The embrace of antimask and antivaccine views by the right wing is due to more than just clever reaching out by antivaxxers. There’s a big money astroturf machine encompassing various “think tanks” behind it.
It’s been several years coming, but President Biden’s issuing of a vaccine mandate for federal employees and large employers has removed all doubt that the Republican Party is not just anti-vaccine mandate. It’s antivaccine.
Ivermectin has been hyped without good evidence as a highly effective treatment for COVID-19. One major “positive” ivermectin study was shown to be likely fraudulent. Now others are looking dicey.
Tom Chivers takes Lee McIntyre to task over his book How to Talk to a Science Denier. In the process he shows himself to be a crappy Bayesian and a “reasonable” apologist for science denial.
There have always been “reasonable” apologists for the antivaccine movement. Thanks to COVID-19 their prominence has increased as they mistakenly conflate “antivaccine” with “vaccine hesitant.”