Dr. Allison Neitzel, in her must-read newsletter, “Misinformation Kills”, juxtaposes the misinformation willfully spread by Alex Jones, who is being sued for $150 million by families of Sandy Hook, with that of Joe Rogan for the misinformation he spread about vaccines.
As difficult as it was to watch the Sandy Hook parents convey their hurt at Jones' ongoing groundless and heartless attacks, the parallel collective suffering Dr. Neitzel points to is incomprehensible:
"How do you quantify conspiracy turned deadly? How do you place monetary value on the death toll and damages…"?
Last November 4th, Dr. Peter Hotez tweeted the following sobering observation, referring to what he elsewhere called the "largest self-immolation that this nation has ever experienced":
"Today we hit 750,000 Americans lost to COVID19. We’re on trajectory to hit 800,0000 by year’s end. Those last 100,000+ maybe even 200,000 died unnecessarily because vaccines were widely available. They chose not to get vaccinated, sometimes even defiant. They died by antiscience."
To which I replied at the time:
"These last 100,000+ weren't suicides. These people didn't want to die. What's left then — homicide? Exactly that: homicide perpetrated by the propagators and enablers of misinformation and disinformation."
We know the number of those unnecessary deaths is much higher than that now.
Dr. Neitzel calls out Joe Rogan as being a major conduit in the propagation of misinformation through his podcast. She identifies others who ought to have known better than to spread blatant misinformation, but did it anyway. This shameful conduct led masses of people to decline getting vaccinated — a significant number of whom subsequently succumbed to serious illness and death.
This is why I started an online presence as "Defeat Scott Jensen," because it pains me to think of one of those misinformation super-spreaders, Dr. Scott Jensen, not only going unpunished, but being rewarded by being elected the next governor of the State of Minnesota and given a much larger platform than he's had to date.
Peter Hotez warned Joe that the anti-vax lobby owned the internet. He ignored him, Sanjay Gupta and countless others. Why? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtSqSfv1_D0
Y'all need to link up with the good folks at Misinformation Kills.