“Anti-science” vaccine skepticism rooted in the breakdown of institutional trust

Until natural science is again given the respect due to it and is properly distinguished from subversive ideological agendas that compromise its credibility, the crisis of confidence will only worsen.

A protester outside the Department of Education headquarters in the Brooklyn borough of New York City demonstrates Oct. 4, 2021, against the mandate that teachers and staff must be vaccinated against COVID-19. (CNS photo/Brendan McDermid, Reuters)

America’s media and health establishment are expressing horror and consternation at what has now become a mass resistance movement to the implementation of the COVID-19 vaccine, as millions insist they will not receive it despite a relentless and moralistic promotional campaign, legal threats, and a vigorous censorship of the slightest deviations from pro-vaccination orthodoxy. Today, after nine months of wide availability, only 55% of Americans are fully vaccinated, and a full 35% of the U.S. population remains completely unvaccinated. The vast majority of them tell pollsters they intend to stay that way.

The mainstream media, and many health experts, have repeatedly attributed an “anti-science” posture to those who have shown resistance to vaccination. One physician and research scientist writing for USA Today, Dr. Peter Hotez, has even called for a campaign to counteract “the anti-vaccine, anti-science aggression,” by suppressing COVID vaccine dissenters. Hotez wrote a similar article for the prestigious scientific journal Nature, where he frankly advocates that the government “move to dismantle anti-vaccine groups in the United States.” His call is echoed in other mainstream news publications and major scientific journals, which have repeatedly lamented “COVID denial” as contributing to the continuing spread of the disease.

It cannot be denied that some, even much, of vaccine dissent in the United States and worldwide has been based on half-truths, the misreading of statistics, and even outright pseudoscience. However, the rejection of the COVID vaccine on such a scale cannot simply be reduced to poor reasoning and anti-science superstition on the part of the public, which has been saturated with scientistic ideology in public schools for decades. If so many Americans today are skeptical about claims made by institutionally-certified experts, those same institutions might want to begin to address the problem by looking into the proverbial mirror. There, they will find systemic failures that span decades, and have vastly undermined the prestige of the scientific and health establishment.

For decades, Americans have been struck with multiple waves of pseudoscience emanating not from street-preaching cranks, but from the country’s most prestigious universities. These have functioned in tandem with the mainstream media, Hollywood, the corporate elite, and the government itself, to impose social agendas that have been deeply harmful to American society, all in the name of “science.”

The earliest manifestations of this tendency were found in the development of “scientific racism” and eugenics in the early 20th century, which were embraced and promoted by the faculty of Harvard University and other Ivy League schools. They were followed by ridiculous and manifestly unscientific political ideologies, particularly socialism and Marxism, which were all the rage for decades in academia while critics were derided as fools and institutionally marginalized.

Since the late 1960s, despite overwhelming and ever-increasing scientific proof of the humanity of the unborn, the medical establishment has totally reversed itself on abortion, moving from firm opposition to a virtually uncritical embrace. In the last two decades, fundamental biological truths and a mountain of peer-reviewed research on the harms of sexual perversion and promiscuity have been brazenly cast aside in favor of homosexualism and gender ideology, leaving a trail of human tragedy in its wake and further undermining the moral integrity of our society.

The COVID-19 pandemic has magnified all of these trends, blowing them up to grotesque proportions that left little room for irony. Under the name of “science,” questionable policies have been imposed on the public through the influence of celebrity health officials. Millions of Americans were virtually imprisoned in their homes in “lockdowns,” a term used in the control of prison populations, while politically-favored rioters ran through the streets destroying property and murdering police with impunity. Churches and small businesses were ruthlessly shuttered, while large corporations were given a pass to operate. Every possibility of low-cost therapeutics was dismissed and even attacked, which gave the appearance of favoring large pharmaceutical corporations. Not infrequently leading figures of the health establishment have blithely contradicted themselves, or have casually revealed that they have been misleading Americans for months regarding the pandemic. The inevitable result has been to aggravate the already profound loss of institutional trust among average Americans.

