course for our dear leader, Scott Morrison.

THE ENTRY FOR SCOTT MORRISON ON WIKIFEET, AN ONLINE ENCYCLOPEDIA FOR THE FEET OF FAMOUS PEOPLE (IMAGE: WIKIFEET)

What I found was that, much like the polls, our prime minister had middling support at best — a measly 2.57 out of five rating from 19 images. Interestingly, his votes were almost entirely either five stars or one star, suggesting strong feelings either way. The website’s algorithm told me that people who liked Morrison’s feet also liked Pierce Brosnan’s, Tom Selleck’s and Kevin Spacey’s. No comment.

When I looked up Anthony Albanese? No images have yet been uploaded. Same with Adam Bandt and Clive Palmer. The only other Australian politician I could find who had a profile was Pauline Hanson (three stars, “ok feet”).

What does this tell us about the upcoming election? Not much, if I’m being honest. Do the polarised scores of Morrison’s feet reveal anything about the intensity of his supporters? Need more data to make such a conclusion. Is the absence of Albanese’s page indicative of his lack of public profile? I don’t know that you can draw that connection.

But if you have a spare moment, I know a website that’s looking for volunteers and has a big hole in its #auspol section.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Cam Wilson is Crikey's associate editor. He previously worked as a reporter at the ABC, BuzzFeed, Business Insider and Gizmodo. He primarily covers internet culture and tech in Australia.

Op-Ed: The anti-vax movement was already getting scary. COVID supercharged it

John P. Moore
Fri, February 25, 2022

Dozens of anti-vax protesters rally in front of Los Angeles City Hall last September. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Conspiracy theorists' disinformation has led to the deaths of thousands of Americans every week by discouraging COVID-19 vaccinations. That toll will end up being a tiny fraction of the anti-vax movement’s body count.

Even when this pandemic is over, an energized base of anti-vaxxers will lead to more deaths for years to come. The uptake of standard childhood vaccines was already declining before COVID-19 hit, leaving more and more children vulnerable to diseases like diphtheria, measles, rubella, mumps, tetanus and whooping cough. Since the pandemic began, we’re also seeing more politics-driven attacks on state mandates for pre-school vaccination. Long-vanquished child-killing diseases will rise again, just because parents have been fooled into rejecting safe, long-proven vaccines.

The anti-vax movement has never been based on science. Its standard methods are similar to ones used by the charlatans who argued that HIV wasn’t the cause of AIDS, or that putting fluoride in the water is harmful. They claim that any opposition to their propaganda must be proof of “deep state” or “big pharma” corruption of science and public policy.

It’s a tired playbook, but it resonates with people whose psychological states leave them susceptible to believing conspiracy theories. One study found that people who believe “9/11 truther” theories are more likely than average to also believe COVID-19 vaccines are dangerous.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an influential anti-vaxxer, said at a recent rally in Washington: “Bill Gates and his 65,000 satellites alone will be able to look at every square inch of the planet, 24 hours a day.” And “They’re putting in 5G to harvest our data and control our behavior — digital currencies that will allow them to punish us from a distance and cut off our food supply.”

Why would anyone rational take medical advice from him — a lawyer who believes this kind of nonsense? But many do. It doesn’t help when people in positions of power buy in. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) claimed that vaccinated athletes were “dropping dead on the field,” an outright fabrication.

Many anti-vaxxer leaders are glory-seekers and grifters. There’s serious money in play. One prominent anti-vaxxer, Joseph Mercola, has profited by peddling alternative remedies.

White supremacists and people with antisemitic views have found a home in the anti-vaccine movement, sometimes seemingly pitching their agenda to groups they hope to hurt. Somali immigrants have been deliberately targeted by anti-vaxxers, as have Black Americans, Orthodox Jews and other religious minorities. How many of the people who fall for anti-vax lies fully understand the various and often perverse agendas behind them?

The sensible majority of the American people need to fight back before this public health crisis rages further out of control.

Aggressive public service messaging could shock people into understanding not only the risk to adults who avoid COVID vaccination but also the full consequences of leaving children unvaccinated against deadly diseases like polio. Graphic antismoking TV ads can be a model. Deathbed testimonials from regretful victims of anti-vax propaganda send a powerful message. The many COVID-19 deaths of prominent anti-vaxxers should be widely publicized — to scare others from acting foolishly. Seeing death in all its horror can change minds.

