THE rIGHT IS THE lEFT:

I have been left slack-jawed not by the reliable anti-vaxers/anti-maskers of the right, such as Sen. Ron Johnson, Sen. Rand Paul, and the self-described Trumpistas I know in South Florida, but by friends who self-identify as progressives.

All are highly educated yet will not get a COVID vaccine, voicing qualms about its creation, side effects, and effectiveness. Some cite personal issues--one had Lyme disease, another blames her heart arrhythmia--although millions of people with the same issues have been vaccinated without serious side effects.

Most alarming is the news that one of my cousins and her husband, both successful television actors, will not get vaccinated. Instead, my cousin is "microdosing" a homeopathic remedy. Another normally sensible family relation is also not getting vaccinated. He is currently dating a popular yoga "influencer" and has been, well, influenced.

According to a recent Los Angeles Times piece, many of the anti-vax memes and false claims now circulating on the left can be traced back to QAnon, the far-right conspiracy cult. But much is coming from prominent figures in alternative medicine.

A widely reposted letter from Frank Shallenberger, a Nevada-based integrative practitioner, suggests that mRNA vaccines are potentially fatal: "We have absolutely no idea what to expect from this vaccine. We have no idea if it will be effective or safe. . . . If you ever wanted to be guinea pig for Big Pharma, now is your golden opportunity." (While it is true that deadly pandemics tend to galvanize all-hands-on-deck action, the research into mRNA vaccines goes back about fifteen years, to when SARS first appeared.)

Disturbingly, most of my "vax refusenik" friends work in health care. One has a Ph.D. in nutrition. Another works in biofeedback, a field of alternative medicine. A third (and well-known) naturopath/chiropractor sent me an anti-COVID screed at the beginning of the pandemic, saying that COVID was nothing more than a bad flu afflicting the elderly or infirm; indeed, nothing more than the Big Lie created by the Deep State. As the U.S. death toll crested past half a million, he modulated his message: The disease was sort-of real for those with weak immune systems. Still, he maintained that vaccines are the sinister product of collusion between the Deep State and Big Pharma.

Last week, he was admitted to an L.A. hospital with COVID pneumonia. As of this writing, he remains on oxygen.

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