The most glaring institutional failure may prove to be the involvement of the most eminent figures in the American health establishment – Drs. Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins, respectively the directors of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the National Institutes of Health – in funding dangerous forms of research that may have contributed to the virus itself. Troublingly, the NIH has been linked, albeit somewhat indirectly, to bat coronavirus “gain of function” research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which may be the original source of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Adding to the loss of trust for many Catholics and other pro-life religious groups is the use of fetal stem lines derived from aborted babies in the testing and even the production stage of available vaccines. Although it has been argued that cooperation in such moral atrocities is remote in this case, particularly in the case of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, many are understandably concerned about any association with the horror and cruelty of abortion, especially when it is used to generate massive corporate profits. The disregard of the pharmaceutical companies and the U.S. government for this serious moral concern only adds to skepticism about the vaccines among large numbers of Americans.

Scientific establishment was once held in esteem

A very telling indication of the calamitous decline in trust in the scientific establishment in the United States is the dramatic contrast between the reaction to the COVID vaccine and the reaction to the polio vaccine in the 1950s. The two epidemics have much in common. Polio was also a viral disease that had little effect on the vast majority of carriers, but in a small percentage of people, particularly children, its effects were devastating, resulting in death or a lifetime of paralysis for about 1 in 1000 victims.

Polio was not as widespread as COVID-19 and the total number of injured and killed were a much smaller percentage of the population than today, but Americans were overjoyed at the news that a vaccine had become available in 1955. Although a very small number of dissenters (often led by chiropractors who at that time rejected the viral theory of disease) refused to take the vaccine, the vast majority sought it eagerly.

Mass acceptance of the polio vaccine continued in spite of a catastrophic error by one manufacturer that accidentally left live virus in the vaccine, which caused an estimated 40,000 cases of polio, paralyzed 200 people and killed ten. Americans shrugged off this tragedy and continued to receive the vaccine; by the end of the 1960s, polio had virtually disappeared from the United States.

The enthusiastic and unquestioning reception of the polio vaccine represented a “high point” for the prestige of natural science in America, according to David Oshinsky, author of Polio: An American Story. “If you had to pick a moment as the high point of respect for scientific discovery, it would have been then,” Oshinsky told National Public Radio in a recent interview. “People believed infectious disease was [being] conquered . . . People couldn’t get [the vaccine] fast enough.”

It shouldn’t be be surprising that Americans were so trusting of the country’s scientific and medical establishment. They saw mostly benefits and little that threatened their religious and moral values, or their personal liberties. Scientific and associated technological advancements were revolutionizing American life and helping millions out of the drudgery associated with poverty, creating new opportunities for leisure and personal development.

All of this occurred in a cultural atmosphere that was deeply receptive to religious values. From the 1930s through the early 1960s, most scientists told pollsters they believed in God, and religious values were so in vogue that “under God” was added to the pledge of allegiance, and a new national motto, “In God we trust,” was added to all of the national currency. The Bible was freely referenced and taught in public schools, where Darwinian evolution was yet to be imposed by judicial fiat. The sexual revolution was still in its embryonic stage – the culture of promiscuity and divorce was just beginning to make its entry on the national stage, and the madness of LGBT ideology remained mostly in the closet. The new “waves” of increasingly radical feminism were yet to come. Even Margaret Sanger said she was opposed to abortion.

In recent decades this profound relationship of trust between Americans and their institutions has been lost in the face of a relentless political assault on religious truth and family values, much of it under the banner of “science,” which is a term that has increasingly come to mean not the scientific method, but the technocratic elite that often falsely claims to represent it. The plummeting loss in institutional trust, which appears in repeated opinion polls spanning decades, has been noted often but rarely understood by the elite punditry, which offers little more than worried expressions of incomprehension. The inevitable result has been the politicization of matters that were once merely technical issues of public health.

Calls for repression make the situation worse

In his call for a campaign against “anti-science aggression,” Dr. Hotez frankly recognizes this result, although like most commentators he seems to be blissfully unaware of the cause. He notes that most opposition to vaccination reflects political alignment, and is coming from “conservatives living in deep red states,” adding that “many living in the South and elsewhere now tie their political allegiance to vaccine defiance.” He naively advocates an outreach effort to “conservative communities and news networks (or their leaders)” to “ask for their help and advice,” as if the problem is just a matter of better educational efforts by the same technocratic establishment that has lost the trust of the public.

