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Doctor on CNN warns ‘anti-science aggression’ is likely a top killer of young people

December 23, 2021 | | Print Article

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(Video: CNN)

A physician and scientist who regularly appears on CNN has made the bold claim that “anti-science aggression is now probably one of the leading killers of young adults in the United States” and that the Biden administration must take down this “political monster.”

As part of a vaccine-cheerleading “CNN Newsroom” panel discussion reacting to President Biden’s Tuesday speech on the COVID-19 Omicron variant, Dr. Peter Hotez of the Baylor College of Medicine seemed to call for the federal government to censor any individual or group that pushes anti-vax “disinformation.” This includes GOP lawmakers, conservative-leaning news platforms, and — of course — Russia.

In July 2021, Hotez similarly published a paper in the PLoS Biology journal about “mounting anti-science aggression” in the U.S., which he attributed to far-right members of Congress, conservative news outlets, and conservative public intellectuals.

Hotez told CNN anchor Ana Cabrera that Biden’s speech will only be an incremental factor in convincing more people to get the jab.

“It’s gotten to the point that because of federal inaction for the last 20 years, that since June 1, we’ve had 200,000 Americans who refused to get vaccinated and lost their lives. Anti-science aggression is now probably one of the leading killers of young adults in the United States. I’ll say that again: Anti-science aggression, disinformation, is now one of the leading killings of Americans,” he declared.

CNN appears to be exploiting the public’s anxiety over Omicron even as it appears, so far, that the symptoms are mild. Moreover, all of this unfolds as many high-profile, triple-jabbed individuals, including Members of Congress and professional athletes, are testing positive for the virus.

Hotez went on to lament that the Biden administration, and predecessor administrations, have not gone along with the censorship option. “But they’ve not had the appetite to go after those who are generating the disinformation. And the aggression. And we know who they are,” he said.

The doctor claimed that he is considered public enemy number one among anti-vaccine groups for two decades because “I have a daughter with autism and wrote a book a few years back called ‘Vaccines Did Not Cause Rachel’s Autism.'”

Hotez also cited the far-left Center for Countering Digital Hate as a source for identifying certain non-governmental groups that he deemed responsible for vaccine hesitancy.

“We have members of the United States Congress saying vaccines are nothing more than political instruments of control. ‘First, they’re going to vaccinate you, then they’re going to take away your guns and bibles,’ and as ridiculous as that sound to us, there’s a quarter of the country who believes it,” Hotez claimed, sounding like Barack Obama circa 2008.

“We have this amplified every night on the conservative news outlets, and they’ve cultivated a whole cadre of contrary contrarian pseudo-intellectuals that go on podcasts…Some of them are even professors at Harvard and Stamford,” he continued. “This is a well-oiled, well-funded, well-organized political monster that has to be dealt with…”

He then insisted that a Biden administration inter-agency task force, including Homeland Security and the Justice Department, should dismantle the anti-vaccine, anti-science “empire,” which includes the “Putin propaganda machine.”

“Until we do that, that 200,000 number since June 1, I promise you, will double to 400,000 Americans dead, within the next couple of months,” the doctor concluded in the video clip embedded above, from which you can review and draw your own conclusions.

Hotez appeared on the same broadcast segment during which ex-Trump administration surgeon general Jerome Adams insisted that the Biden team has rejected overtures from Trump officials to help address jab hesitancy.

Fox News contributor Tammy Bruce was one of many who took to social media to assert that the doctor was himself putting out misinformation.

“Yeah, that’s a lie. The leading cause of death among 18 to 45-year-olds is fentanyl. Brought into this country by the Chinese Communist Party through Mexico made infinitely easier because Biden erased our southern border,” she wrote on Twitter.

“I assume this bowtied d—bag is talking about the opioid crisis and suicide rates among the young people leftists like him have isolated,” added conservative influencer, Derek Hunter.

TownHall also disagreed:

Dr. Hotez’s claim is, as is obvious on its face, the concoction of a blind partisan who really likes being rebooked for more TV appearances where he can peddle exceedingly wild theories. In this case, as in many of Dr. Hotez’s other assertions, there just isn’t any “there” there. Now two years into the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic, we know that young people generally deal with COVID infections better than older Americans. And there are many other things out there killing young Americans in high numbers.

 

Depending on where one falls on the ideological spectrum — and many Republicans and others are pro-vaccine but anti-mandate — the doctor’s assertions seem to redefine free speech and a healthy skepticism about certain issues as offensive.

It might also be another example of projection (or what Tucker Carlson has described as an inversion of language or transference) by left-wing activists. That is, for example, misinformers complaining about misinformation or science followers ignoring science or other relevant data in favor of political science.

Or as Dr. Oz, the GOP Senate candidate in Pennsylvania, has said repeatedly, “when you mix medicine and politics, you get politics.”

CNN is also part of the corporate media apparatus that defined riots as mostly peaceful protests.

Many other Twitter users are weighing in about the CNN doctor’s premise. Here is just a sample:

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Robert Jonathan
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