78 “July 2021 Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior Report,” Meta, August 10, 2021, https://about.fb.com/news/2021/08/july-2021-coordinated-inauthentic-behavior-report.
79 Adam Satariano and Davey Alba, “Burning Cell Towers, out of Baseless Fear They Spread the Virus,” New York Times, April 10, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/technology/coronavirus-5g-uk.html.
80 Kelvin Chan, Beatrice Dupuy, and Arijeta Lajka, “Conspiracy Theorists Burn 5G Towers Claiming Link to Virus,” AP News, April 21, 2020, https://apnews.com/article/health-ap-top-news-wireless-technology-international-news-virus-outbreak-4ac3679b6f39e8bd2561c1c8eeafd855.
81 Jeff Horwitz, Broken Code: Inside Facebook and the Fight to Expose Its Harmful Secrets (New York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2023), 177.
82 Camille Caldera, “Fact Check: Nurse Who Fainted After COVID-19 Vaccination Is Alive and Well,” USA Today, December 23, 2020, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/12/23/fact-check-nurse-who-fainted-after-being-vaccinated-alive/4024424001.
83 Brandy Zadrozny, “Conspiracy Theorists Made Tiffany Dover into an Anti-vaccine Icon. She’s Finally Ready to Talk About It,” NBC News, April 10, 2023, https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/misinformation/tiffany-dover-conspiracy-theorists-silence-rcna69401.
84 The Virality Project, “Memes, Magnets and Microchips,” 50–52.
85 “Table 4. CICP Claims Compensated (Fiscal Years 2010–2023),” US Health Resources and Services Administration, Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program, https://www.hrsa.gov/cicp/cicp-data/table-4.
86 “The Joe Rogan & Dr. Peter Mccullough Interview,” ZDOGGMD, December 17, 2021, https://zdoggmd.com/peter-mccullough.
87 “Joe Rogan Interview with Peter McCullough Contains Multiple False and Unsubstantiated Claims About the COVID-19 Pandemic and Vaccines,” Health Feedback, https://healthfeedback.org/claimreview/joe-rogan-interview-with-peter-mccullough-contains-multiple-false-and-unsubstantiated-claims-about-the-covid-19-pandemic-and-vaccines.
88 Bruce Y. Lee, “Have More Athletes Died Suddenly Since Covid-19 Vaccines Arrived? Such Claims Lack Evidence,” Forbes, January 14, 2023, https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2023/01/14/no-evidence-of-more-athletes-having-died-suddenly-despite-covid-19-vaccine-claims/?sh=22d1dc2875c2.
89 Ali Swenson and Angelo Fichera, “‘Died Suddenly’ Posts Twist Tragedies to Push Vaccine Lies,” AP News, February 4, 2023, https://apnews.com/article/vaccine-died-suddenly-misinformation-a8e3a80a015ba9bf78b6bd4f3c271f58.
90 Angelo Fichera, “Claims Baselessly Link COVID Vaccines to Athlete Deaths,” AP News, January 9, 2023, https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-covid-vaccines-athlete-deaths-1500-989195 878254.
91 Ibid.
92 “Crazy, Disturbing Damar Hamlin Conspiracy Theory Emerges,” NBC Sports, January 25, 2023, https://www.nbcsports.com/nfl/profootballtalk/rumor-mill/news/crazy-disturbing-damar-hamlin-conspiracy-theory-emerges.
93 McCullough was suspended from Twitter in July 2021 on his account @cov19treatments. While he was able to start another account (@p_mcculloughmd) in November of that year, he was upset that Twitter would not give it Verified status. He, along with several other physicians suspended for COVID-19 misinformation, sued Twitter in June 2022, claiming that Twitter violated its Covid-19 misinformation guidelines by suspending the doctors’ accounts because “none of these physicians posted false or misleading information, nor did they receive five strikes before suspension.” The lawsuit was tossed out on Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP) grounds, with the court reaffirming Twitter’s right to carry the content it saw fit. See Robert W. Malone, MD et al. v. Twitter Inc. et al., CGC-22-600397 (Cal. Super. Ct. Jun. 27, 2022), https://docs.reclaimthenet.org/Malone-et-al-vs-Twitter-rtn-87.pdf.