If the carrot doesn’t work, the nation’s elites have various kinds of sticks. Hotez frankly wants the government to use force. President Biden has already threatened employers with a brutal vaccine mandate that mercifully has yet to materialize. YouTube, Facebook, and other tech companies continue to censor dissenters on their platforms. Now, a new institute has come into being whose purpose seems to be to conflate vaccine resistance with “hate.” Although the Center for Countering Digital Hate, with offices in London and New York, has yet to disclose its sources of funding, it is being cited frequently by the mainstream media for its list of “haters” who reject vaccines. The strategy appears similar to that of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has sought to associate pro-family organizations with racism.

Such approaches will only tend to confirm to millions of alienated Americans that political, not scientific and beneficent motives, underlie pro-vaccination campaigns, and will provoke more, not less resistance to vaccination efforts.

I certainly don’t pooh-pooh the dangers posed by COVID-19. My wife and I, as well as most of my wife’s immediate family, contracted the illness in early January of this year, and it was one of the worst experiences of our lives. In addition to the debilitating weakness, nausea, irritability and pain in various organs, both of us began to experience difficulty breathing; we were blessed to find a doctor who gave us anti-inflammatory injections that may have saved our lives. My wife’s stepfather was barely saved with oxygen treatments, and one of her uncles and various family friends died of it. We experienced weakness for several months following our recovery. COVID is a very dangerous and often deadly disease, and no one should treat it as a “hoax” or as a trivial variant of the flu.

However, like many Americans, I am troubled by the association of the vaccine with the horrific crime of abortion, even if it is somewhat remote. I am troubled by the insistence on applying it to ever-younger age groups, even those whose vulnerability is statistically very low, despite its newness and despite harmful reactions that have been observed in some individuals. Furthermore, I see no reason for me to receive such a new and relatively untested treatment, which is only just receiving regular FDA approval, when I have already contracted and overcome the disease. Like many COVID survivors, I am quite aware of studies that have suggested that previous illness conveys a long-term immunity or at least resistance to COVID-19 infection. I am not opposed to the vaccine, but I am also not interested in receiving it.

One elderly relative of mine has not been infected, and my numerous conversations with her have made it clear to me that she is quite aware of the deadly risks posed by COVID-19, but she is among the millions of Americans who has decided to live with them rather than receive the vaccine. Her reasoning is simple: she doesn’t want to cooperate in any way with medications that have been developed or tested with aborted stem cells. She knows she could ultimately die as a result of her decision, and she’s at peace about it.

I’m worried about my relative’s health, but I’m also worried about a society that has become so morally confused and politically polarized that it can no longer act with coherence and mutual trust in the face of such a serious common threat. If health experts and the elites who support them wish to restore their own prestige and the prestige of “science,” the underlying causes of this problem must be addressed with honesty. Until natural science is again given the respect due to it and is properly distinguished from subversive ideological agendas that compromise its credibility, the crisis of confidence will only worsen. That’s very bad for public health – physically, culturally, and spiritually.


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About Matthew Cullinan Hoffman 31 Articles
Matthew Cullinan Hoffman is a Catholic essayist and journalist, and the author and translator of The Book of Gomorrah and St. Peter Damian's Struggle Against Ecclesiastical Corruption (2015). His award-winning articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, London Sunday Times, Catholic World Report, LifeSite News, Crisis, the National Catholic Register, and many other publications. He holds an M.A. in Philosophy from Holy Apostles College and Seminary, with a focus on Thomism.

38 Comments

  1. It is very sad that Operation Warp Speed, the Trump Administration group that has been celebrated for bring quickly the vaccines, did not prioritize, or at least include, the requirement of one or more to be ethical (in the sense of no connection to abortion). It is also sad that Catholics who object to the use of abortion related cells in the testing of the vaccines have not been actively advocating for the development of such ethical vaccines, and that the Vatican has also not been advocating in this way. I have written my senators several times, and I am not sure that they actually understand what I have been saying. Both Republicans, and otherwise good men.

