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Thursday, August 4, 2022

Alex Jones Is An Antivaxxer

In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the discredited notion that vaccines cause autism. This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing diseases to spread  And among those diseases could be COVID-19.

Antivaxxers are sometimes violent, often abusive, and always wrong.  

 AJ McDougall at The Daily Beast:

Jones went so far as to take potshots at the families from afar, calling them “pawns” in an episode of his Infowars show that aired Tuesday, according to Media Matters for America. He claimed that Heslin was autistic, saying he thought the father was acting “like somebody on the spectrum.”

...

 Someone in the courtroom—it was unclear from the video feed—then brought up Jones’ claim that Heslin was autistic. “Hey, I think I’m autistic too, buddy,” Jones called at the plaintiffs as they filed out of the courtroom.

Five years ago, Julia Belluz wrote at Vox:
Jones has said Oprah Winfrey is trying to reduce the African population by half, that Sesame Street’s new autistic Muppet was designed to normalize an increasingly common disease that’s caused by vaccines, and that the Atlantic and other lefty periodicals are hinting at an imminent decapitation of President Trump.

In this world, Andrew Wakefield, the discredited doctor who falsified data to suggest vaccines are linked to autism, is a “pioneer” and “trailblazer” who just wants to help keep people healthy