94 “Re: Notice of Recommended Disciplinary Sanction,” addressed to Dr. McCullough, from the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM), signed by Furman S. McDonald, chair of Credentials and Certification Committee, ABIM ID: 136084, October 18, 2022, accessed on DocumentCloud database, https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23242430-abim-decision-on-mccullough.
95 Horwitz, Broken Code, 178–179.
96 Klein, Doppelganger, 110.
97 Derek Thompson, “The Pandemic’s Wrongest Man,” The Atlantic, April 1, 2021, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/pandemics-wrongest-man/618475.
98 “Leaderboard: Top Politics publications,” Substack, https://substack.com/leaderboard/politics.
99 Naomi Nix, Cat Zakrzewski, and Joseph Menn, “Misinformation Research Is Buckling Under GOP Legal Attacks,” Washington Post, September 23, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/09/23/online-misinformation-jim-jordan.
100 Charles Silver and David A. Hyman, “COVID-19: A Case Study of Government Failure,” Pandemics and Policy Series, Cato Institute, September 15, 2020, https://www.cato.org/pandemics-policy/covid-19-case-study-government-failure.
101 Eric Reinhart, “Why U.S. Pandemic Management Has Failed: Lack of Attention to America’s Epidemic Engines,” STAT, October 5, 2021, https://www.statnews.com/2021/10/05/jails-prisons-schools-nursing-homes-america-epidemic-engines; Eric Lipton et al., “The C.D.C. Waited ‘Its Entire Existence for This Moment.’ What Went Wrong?,” New York Times, June 3, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/us/cdc-coronavirus.html; Derek Thompson, “Why America’s Institutions Are Failing,” The Atlantic, June 16, 2020, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/why-americas-institutions-are-failing/613078; Erika Edwards, “How the CDC’s Communication Failures During Covid Tarnished the Agency,” NBC News, October 1, 2022, https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/cdcs-communication-failures-covid-tarnished-agency-rcna46425; “First Lessons from Government Evaluations of COVID-19 Responses: A Synthesis,” OECD, January 21, 2022, https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/policy-responses/first-lessons-from-government-evaluations-of-covid-19-responses-a-synthesis-483507d6; Eleanor Schiff and Daniel J. Mallinson, “Trumping the Centers for Disease Controclass="underline" A Case Comparison of the CDC’s Response to COVID-19, H1N1, and Ebola,” Administration & Society 55, no. 1 (2023): 158–183, https://doi.org/10.1177/00953997221112308; Sudip Parikh, “Why We Must Rebuild Trust in Science,” Pew, February 9, 2021, https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/trend/archive/winter-2021/why-we-must-rebuild-trust-in-science.
102 Catalina Jaramillo, “It’s Not News, nor ‘Scandalous,’ That Pfizer Trial Didn’t Test Transmission,” FactCheck.org, October 18, 2022, https://www.factcheck.org/2022/10/scicheck-its-not-news-nor-scandalous-that-pfizer-trial-didnt-test-transmission.
103 Reuters Fact Check, “Preventing Transmission Never Required for COVID Vaccines’ Initial Approval; Pfizer Vax Did Reduce Transmission of Early Variants,” Reuters, October 14, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-pfizer-vaccine-transmission/fact-check-preventing-transmission-never-required-for-covid-vaccines-initial-approval-pfizer-vax-did-reduce-transmission-of-early-variants-idUSL1N31F20E.
104 Susanna Naggie et al., “Effect of Ivermectin vs Placebo on Time to Sustained Recovery in Outpatients with Mild to Moderate COVID-19: A Randomized Clinical Trial,” JAMA 328, no. 16 (2022): 1595–1603, https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2797483; Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo and Preeti N. Malani, “At a Higher Dose and Longer Duration, Ivermectin Still Not Effective Against COVID-19,” JAMA 329, no. 11 (2023): 897–898, https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2801828; Maria Popp et al., “Ivermectin for Preventing and Treating COVID‐19,” Cochrane Library, July 28, 2021, https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD015017.pub2/full.
105 “Claim by Steve Kirsch That the Amish Don’t Experience Autism, Cancer, or High COVID-19 Mortality Because They Don’t Vaccinate Is Baseless,” Health Feedback, https://healthfeedback.org/claimreview/claim-steve-kirsch-amish-dont-experience-autism-cancer-high-covid-19-mortality-because-they-dont-vaccinate-baseless.