And let’s get the courts involved. When words kill, there should be no absolute 1st Amendment protection. Grieving families of dead anti-vaxxers could sue the propagandists they listened to. There’s a model for this as well: Creative lawsuits have forced some white supremacist organizations out of business.

Since the pandemic began, the U.S. has seen public health professionals resign because of threats from anti-vaxxers, hollowing out infrastructure that’s critical to America’s welfare. We need more aggressive prosecutions of anyone threatening officials and scientists who promote vaccination. The public can help. Internet sleuths have identified hundreds of the Jan. 6 insurrectionists, feeding information to an FBI task force that makes arrests. Anti-vaxxers who threaten public servants are often anonymous — but may be traceable online.

Here’s another legal avenue: People who make money out of fake vaccination documents are active on social media. Their hubris should land them in prison.

Rather than letting infractions slide, state licensing boards and professional organizations should accelerate sanctions against physicians and pharmacists who distribute and profit from useless and harmful “COVID-19 drugs” such as ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. It’s particularly egregious when they also refuse to prescribe FDA-approved drugs and trash vaccines that actually are effective against COVID-19. Affected patients and family members could sue the quacks who harmed them. We are now seeing “long COVID” sufferers targeted. Pushing untested cocktails of irrelevant drugs and supplements onto people with serious health problems is downright dangerous.

Taking on COVID-19 anti-vax malfeasance and malpractice is crucial and urgent. Successes on that front can help us counter the older and more pernicious resistance to childhood vaccinations. In the meantime, the flood of disinformation on social media continues to put our children’s futures at serious risk.

A successful scientist-led campaign against anti-vaxxer lies on Spotify has raised awareness of what needs to be done to stop the nonsense. Just as COVID-19 galvanized the anti-vax movement, it can also marshal widespread support to combat the propaganda and protect public health.

John P. Moore is a professor of microbiology and immunology at Weill Cornell Medical College.


This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Why anti-vaxxers are gaining ground amid the coronavirus pandemic

“There are many layers here and I think what the anti-vaxxers are doing is preying on those layers,” said Erica DeWald of Vaccinate Your Family.

By Anagha Srikanth | Jan. 28, 2021 THE HILL

Story at a glance 

VIDEO https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/536388-why-anti-vaxxers-are-gaining-ground-amid-the?jwsource=cl

As the United States is scrambling to distribute the COVID-19 vaccine, misinformation is thriving.
While an increasing number of Americans have been willing to be inoculated against the coronavirus, some remain hesitant.

The anti-vaccination movement has continued to push its cause throughout the pandemic.

Despite commitments from Facebook, Youtube and other online platforms to combat COVID-19 misinformation, new rumors keep popping up almost as soon as others are shut down. So how do you get ahead in what seems like an endless game of Whac-a-mole?

“We have to separate out two strains here, the traditional anti-vaccine groups and leaders and your layperson who has their concerns about this being a new vaccine that was developed and approved quicker than your average vaccine,” said Erica DeWald, the director of strategic communications and partnerships for Vaccinate Your Family.

The groups that make up the larger anti-vaxxer movement in the United States were organizing even before a vaccine was developed, growing their social media audience and online reach. Leaders like Robert Kennedy Jr., who most recently falsely suggested a link between Hank Aaron’s death and the COVID-19 vaccine, can be extremely wealthy and some have even profited off of the movement.

So when the coronavirus pandemic hit, DeWald said, “they saw it as their opportunity to finally push their agenda into the mainstream and how they decided to do that was by teaming up with people who were against COVID-masking requirements and lockdowns.” United by anti-government sentiments, some anti-vaccine advocates even found themselves at the insurrection at the United States Capitol on Jan. 6.

But not everyone who expresses anti-vaccine sentiments is necessarily part of the larger movement. Despite being disproportionately harmed by the coronavirus pandemic, Black and Indigenous Americans are especially likely to be skeptical of a vaccine as a result of racism and even abuse in the medical community.

A new documentary produced by Kennedy and other leaders speaks to this history, but also makes misleading comparisons between the COVID-19 vaccine and the Tuskegee Experiment.

“They’re filling the void. That's what anti vaxxers do best, they fill in the void of information,” said DeWald. “You have an entire country that doesn’t talk about institutional racism in the medical community and here they are.”

