4 Days Ago
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#702
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Senior Member
Join Date: May 2018
Posts: 37,993
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Quote:
Tucker Carlson Uses Damar Hamlin’s Collapse to Spread Vaccine Disinformation
Lauren Leffer
January 4, 2023
NFL player Damar Hamlin, a safety for the Buffalo Bills, collapsed mid-game on Monday night—during the first quarter of a match against the Cincinnati Bengals. Hamlin remains hospitalized in critical condition, following apparent cardiac arrest, according to a statement posted across the Buffalo Bills’ official team social media accounts.
Yet within hours of the football player falling unconscious and crumpling on the field, anti-vax conspiracy theorists seized the opportunity to spread disinformation on the internet. Numerous tweets insinuating (or outright blaming) the covid-19 vaccine for Hamlin’s collapse popped up in the incident’s aftermath, as first reported by the Washington Post.
“Everybody knows what happened to Damar Hamlin because it’s happened to too many athletes around the world since COVID vaccination was required in sports,” former Newsmax and OANN corespondent, Emerald Robinson, tweeted. She has nearly 500,000 followers on the platform, and her post has been viewed more than 2.3 million times.
Charlie Kirk, noted disinformation disseminator and Turning Point USA founder, stoked the fire of the same conspiracy theory, tweeting “This is a tragic and all too familiar sight right now: Athletes dropping suddenly.” Kirk has nearly 2 million followers and his post has been seen more than 11.7 million times.
Business mogul and prominent anti-vaxxer, Grant Cardone, also quickly joined in on the unscientific theorizing. He tweeted, “Do you think the medical society should investigate THE VACCINE as responsible for sudden deaths like tonight’s Damar Hamlin collapse? #SuddenDeath,” in a post that’s been viewed more than 3.4 million times. Note: Damar Hamlin is not dead, and his condition is reportedly improving.
Then, the conspiracy got even more exposure on Tuesday night when Tucker Carlson took to cable television to call medical experts and other media outlets “witch doctors,” and promote vaccine skepticism. His argument: “We can’t say it was the shot. We can’t say it wasn’t the shot. We don’t whether he got the shot.”
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https://news.yahoo.com/tucker-carlso...224500946.html
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