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CDC Advisor Uses AI to Revive Hoax that Lyme Disease is a U.S. Government-Engineered Bioweapon

What’s happening: Robert Malone, an anti-vaccine activist appointed by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as a member of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, is resurrecting the long-debunked claim that Lyme disease is a U.S. government-engineered bioweapon, using what he called an “AI-driven investigation.”

A closer look: In a March 4 article on Substack, where Malone has 353,000 Substack subscribers, Malone wrote:

• “An extensive investigation based on declassified government documents and previously suppressed scientific research has uncovered compelling evidence that U.S. biological weapons programs contributed to the emergence of Lyme disease, which now affects hundreds of thousands of Americans annually.”

Malone’s article relied on unspecified AI tools to resurface debunked arguments to support the discredited bioweapon theory. For example, Malone’s article referenced the Plum Island Animal Disease Center in Plum Island, New York. That facility has long been theorized as the source of the alleged Lyme disease bioweapon because of its proximity to Lyme, Connecticut, where the disease was first identified, and the...

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