Racism in the medical community persists to this day, starting at the foundation of many health care professionals’ educations. Half of white medical trainees believe such myths as Black people have thicker skin or less sensitive nerve endings than white people, reported the Association of American Medical Colleges in 2020, many based on outdated and outright racist studies. But DeWald said that history is only part of the problem.

America is changing faster than ever! Add Changing America to your Facebook or Twitter feed to stay on top of the news.

“Are they not getting a COVID-19 vaccine because of that mistrust or are they not getting a COVID-19 vaccine because if they have a bad reaction they don’t know that they can get medical care for that reaction? There are many layers here and I think what the anti-vaxxers are doing is preying on those layers,” she said.

The rollout of the vaccine itself has been problematic, with early data showing that Black, Hispanic and other people of color make up a smaller share of vaccinations compared to their share of cases and deaths, while the opposite is true for white people. Even this information, however, is incomplete because many states are not releasing racial breakdowns of the data to the public.

The lack of transparency is a big reason that public health advocates are losing out to anti-vaxxers, noted DeWald. While the anti-vaccine movement is largely tainted by misinformation, they’ve been successful in pointing out that vaccination is a choice and finding common ground through buzzwords such as “informed consent.”

Groups like the Black Coalition Against COVID-19 have begun this work already. In Michigan, a statewide initiative to improve health literacy saw more than 1 million residents obtain health coverage through the state's expanded Medicaid program. But laying groundwork for health literacy is no easy process.

“It comes down to person to person communication,” she said. “It’s about listening, acknowledging that their concerns are legitimate and real and answering them and I think what that means for the country is to actually start the process of community outreach.”

SNOWFLAKES

 Anti-Vaxxers Are Asking People To Stop Calling Them Anti-Vaxxers Because It's "Highly Offensive"

HEALTH AND MEDICINE

By James Felton

04 DEC 2019, 13:08

A group of anti-vaxxers is asking the media to stop referring to them as anti-vaxxers (even though that's literally what they are), and people have been less than enthusiastic in accepting their suggested replacement.

This week, the anti-vaxxer group Crazymothers (no, we're not even remotely kidding) posted the request to their Twitter and Instagram pages. 

"Dear Media," the open letter read. "Please retire the use of the term 'Anti-vaxxer.' It is derogatory, inflammatory, and marginalizes both women and their experiences. It is dismissively simplistic, highly offensive and largely false. We politely request that you refer to us as the Vaccine Risk Aware."

People responding to the group were quick to point out that if they were really aware of the risk of any adverse effects of vaccines, which are mainly minor, extremely rare and do not include autism (despite what you may read on that bastion of scientific information [squints] crazymothers.info). Especially when you weigh it up against the risks associated with not getting your child vaccinated, which include your child getting a potentially deadly disease and risking the health of others around them.

An outbreak of measles in the Democratic Republic of Congo, for instance, has seen 233,337 cases of measles and 4,723 deaths over the past year, with children under the age of five accounting for almost 90 percent of those deaths.

So when Crazymothers asked people to call them "risk aware", people had quite a few suggestions of their own.

Dear Media,
Please retire the use of the term “Anti-vaxxer.” It is derogatory, inflammatory, and marginalizes both women and their experiences. It is dismissivemy simplistic, highly offensive and largely false. We politely request that you refer to us as the Vaccine Risk Aware. pic.twitter.com/WtAyFOhLuv

— Crazymothers (@Crazymothers1) December 1, 2019

As well as this and the standard variation of the "OK boomer" response...

... people tried giving them the facts as well (though sometimes admittedly quite aggressively).

As you'd expect, this hasn't worked. In a follow-up post, the anti-vaxx group dismissed HuffPost coverage of their request as: "Oh snap, I hit a nerve". 

In fact, research has shown that giving facts about the safety of vaccines to anti-vaxxers is (genuinely) as effective in changing their minds as giving them an unrelated statement about bird feeding (used as the control), Science Alert reports.

However, if you still insist on changing minds to save lives, the same 2017 study showed that there is a more effective way, which is to show them photographs of the effects of vaccine-preventable diseases, and a personal account from a mother whose child almost died from measles. Anti-vaxxers showed this was more likely to make think about vaccines in a more positive light afterwards. Another study published earlier this year showed that people who are hesitant about vaccines were more likely to be convinced of their benefits after meeting someone who has suffered from a vaccine-preventable disease.

