Topic: WorldNetDaily
Joel Hirschhorn has been one of WorldNetDaily's biggest COVID misinformers over the past year, and even though we've repeatedly proven him wrong, WND continues to give a platform to spout more misinformation. He ranted in his Aug. 2 column:
One of many COVID pandemic falsehoods is that if people just get vaccinated, all will be well for the individual and the nation. This is pure deceit. Why is the government feverishly spewing out this message? One simple reason, namely to promote even more vaccination. In the fight against vaccine hesitancy and rejection, the government must keep reassuring the public that once you get vaccinated you are home free.
So why is the government now mandating masking even for the vaccinated and in some places more lockdowns? Aside from a huge amount of data on deaths (now more than 50,000) and injuries from the experimental vaccines themselves, there is big media suppression of data on how the vaccinated are suffering from reinfection, called breakthrough infections.
You may hear that getting reinfected after vaccination is better than not getting vaccinated and getting COVID for the first time. But this argument fails to fully acknowledge all the deaths and serious injuries from getting any experimental vaccine in the first place.
Hirschhorn is lying when he claims thgat COVID vaccines have claimed "more than 50,000" deaths. He knows he's lying, because he's deliberately misinterpreting federal data on vaccine side effect. Yet he continues to tell the lie, and WND lets him do it. He also linked to an anonymous website purporting to gather data on vaccine side effects but appears to be geared toward dishonestly scaring people out of getting a vaccine.
Hirschhorn then tried to blame breakthrough infections on the purported ineffectiveness of the vaccine by citing data from Israel:
Data from other countries also shed light on the problem.
Data from Israel found that "more than [new COVID] 3,000 cases – or approximately 40% – occurred in people who had received a COVID-19 vaccine." The same fraction has been reported for U.K. Any indication by the government that the situation is very different for the U.S. is nonsense.
Hirschhorn's source is an article on a far-right website written by one of the most notorious COVID misinformers, quack doc Joseph Mercola, so there's no reason to trust it. But as an honest medical expert explained, there may be more cases of severe COVID among vaccinated people in Israel because there are so many vaccinated people; a far higher percentage of unvaccinated people in Israel are catching COVID, compared to the percentage ofvaccinated people.
Hirschhorn spread m ore vaccine fearmongerin in his Aug. 19 column:
Admittedly, people face a difficult decision on whether or not to take an experimental COVID vaccine. So much information tells the ugly story of people who have suffered illness or death because they were not vaccinated. But there are increasing stories of breakthrough infections despite vaccination. Why? Because these vaccines are not working very well.
How can Americans make good, informed decisions about the vaccines? Especially those who have refused to capitulate to the coercion and propaganda? They need good information, especially about blood clots and bleeding that have injured and killed many people worldwide.
They will not get that from the mainstream big media. They will get it from this article.
No, they won't. Remembner that it has been found that you're more likely to get a blood clot from a COVID infection than a COVID vaccine.
Hirschhorn went on to cite a "medical research article" published not in a journal but, rather, at a website called Doctors for COVID Ethics -- a shady fringe group that is "demanding the immediate withdrawal of all experimental gene-based COVID-19 vaccines" -- that ranted about "spike protein" from the Pfizer vaccine, calling it "poisonous"; Hirschhorn added, "The strong language used by these doctors is worthy of respect." Actually, one of the authors, Sucharit Bhakdi, is a rabid anti-Semite who has claimed that Jews "learned the evil" from the Nazis, and that Israel is "a living hell." This is who Hirschhorn this is "worthy of respect."
But it wasn't until nearly the end of his lengthy, fear-filled article that Hirschhorn conceded the truth: "Of course, the risk of getting serious blood clots seems much higher for those who get a serious case COVID-19 then it is for those who get vaccinated. They tend to be acute, near-term impacts amenable to various treatments, though sadly not lifesaving in all cases."
Hirschhorn has been proven wrong too many times to be trusted. The fact that WND does -- and continues to give him a platform to spout his misinformation -- is yet another reason WND can't be trusted.