How many times do we need to do this?
Let's start with the U.S. surgeon general Dr. Videk Murthy. He has a BA from Harvard and an MD from Yale, by the way. Oh and he's also a vice-admiral in the U.S. Navy.
The other day on CNN in a response to Dana Bash, he said:
People all across our country, and I hear from folks all the time, who are struggling to make decisions about their health. After this very difficult year we’ve been through, people deserve to have access to accurate information.”
Murthy continued: “They deserve to hear that from their leaders, from the media. They deserve to see that on platforms online. They need that information to be able to make decisions to protect themselves and their families. That’s the least we can do for them. And my worry is that all of this is misinformation that’s floating around, it’s having a real cost that can be measured in lives lost and that is just tragic.”
Misinformation is having a real cost. Lives lost and that's just tragic.
With that as the frame, let's look at some more of Wendy Bell's tragic dangerous misinformation.
It can be found here at her Facebook page. This part, specifically:
Whenever she's challenged on her "facts" Wendy usually defends herself by stoutly asserting that she's delivering the truth, that she's done her research and is delivering solid information.
She's wrong. Every time.
And this time is no different. And here's why: If you were to google "Public Health England" and "92,029" you'd find a recent story about how the numbers out of the UK are "proving" how someone twice vaccinated is 7 times more likely (Wendy says 8) to die than a non-vaccinated person.
She posted this BS on her BS board yesterday - July 19.
It was debunked three days earlier on July 16 by the AP:
The U.K.’s public health agency’s June 25 report on coronavirus variants did not provide evidence that people who are vaccinated are more likely to die. Rather, the report shows that COVID-19 vaccines are effective at preventing people from being hospitalized from the delta variant and no one under the age of 50 who was fully vaccinated died from that variant.
And:
From Feb. 1 to June 21, the public health agency documented 92,029 cases of patients infected with the delta variant. Of those patients, 53,822, or about 58%, were unvaccinated and 7,235, or less than 8%, had received both doses of a vaccine.
And:
The Twitter post uses those numbers to falsely claim the data shows people who were vaccinated had a 0.69% chance of dying and people who were unvaccinated had just a 0.08% chance of dying, and the difference between those is 745%. But experts say that form of analysis is invalid because the data does not take into account age of patients and other underlying illnesses.
Do the numbers look familiar?
Again this was posted three days before Wendy misinformed her adoring public.
Reuters fact-checked this on July 14:
Public Health England fatality statistics do not suggest that fully vaccinated individuals are 745% more likely to die from COVID-19 than those who are unvaccinated. The figures were taken out of context from a PHE briefing.
Wendy got this one wrong, too. She promotes herself as someone who does solid research. The fact that this story had been debunked for days is evidence for how that's such complete bullshit.
People (including Wendy's fawning fan base) deserve to have access to accurate information. What Wendy posted on her BS board was not accurate. This misinformation is having a real cost: losing lives.
And that's just tragic.
How many people aren't/haven't gotten vaccinated because they believe Wendy Bell's misinformation? How many of them will get very very sick? How many of them will die?
Wendy Bell, the Angel of Death
