Since the pandemic hit, a new generation of antivaxxers has risen to prominence. These “new school” antivaxxers don’t view themselves as antivaccine, at least not in the classic sense. Indeed, many of them view themselves as provaccine, just not pro-COVID-19 vaccines. However, as I’ve discussed many times before, to demonize COVID-19 vaccines, they have recycled and repurposed every antivaccine trope under the sun, as I’ve extensively documented over the last two years. In the two weeks since I wrote my last post, a couple of stories have occurred to emphasize to me that, increasingly, these “new school” antivaxxers are increasingly indistinguishable from old school antivaxxers. In one case, a meetup of new school antivaxxers with an old school antivaxxer produced a rather…interesting…conflict. More generally, however, I am becoming increasingly concerned how radical anti-COVID-19 vaccine sentiment of the new school variety is fusing with more traditional old school antivaccinationism in order to endanger childhood vaccination in a manner we have not seen before. I have written about these two incidence recently at my not-so-secret other blog, but as I thought about what to write over the weekkend, it occurred to me that it would be useful to look at these incidents and stories in the context of antivaccine misinformation. That means some of you might have read parts of this before, but such is life. Hopefully, by thinking about them this new way, I’ll be able to show you...
On May 10, a Muslim man called Arif Khan was assaulted inside a hotel in Madhya Pradesh’s Bhopal. Khan was with a Hindu woman at the hotel when men reportedly linked to the Bajrang Dal entered the ...