Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson said during a video interview that it “may be true” that COVID-19 vaccines cause AIDS.
Johnson’s comments came after Attorney Todd Callender, a vaccine opponent, told the Oshkosh Republican that COVID-19 “shots caused vaccine-induced AIDS. They purposefully gave people AIDS.”
“Let me challenge you there. That’s way down the road,” Johnson replied. “I mean, you gotta do one step at a time. Everything you say may be true, OK, but right now the public views the vaccines as largely safe and effective, that vaccine injuries are rare and mild. That’s the narrative, that’s what the vast majority of the public accepts. So until we get a larger percentage of the population with their eyes open to ‘woah, these vaccine injuries are real, why?’ You know, it’s gotta be step by step. You can’t leap to crimes against humanity. You can’t leap to another Nuremberg trial.”
The AIDS claim is false, according to independent fact-checkers. The COVID-19 vaccines do not compromise the body’s immune system, but rather stimulate it to recognize and more easily defend against the disease, which has killed nearly 1 million Americans.
Johnson has long entertained conspiratorial and disproven theories regarding COVID-19 or promoted less effective treatments, such as gargling mouthwash. He has also convened a group of doctors and scientists who have been criticized for spreading COVID-19 misinformation to “get a second opinion” on the health issues facing Americans...
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