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.
Unfortunately, Republican politicians and conservative media figures are increasingly joining up with the anti-vaxxers. Even before COVID, they were fighting vaccine mandates and other public health measures.
The anti-vax movement has a great deal of overlap with MAGA, QAnon, and old-school conspiracy theory.
The sister of Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn and a band of conservative anti-vax activists are running for the board of a renowned public hospital in Florida under the banner of “medical freedom.”
If they win, they’ll hold a majority over Sarasota’s award-winning facility where one of their allies—elected in 2022 with two other “health freedom candidates” to the nine-member panel—is already trying to peddle vaccine misinformation.
The rogues’ gallery includes Mary Flynn O’Neill, who directs her brother’s nonprofit and routinely appears on right-wing shows with QAnon conspiracy theorists; Tanya Parus, the president of Moms For America’s Sarasota chapter and co-owner of a “freedom-based” health clinic, and Tamzin Rosenwasser, a dermatologist who once railed against the Federation of State Medical Boards’s warning to doctors who spread COVID vaccine misinformation, comparing the organization to Stalin’s secret police.
Michael Flynn posted this picture today. I was finally able to locate a full view of the board behind him. (Telegram) (1/2) pic.twitter.com/y7vTg9TFXa
— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes) July 6, 2021The list includes familiar figures from the antivax movement:There may be others whose names are too hard to read in the photograph.