  2. The simple fact is that SC2 vax has killed a few people and injuried many more. Natural immunity is a real thing. So is the obesity epidemic in this country, which the public heatlh officials and medical community are too terrified to address–obesity (and espeically sedentariness) greatly contributes to SC2 deaths.
    .
    I sympathizew with the author who had quite a rough time of SC2; I know many people who also had SC2, who said it was “a cold” they got over with no medical intervention, and then they got on with their lives, no problem.
    .
    The vaccine is there: it may prevent or protect against really bad SC2 infection, it does not destroy the virus. It does not prevent transmissio; it will not get us to “Covid Zero” (like we have “Smallpox Zero”).
    .
    Take it if you want. Or don’t. This should not be controversial.

    • The gene therapy drug has killed over 100,000 people and disabled at least 5X more. There are scientists around the world who have been sounding the alarm about this “vaccine”. Some have said that the “vaccine” has killed and disabled more people than the virus. It is very telling that after so many deaths, this drug has not been removed from the market as has always been done before.

      • Spot on Betty! The facts support your claims. Taiwanese media has just admitted that the number of people dying after receiving the Covid “vaccine” outnumber the ones dying from the virus. The vast majority of Covid patients hospitalized in Israel are fully-vaccinated! Yet, the mainstream media continues to push the “get vaccinated” agenda. And now they want to inoculate our children with this experimental “gene therapy”. It’s horrendous and unconscionable. Many world renown Epidemiologists have spoken out against the “vaccines” yet they are censored and bullied by big Pharma for their positions. One such person, Dr. Peter McCullough, recently gave an excellent lecture to the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, October 2nd, 2021 which was very well received and sums up opposition to the Covid vaccines with “real” scientific facts, studies and analysis. I recommend all who want to better understand the basis for such opposition to watch Dr. McCullough’s lecture. In God we trust.

        • William, you well addressed main objections, (and there are more valid reasons as well). Dr. McCullough is only one of dozens of highly credentialed scientists/doctors who have produced controlled studies, peer reviewed in medical journals attesting to the serious adverse, worldwide events and deaths caused by this vax. Yes, it is a virulent virus, and unfortunately, some have died, but epidemics/pandemics always cause death in some. The facts are it is an experimental vaccine produced with an entirely new delivery system that can cause auto-immune and inflammatory reactions which can be lethal. There are multiple documented cases of Guillain Barre Syndrome, Bells Palsy, myocarditis, pericarditis, ocular illnesses, even blindness and other neuropathic illnesses. Why would one not be reluctant to take the vax jab unless one thought death from the disease was inevitable?

          The experimental vax was not only initially produced using aborted fetal tissue (cells), but pharmaceutical companies continue to use “live aborted fetal tissue for continued testing and composition. Live tissue is needed for desired production information. Follow the money: There are huge sums of money in sales and purchases of every aspect of COVID 19 production. The vax itself, syringes, needles, tests, masks and distribution and these statistic are available.

          I hope those who are elderly, old, health-compromised have benefited greatly from some degree of protection from the WARP speed vax. Statistics indicate the protection has been considerable. I would hope there is still sufficient scientific honesty to avoid vaxing the young who are statistically verified to have minimum chance of contracting the virus or if some do, the illness appears to be mild. The continued question of possible adverse effects of this spike protein vax that invades the cell wall of the vascular system in months or even years ahead is speculative, but certainly concerning. Only future history will supply the answers.

  3. Covid-19 may pose some risks, but the vaccines are not much help. They do provide some protection, just not very much, and not nearly as much as originally claimed. Moreover, what little protection they do provide wears off within a matter of months.

      • Are you really going to dispute that the vaccine effectiveness wears off over time? The vaccine companies admit as much. Why the un-scientific rush to boosters if they aren’t needed?

      • If you look at the graphs from every country, you will see the COVID deaths relatively static, but when mass vaccination took hold, the death numbers skyrocketed in direct relation to the number of vaccinated people. Herd immunity can only be achieved through natural immunity.

      • Are you joking? why do think booster are now being pushed a few months after the intial injection?
        There is too much evidence to list regarding the ineffectiveness of these injections. The entire Nation of Israel demonstrates the complete failure and danger of these injections

      • You provide nothing to refute the growing body of objective evidence – that is widely available and easily obtained by even a neophyte like yourself – other than subjective emotion, David.