Plandemic: how the debunked movie by discredited researcher Judy Mikovits went viral

Jason Wilson

Australia’s response to the coronavirus pandemic has been better than most but the ‘infodemic’ presents another challenge as millions watch conspiracy theory video online

Thu 14 May 2020
 

Anti-vaxx protestors at a Covid-19 lockdown protest in Melbourne last Sunday. The anti-vaxx movement has been behind the spread of debunked movie Plandemic featuring discredited researcher Judy Mikovits. Photograph: Speed Media/REX/Shutterstock

The coronavirus emergency, and the pressure cooker of the lockdowns, have fused a number of conspiracy theories in the minds of believers. They have also drawn a number of conspiracy-minded movements closer together.

A snippet of an upcoming film, Plandemic, went viral with astonishing speed when it was released last week. In the process, it showed how false beliefs generated within the anti-vaxxer movement have become interwoven with familiar far-right conspiracy narratives.

It also demonstrated that by combining the efforts of grassroots believers and charismatic influencers, anti-vaxxers have become adept at producing and disseminating viral propaganda to mainstream audiences.


Australian celebrities and ordinary social media users were central to last week’s disinformation surge.

The piece of film which researchers say received millions of Facebook interactions in just a few short days was an interview with the discredited virologist, Judy Mikovits, by a Californian film-maker and new-age “wellness” advocate, Mikki Willis.

Mikovits’s scientific career began falling apart from 2009, when she published a paper in Science attributing chronic fatigue syndrome to the effects of a virus. The paper’s claims did not hold up, it was retracted, and ensuing conflicts between Mikovits and her employer, a private lab, culminated in her arrest in 2012 on charges of being a fugitive from justice, after she allegedly absconded with notebooks and proprietary data. Criminal charges were later dropped, according to reports.


Since then she has alleged she has been the victim of widespread corruption in the scientific community, and has presented antivaxx-friendly autism conferences with baseless theories about how viruses play a role in causing the disease. Many anti-vaxxers believe that vaccines such as the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine causes autism in children, a claim that has been extensively debunked.

Now she has a book, Plague of Corruption, outlining these alongside other theories and grievances.

Willis, the interviewer, who has described himself on Facebook as a “father, film-maker, activist” has been an actor and an eclectic film-maker for some years.
His work often has a political flavour – he made videos in support of the Bernie Sanders campaign in 2016 and did the same for Tulsi Gabbard during her presidential campaign (his Facebook wall reveals him to have been a vocal supporter of both politicians).

He has also made yoga and meditation videos, and the film nonprofit he founded in 2006 co-produced a film on the wellness effects of psychedelic drugs. Willis told the LA Times he made the Plandemic film himself at little cost; researchers have pointed to fundraising by prominent conspiracy theorists aimed at publicising Mikovits’s book.

The claims Mikovits made in the interview – about her own career, the possibility that the virus was engineered by humans, and the proper epidemiological approach to containing it – were serially debunked, not least in Science, which also did a sweeping 2011 postmortem on what led to the publication of her later-retracted 2009 paper.


They also played directly into established anti-vaxxer beliefs, which have become integrated into broader, conspiracy-minded, mostly rightwing anti-lockdown narratives.

These include the idea that the virus was human-made, possibly in the Wuhan laboratory; that mandatory vaccination is a project by big pharma profiteers that will kill millions; that public health authorities (including Dr Anthony Fauci) are corrupt and not to be trusted.

There is no evidence for any of this, as many outlets have shown. In some cases, as with the claim about bioengineering, the best science indicates the opposite to be true.

On their own, her claims don’t sound plausible, but her specialist qualification is a boon for anti-vaxxers who generally find no support among professional medical researchers.

And Willis is a skilled film-maker, as revealed in a showreel released under the Elevate brand earlier this year.

Erin Gallagher, an independent researcher who specialises in the real-time analysis of viral disinformation outbreaks, said that in this case, the fillm-maker’s art was a central factor in propelling the film to every corner of Facebook.

“The documentary was very well made with professional lighting, nice camera angles, dramatic music,” she said in a social media direct message. “It looks legit. We tend to accept anything in documentary format as fact, especially when it looks good,” she added.

But also crucial was the large number of Facebook groups, and anti-vaxx and “wellness” influencers who were primed to spread the message. In this respect, Australian anti-vaxxers had a global impact.

