(Claire Savage, Agence France-Presse) — Plandemic — a slickly-edited, 26-minute interview with a discredited researcher — has been widely shared on social media. But the video, which YouTube and Facebook are working to remove for violating content standards, contains multiple false or misleading claims, including about the novel coronavirus, experts say.
Wearing a mask can cause harm, vaccines have “killed millions,” the novel coronavirus is not “naturally occurring,” hospitals are “incentivized” to report COVID-19 diagnoses, hydroxychloroquine is the most effective treatment for the disease, flu vaccines increase the odds of contracting it — all are examples of false or misleading claims in the video.
The video features Dr. Judy Mikovits, who gained widespread attention in 2009 with a seemingly break-through study on chronic fatigue syndrome. But the paper was later retracted when the findings could not be replicated, and researchers theorized that the original findings were likely due to contamination.
Mikovits’ fall from grace continued when she was briefly jailed on charges of theft from the laboratory that performed the ill-fated study. (…)