        • My thoughts exactly. Like so many authors in this otherwise fine website, Hoffman fails to undertake a proper intellection that would create a coherent argument or even a thesis for that matter.

          When the fully flourished government of the Third Reich undertook the destruction of human beings, you could trust them; they meant what they said. You could believe them.

          To think it’s a matter of trust with regard to the vaccine is wrong headed. The industry that murders infants in the womb is quite sincere in what they do. It’s a matter of looking at evidence.

  4. I, like your elderly relative, have decided not to use a morally compromised vaccine. The pope and the bishops should have insisted on a morally acceptable vaccine from the beginning. I am fully aware that I cannot change what has happened in the past in terms of immoral medical research, but in my conscience, I believe that accepting the ones that are currently in use would implicitly approve such research going forward.

    P.S. We did not begin using the motto “In God We Trust” in the 1950s. I have a 2-cent piece dated 1864 that carries those words on the reverse side.

    • yes, and as long as people ignore the abortion connection, pharmaceutical companies will continue to use that method of developing drugs.

    • P.S. We did not begin using the motto “In God We Trust” in the 1950s.
      It was used unofficially prior to the 50s. As only one example, the motto wasn’t included on the five cent coin from 1883 to 1938 when all newly minted coins were required to have it. “IN GOD WE TRUST” became the official national motto of the United States when Dwight Eisenhower signed P.L. 84-140 into law on July 30, 1956. The motto was first officially printed and released on currency on October 1, 1957.

  5. This current administration of corruption and rot.Cares not a whit about America or the sane citizens that inhabit it. The end justifies the means,and has for 10 of the last 14 years.We can and do see this everyday.The infestation of Marxism/Communism has eaten into the brains of far too many of our citizens.

  6. I’ve been singing this song for years. I am supposed to trust an organization/industry that not only supports but encourages the murder of innocents as well as ignores the mental health issues of those insisting their bodies be maimed because they claim to be the opposite sex. I am supposed to trust these people? Is there no critical thinking left in this country?
    I trust my doctor, who is a practicing Christian, who will not take the vaccine, nor will her family. I trust her. I do not trust many others in her field. “Science” is not a god. God has certainly given man many miraculous ways to heal the human body and mind but the people to whom He has given this great knowledge are still fallen. As with everything else, the knowledge is perverted and dis-ordered. We must look at the bigger picture, be not afraid (certainly not of a virus that has better than a 99.95% recovery rate), and think critically.

  7. Right now it is get the shot or lose your job (local people at our largest employer here, will be terminated starting tomorrow) Losing a job means no mortgage/ rent payments, no $$ for health care, for food, heat, clothing etc.–in other words be homeless, starve to death. So what our ” experts ” are saying right now is ‘take this shot for your health because we want you to live…unless you are unvaccinated then we want you to die.” So, I am suppose to trust such people?

  8. Having tracked studies in hospitals in Vietnam and Israel among fully vaccinated staff, as well as tracked state and local figures weekly for the entire pandemic, it is clear this mRNA therapy (no “vaccine” by any classic understanding) allows assymptomatic spread among fully vaccinated, and to unvaccinated.

    The treatment definitely seems to moderate symptoms for the majority, but at unknown future health risks given the rushed development, abbreviated testing and studies, and hyper rushed approval.

    Add to that the ties to abortion for the religious, PLUS the large numbers of us already injured by prior “safe and effective” meds pushed through by big pharma, everything from runaway deadly high blood pressure and internal bleeding from anti-inflammatories, to severe allergic reactions and blood clotting to new wonder treatments for arthritis, and it is no wonder that many are quite adamant in refusing this latest/greatest/only offering.

    They likely would see most almost run to be vaccinated with a true dead virus vaccine, but refuse to even consider that. I also have written elected (conservative) politicians and get only form letters in reply, because nobody obviously reads the letters, noting only the subject matter before firing off a mindless blah-blah-blah reply, leaving only me and my conscience to make a truly informed decision, as it obvious nobody is home at the national decision making level.