Gallagher’s research shows that an Australia-led Facebook group, “99% unite Main Group ‘it’s us or them’”, was one of the central nodes which spread links to the video, and Judy Mikovits’s name, across Facebook.

At the time of Gallagher’s analysis, that group had 32,052 members; now that figure has shot up to 43,588.

Other groups spreading the video include those devoted to the false idea that aircraft vapour trails are “chemtrails” containing dangerous chemicals; groups in support of conservatives such as Donald Trump or broadcaster Rush Limbaugh, and another group associated with the “QAnon” conspiracy theory.

The spread of disinformation during the pandemic has also been aided by charismatic influencers. Australian celebrity chef Pete Evans, who recently lost a lucrative on-air role at Channel Seven, has spread both anti-vaccine and QAnon-related material on his social media accounts in recent days.


On Facebook and Instagram, Evans posted a diagram claiming to show that Bill Gates is connected to health authorities, universities, international organisations and pharmaceutical companies who have played a role in fighting the pandemic, inciting his audience to “Comment if you like ... and join the dots”.

In a since-deleted Instagram story, he presented his followers with a notorious diagram including the conspiracy claims of the QAnon movement, and also suggesting the existence of “inner earth civilizations”, a slave colony on Mars and that the arrest of a “cabal” will lead immediately to the technology of “wireless energy”.

On 7 May, at the height of its viral spread, he also posted a copy of the “Plandemic” video on Facebook, telling followers, “Would love to know your thoughts as the person being interviewed has a fascinating story.”

The video was shared 218 times from Evans’s account.

Around the world, anti-vaxxers have been increasingly prominent participants in, and even organisers of, anti-lockdown street protests.

One of the moderators of the “99% Unite” was arrested along with nine others at a similar protest in Melbourne last weekend, after giving a speech in which he said, among other things, that he had promised his father that he would never be implanted with a microchip.

The crowd at the protest at one point chanted “arrest Bill Gates!” – referencing an increasingly prevalent conspiracy theory which asserts that the tech billionaire and philanthropist is involved in a coronavirus-centred plot to bring about mass vaccinations and population control.

In the streets of US cities, anti-vaxxers have marched shoulder to shoulder against shutdowns with a wide spectrum of mostly rightwing organisations – including armed extremists.

Research published by an FBI-associated nonprofit argues that given the obstacle they present to herd immunity, in a pandemic, anti-vaxxers may constitute a US national security risk.

The problem of medical misinformation is more acute in the US, which has a much more serious epidemic, a poor federal response, greater inequalities in healthcare and more pronounced social tensions.

But Australians, too, will need to grapple with the fact that local conspiracy movements are now nimble enough to route around whatever safeguards still exist against misinformation.

In “cholera riots” in 19th century Europe, the historian Richard Evans wrote, sometimes “the medical profession came under attack … mainly because it was medical officials who were usually in charge of the implementation of government measures such as the isolation of victims once an epidemic had actually broken out”.

From Russia to Britain, doctors were accused of spreading the disease to deliberately kill the urban poor, to obtain cadavers for vivisection, or to claim fictitious government bounties on dead bodies.

By fire-hosing conspiracy-minded content inside Facebook groups, or through the agency of trusted celebrities, anti-vaxxers, too, are turning misinformed people, dealing with enormous psychological pressure, against health experts and science itself.

The hammer blows being landed on higher education, quality media and the public health system will only make it more difficult to keep our heads on straight.

Australia’s response to the pandemic has been better than most but the infodemic may not be so kind.

Jason Wilson is an Australian journalist living in the USA

GOOD NEWS
Covid-19 pandemic gives ‘anti-vaxxers’ pause


Issued on: 11/04/2020 

A boy attends a protest by anti-vaccination activists in Kiev, Ukraine, 
August 22, 2019. The banner reads: "My baby is my responsibility".
 © Gleb Garanich, Reuters

Text by:NEWS WIRES

While some anti-vaccination advocates are gearing up for a fight against any potential new vaccine, others are growing frustrated at fellow anti-vaxxers’ downplaying of the pandemic.

An American mother-of-three is a long-time member of “anti-vaxxer” groups online: a small but vocal global community that believes vaccines are a dangerous con and refuse to immunize themselves or their children.

But Covid-19 is shaking her views. The woman who would identify herself only as Stephanie, citing a fear of reprisals from committed anti-vaxxers, says she is now 50:50 on taking a vaccine should one be discovered for the respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus.

