crazietalk.net

Long post warning

I will preface this post by saying I work in one of the top immunology departments in the country, at one of the country’s top biomedical research centers. Also, my older brother died a month ago from covid. He was only 56 and was in good health before getting sick.

How am I doing? I am ANGRY, and it might not be at who most people would think. I am angry at a certain right-wing media outlet whose news shows and talk show hosts continue to perpetuate conspiracy theories and outright demonstrable falsehoods regarding masks, vaccines and covid-19 treatments in general. They kept my otherwise healthy brother from getting vaccinated - and, I suspect from his symptoms, made him take the certain unproven drug that they are currently promoting. He definitely didn’t wear a mask. I know enough to recognize their propaganda and disinformation for what it is. However, for people with no scientific training, their false claims sound credible. Now, couple that with the general party line of, “we are telling the truth and everyone else is lying,” and you have a recipe for disaster. I suspect that if you map their viewer numbers on top of the current coronavirus cases, there would be a very strong correlation.

While I was in AR, at the end of my brother’s life, I had the unfortunate experience of listening to said media outlet. They ranted that the CDC only changed mask recommendations because President Biden called and told them to. No mention of the case study that led to this change. They also had a guest on who claimed that masks are totally ineffective against children and cited the retracted study that used flawed methodology. (That one made me yell at the TV and call them idiots. My dad’s response was that I am the idiot.) In context, I had just seen a story saying that AR Children’s Hospital ICU was near capacity with Covid-19 positive children, most of whom were too young to be vaccinated.

There’s a constant stream of rants on this “news” network about personal liberties being taken away. If you wonder where all the anti-mask rhetoric comes from, that’s the source. The clips I’ve seen from school board meetings use their language, very nearly verbatim. The media outlet in question, and it’s even more right wing cousin, need to be sued into oblivion for the disinformation that is making people die.

If anything good has come from my brother’s death, it is that it scared many more of those who grew up with us into getting vaccinated. I’ve now lost count of the number of people I’ve had conversations with, to rebut disinformation they’ve been fed. On social media, when I dare to rebut, I’m often accused of rebutting for political reasons. Because, yeah, actually having the scientific training to rebut conspiracy theories is enough to make you “a d*mn liberal.” We live in sad times.