    • Meant to add, since this “vaccine” clearly allows infection and transmission, it clearly will do nothing to stop a pandemic, it only moderating symptoms while providing a dandy population base in which to continually mutate. So, past moderating symptoms at unknown (and ignored by powers that be) current and future risk, the talking heads argument that this treatment will solve ANYthing is only a farce, and meanwhile costing livelihoods and careers of those who refuse to play along with the charade.

      If it was truly a miracle cure at absolutely near-zero minimal risk, and everything it was cracked up to be, the current tactics might be somewhat excusable….

      However, it is not, and has injured or killed quite a few people and with zero chance of helping end the pandemic even with 100% population treated.

  9. I didn’t think I’d manage to read an article that blames the sexual revolution of the 60s, gays, and women leaving the kitchen for peoples’ refusal to take vaccines, but once again I am filled with wonder.

    if nothing else, congratulations on your and family’s relative recovery.

      • ‘Joe K’ is a classic case of someone who perceives himself as much more enlightened and intelligent than he actually is. If you told Joe K that ‘the beginning of Wisdon is fear of God’ he would scoff. Joe k knows better than to buy into such narrow minded, antiquated, and white male privilege thinking. In fact, his wife helps direct his views regarding society, spirituality, and religion for him.
        So Joe misses your very salient point; that since the 1960s when Big Medicine, Big Education, Big Government all took on the dark spirit of Godlessness and pridefulness and dared to separate the human sexuality from procreation via birth control, abortion, and over all social permissiveness all coming togeher in a mockery and rejection of the Christian-Judeo principles on which western culture is built ; its been down hill ever since.
        Now 60 years later Big Goverment, Big Education, and Big Medicine instruct and demand from us to repeat the absurdity and evil lie that a boy is a girl and a girl is a boy and two men can marry and have children and be a ‘family’. The CDC Director has refused to use to word MOTHER and instead uses ‘birthing peron’. But we are suppose to follow critical medical guidance from such a morally depraved Big Goverment organization?
        I will stick to my fear of God and dismiss the Joe K snarky comment as likely coming from a middle-aged ‘soy boy’ who does not wear the pants at his house.

  10. This vaccine is only controversial because it was developed under Trump. The left hates everything he did, even though most of what he did was the correct decision for America. While the vaccines were under development, MANY leftists politicians, including Harris and Cuomo, as well as some Hollywood types, led the charge in saying they would NEVER accept a vaccine he developed. It was a disgusting personal attack which had nothing to do with a health care issue.It was political partisanship all the way. The media was especially politically complicit in this and continues to be, by loudly broadcasting every person’s unfortunate reaction to the vaccine in a way that magnifies the danger unrealistically. Now it has come back to bite them in the form of a large percentage of folks who are refusing the vaccine. In addition the Fauci factor, of swinging advice from left to right and back again , has been especially unhelpful for the public mindset. The lefts insistence that ALL take the vaccine with no exception or lose their jobs, has hardened what should be medical decisions into political positions. In some cases this extreme position has led to hospitals being well understaffed, having fired the very people who risked life and limb to help others during the height of the pandemic. I am 67, had covid back in early 2020. Spent 2 weeks in bed feeling nauseous and weak. Never got to the point of needing hospitalization.I subsequently took the vaccine on doctors advice, even though to me it seemed unnecessary. I took prudent precautions when in public. Don not wear a mask now except when it is required for entry. Vaccine or not should be a personal opinion, not one extorted from people on government say-so.

  11. I see two roots for the growth of anti-science skepticism. One root among scientists, the other among journalists.
    Some scientists brought up with a childish (mis)understanding of religion became militant atheists. And they peddled an anti-religion. That naturally provoked a backlash among the religious. A particularly distressing example for me as a scientist, is Richard Dawkins. He had a chair of ‘Public Understanding of Science’, and he used it to preach that science is opposed to religion. An utterly absurd proposition, since they do not address the same fields of thought, and having nothing to say to each other.
    The other root, in journalism, is the need to give a clear story, which a scientific breakthrough will rarely give in the short term (nothing is as short term as filling a news slot). The demand for clarity and newsworthyness, together with a widespread lack of interest in veracity, obviously erodes trust.
    I don’t know whether Dr Faucci originally said “masks are not useful”, maybe he said “we think the main transmission route is by touching surfaces, so we don’t recommend masks”. Journalists would inevitably prefer the short version

    • However, we do know for certain what flip-flopping Fauci wrote to Sylvia Burwell, former Soetoro(aka Obama) Secretary of HHS.