“I’ve definitely thought about it,” she told Reuters by phone from the United States, also expressing frustration at what she considers the anti-vax community’s downplaying of the pandemic’s seriousness. “We’re all being affected by this virus, schools closing, young people in hospital, and they still say it’s a hoax.”

As the world’s scientists and pharmaceutical companies seek a cure for the coronavirus, other anti-vaxxers are gearing up for a fight against any potential new vaccine.

“Refuse, demonstrate,” said a Briton on Facebook in response to a post asking people how they would react if a vaccine was made mandatory.

But some virologists say the quest for a vaccine is so widely supported that resistance will be eroded.

The latest national surveys by pollster ORB International for the Vaccine Confidence Project (VCP), which monitors attitudes to immunisation, appear to support this idea.

In France, where a 2018 poll showed one in three people did not view vaccines as safe, just 18% would refuse a coronavirus vaccine now, according to the VCP poll of around 1,000 people on March 18, a day after France locked down.

In Australia, the VCP’s figure was also 7%, while Britain, where about 2,000 people were polled, and Austria registered 5% opposition in polls there a week later.

“If a vaccine were made available tomorrow, everyone would jump to get it,” said Laurent-Henri Vignaud, who co-authored a history of France’s anti-vax movement.

That view was challenged by Mary Holland, vice-chair of American non-profit group Children’s Health Defense, which is critical of vaccination in the United States.

“I don’t think this virus fundamentally changes people’s deeply held concerns about vaccines,” she told Reuters.

“I will not be injected with anything”

Although the term “anti-vax” is sometimes associated with conspiracy theories, many people are simply concerned about side-effects or industry ethics.

Globally, one person in five does not view vaccines as safe or is unsure, according to a 2018 survey by the Wellcome Trust health fund.

In China, where the Covid-19 disease caused by the novel coronavirus originated, surveys by VCP researchers show safety is an important cause of concern. Several scandals eroded trust, including in 2018 when a unit of China’s vaccine maker Changsheng Bio-technology Co Ltd was heavily fined for falsifying data for a rabies vaccine. The company said it was “deeply sorry” for the incident.

Online discussions tracked by Reuters – including closed Facebook pages with more than 200,000 members, Twitter feeds such as the Children’s Health Defense and YouTube videos totalling over 700,000 views – showed considerable mistrust that a rushed vaccine would be improperly tested.

VCP director Heidi Larson said that was also the main reason for concern around the vaccine against the H1N1 swine flu pandemic in 2009.

A quickly produced swine flu vaccine in 1976 led to about one in 100,000 people developing Guillain-Barre syndrome, a paralyzing immune-system disorder, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Some 115 coronavirus vaccine candidates are being developed by institutes and drugmakers, according to the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation, a global alliance financing and coordinating the development of vaccines.

“I will not be injected with anything, especially a fast-tracked vaccine,” added American Vicki Barneck, 67, who believes a strong immune system is enough to combat the disease.

Holland, of the Children’s Health Defense, said: “Some react fine to vaccines, others are paralysed or killed.”

However, a 2015 paper by CDC epidemiologists said “multiple studies and scientific reviews have found no association between vaccination and deaths except in rare cases.”

“Hungry for a vaccine”

The VCP is running an 18-month study tracking conversation online about the coronavirus and conducting global polls to measure attitudes towards social distancing, isolation, hand-washing and anticipating a vaccine.

From analysing more than 3 million posts a day between January and mid-March 2020, director Dr Heidi Larson said the vast majority were eager for a treatment, fast.

“People are hungry for a vaccine,” she said.

In Italy, which has been hit badly by Covid-19, the anti-vax movement has “virtually disappeared” in the discussion on the coronavirus, according to virologist Dr Roberto Burioni.

For a coronavirus vaccine to be effective, wide uptake and annual vaccination is likely to be required, said George Kassianos, immunisation lead at the Royal College of General Practitioners in London.

There is also the question of how to distribute fast enough to people lining up for the vaccine.

“Essential workers will be the priority. Police officers, hospital workers, cleaners. Then at-risk groups,” said Douglas L. Hatch, a physician specialised in pandemic preparedness working on the Covid-19 response in San Francisco.

“By the time you get to the anti-vaxxers, they’ll have trouble getting it even if they wanted to.”

(REUTERS)