      Fauci email to Sylvia Burwell, 5 February 2020.

      “Sylvia: Masks are really for infected people to prevent them from spreading infection to people who are not infected rather than protecting uninfected people from acquiring infection. The typical mask you buy in the drug store is not really effective in keeping out virus, which is small enough to pass through the material. It might, however, provide some slight benefit in keep out gross droplets if someone coughs or sneezes on you. I do not recommend that you wear a mask, particularly since you are going to a very low risk location. Your instincts are correct, money is best spent on medical countermeasures such as diagnostics and vaccines. Safe travels,” Dr. Fauci wrote. (emphasis added)

    • Qanon is ridiculous and of course I have nothing to do with that or anything like it, and nothing in my article suggests otherwise.

  12. this article is not really about covid hesitancy it is about the loss of trust in the medical institution which is overdue and richly deserved. We have the director of the NIH, francis collins a world renowned scientist, resigning over his lies; the resignation of two other long term employees from agency over their refusal to grant FDA approval to certain covid practices, the exposure of the CDC by robert thompson a few years ago falsifying data linking vaccines with autism spectrum disorders which he was a direct ongoing participant in; the criminal harassment of GOd only knows how many physicians and researchers by these agencies for their contradicting the narrative preferred by these agencies (and yes I can provide a list if requested). Additionally the multiple catastrophic failures of the medical community in the treatment or mitigation of disease which in a rational culture would result in their disbandment is a scandal. How many hundreds of billions of dollars have been dedicated to medical research over the past 100 yrs and we have a CDC you know the CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL, unable to deal with a viral outbreak and lies about it suppressing effective cures used worldwide; the devastating debacle of the catastrophic increase in cancers rates since the declaration of the “war” on it by Nixon from 1 in 35-50 to 1 in 2 for males and 1 in 3 for females over a lifetime today and the appearances in widespread incidence of so called autoimmune spectrum disorders which used to be textbook curiosities if known at all as recently as 4 decades ago Only question is why anyone would trust anything any doctor has to say. Also let’s not forget as the incidences of covid vaccine injuries increase how few medical professionals have even heard of the VAERS system for reports. I also heartily resent the comment made by this contributor, which is defamatory, that those who are not willing to vaccinate are “anti science”. No I am not anti science and I really do not need to be told by any one of them how to decide on any science issue I can make those determinations myself. When the inventor of the mRNA technology says these shots are too dangerous I think it is time to listen

  13. I am afraid that it is misleading to use “Anti-science” and “vaccine skepticism” in the same sentence. The vaccine skepticism is BECAUSE of the science. Maybe check out a source for information other than CNN! Try America’s Frontline Doctors website and listen to some of them speak. They are all credentialed researchers, educators and physicians, and they ALL base their conclusions on peer-reviewed science and real-world, quantifiable evidence. It is at this point just silly to claim that there is no science behind vaccine skepticism; science is in fact the root of it. That being said, it is true that skepticism comes from being lied to, starting with the “scientific” fiction that the unborn human baby is just a “clump of cells” and proceeding on down the line from there.

  14. The vax is poison. It destroys the immune system, sterilizes, and kills. Antibody dependent enhancement. The vaccinated are the ones getting sick, transmitting the weaponized virus, and dying. All this was planned.

    The medically useless and harmful masks are nothing but a sacramental of submission to the new satanic religion.

    Dr. Reiner Fuellmich and Dr. Peter McCullough:

    this:

    https://brandnewtube.com/watch/dr-reiner-fuellmich-summary-of-findings-update-september-15-2021_ZbghqKqd84XHNGu.html?lang=turkish

    https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/were-in-the-middle-of-a-major-biological-catastrophe-top-covid-doc-mccullough/

  15. The leading cause of skepticism with regard to the vaccines are the vaccines themselves. The evidence shows clearly that the vaccines are both ineffective and unsafe. If these vaccines were as good as they were cracked up to be, then why do they have to compel people to take them? And why are the pharmaceutical companies that developed them immune from lawsuits?

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