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Speaker 1: The seeds of doubt have already been planted across the

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Speaker 1: political spectrum from people who believe that maybe on the left,

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Speaker 1: they really buy into the belief that pharmaceutical companies released

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Speaker 1: this virus to create a vaccine that will, you know,

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Speaker 1: provide them a huge profit. And on the right you

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Speaker 1: have people that maybe believe the government was involved in

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Speaker 1: releasing this vaccine, or the Chinese government. I think that

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Speaker 1: the commonality between both of those is really still distrust

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Speaker 1: or mistrust of some of these institutions. It used to

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Speaker 1: be that our biggest political debates as a nation were

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Speaker 1: over things like gun control, clean energy, and education reform,

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Speaker 1: but the coronavirus pandemic has fueled new fights over things

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Speaker 1: that aren't really political at all. Wearing masks, washing hands,

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Speaker 1: listening to science, and in the background, largely on social media,

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Speaker 1: a misinformation campaign spread widely promoting ideas from COVID's not

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Speaker 1: real to masks make you more susceptible to the virus.

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Speaker 1: And lastly, it's a sophisticated conspiracy orchestrated by big pharma

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Speaker 1: looking to profit. There are messages that actually resonate across

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Speaker 1: the political spectrum, and now as so many of us

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Speaker 1: prepare for the holidays, hoping and wishing for a time

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Speaker 1: when we can see our families safely. We're faced with

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Speaker 1: good news about an effective vaccine. Oxford University just announced

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Speaker 1: its vaccine is at least effective, making it now the

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Speaker 1: third promising candidate. Health officials now say the first Americans

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Speaker 1: could get the vaccine within three weeks. But what happens

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Speaker 1: when Americans don't want to be first in line. I'm

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Speaker 1: Stephanie Rule, MSNBC Anchor, NBC News Senior correspondent, And this

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Speaker 1: is Modern Rules, a podcast from NBC Think and I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. On this episode of Modern Rules, we're looking

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Speaker 1: at how to fringe groups came together to spread misinformation

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Speaker 1: about a common grape, a COVID vaccine, and we're asking

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Speaker 1: the question, is in America two divided for a vaccine

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Speaker 1: to fix it? Tara Smith is a professor of epidemiology

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Speaker 1: at Kent State University and expert in public health and

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Speaker 1: an NBC Think contributor. Tara, welcome, thank you for having

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Speaker 1: me on. I want you to start by just setting

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Speaker 1: the stage for us. You've got politics and play here

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Speaker 1: from those who want to say COVID isn't real and

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Speaker 1: then you've got fringe players who want to profit. When

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Speaker 1: you look at anti vaxx or movements, what is it about?

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Speaker 1: Who are the other players here? So the players that

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Speaker 1: really are on the front lines here are ones that

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Speaker 1: have been involved in the anti vaccine movement for years

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Speaker 1: to even decades. So one that really rose to prominence

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Speaker 1: is a former scientists named Judy mcavitts, and she was

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Speaker 1: the one who is behind the plandemic movie that went

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Speaker 1: viral in the spring. Some other big ones are Andrew Wakefield,

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Speaker 1: who was a disgraced British doctor who put forward the

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Speaker 1: first paper suggesting that autism was caused by the MMR vaccine,

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Speaker 1: which still leads people to fear vaccines to this day.

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Speaker 1: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Who is environmental lawyer, did some

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Speaker 1: good work on mercury and the environment, but then switched

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Speaker 1: to vaccines and has gotten a big audience from that.

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Speaker 1: And Del Bigtree, who is a former producer for the

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Speaker 1: TV show The Doctors and then kind of went out

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Speaker 1: on his own and really drives a lot of this

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Speaker 1: misinformation as well. So those are the ones that I

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Speaker 1: really can reserve my ire for. Those are the ones

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Speaker 1: who originate a lot of this misinformation and spread it

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Speaker 1: to you know, their followers, of which there are millions

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Speaker 1: on their social media channels. Though, if you have the

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Speaker 1: anti vax or community that for years have been looking

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Speaker 1: for a big stage, who just gave them the stage?

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Speaker 1: Was this pandemic a way for this message and this

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Speaker 1: mission to catapult in a much much bigger way. So

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Speaker 1: I think audiences is for the most part, skeptical parents.

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Speaker 1: Now all of a sudden, you have a vaccine or

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Speaker 1: a vaccine and development for this pandemic virus that potentially

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Speaker 1: could affect all of us. So we expect that the vaccine,

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Speaker 1: when it's available, it will be you know, marketed to

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Speaker 1: adults and children. So it's not something that you know,

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Speaker 1: only parents have to worry about. Is something that everyone

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Speaker 1: has to be concerned about. And I think there's an opening.

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Speaker 1: And so as some of the leaders of the movement

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Speaker 1: took advantage of that. They knew that this was a

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Speaker 1: new vaccine, they knew that that's an area where lots

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Speaker 1: of people are going to have skepticism, so they really

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Speaker 1: kind of amped up their messaging and I think it

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Speaker 1: has spread beyond their typical audience. The anti vaccine movement

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Speaker 1: already had the structure in place, and they have local

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Speaker 1: anti vaccine groups, national anti vaccine groups, so those were

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Speaker 1: already in place to spread some of this misinformation. And

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Speaker 1: you already had people who already were skeptical, who already

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Speaker 1: were hooked into these networks, mostly on social media, so

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Speaker 1: they were able to I think, effectively sell this. I

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Speaker 1: want to get specific on this one because we talked

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Speaker 1: broadly about the dangers of misinformation. It's a general term

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Speaker 1: and we use it a lot these days, but specifically

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Speaker 1: walk us through how COVID deniers have used the anti

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Speaker 1: vaccine community and their strategies to supercharge their effort. These

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Speaker 1: ideas that coronavirus is really just about government control, that

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Speaker 1: it's infringing on personal freedom and civil liberties just as

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Speaker 1: vaccine mandates are, that it can actually harm people instead

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Speaker 1: of help them. All of these ideas that really are

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Speaker 1: have have similar ideas to the anti vaccine movement. They

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Speaker 1: have kind of taken them for their own, adjusted them

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Speaker 1: for coronavirus, and spread them out to their followers. So

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Speaker 1: you have it on the right side of the political spectrum,

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Speaker 1: mostly in people who kind of lean libertarian, who don't

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Speaker 1: let the government involved in their daily decisions. And then

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Speaker 1: you have people that lean a little bit more toward

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Speaker 1: the left that have this kind of natural lifestyle, right,

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Speaker 1: so you know, avoid chemicals, avoid preservatives and food, avoid

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Speaker 1: anything that is not organic. And so you have those

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Speaker 1: individuals who are um kind of position to see vaccines

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Speaker 1: as a natural and as something that is being injected

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Speaker 1: into their child's body with perhaps ingredients that they don't

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Speaker 1: understand or don't trust. Even though there are reasons for

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Speaker 1: being skeptical of these vaccines may be different, they come

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Speaker 1: to the same ultimate conclusion, which is, we're not ready

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Speaker 1: for a vaccine. We don't trust it, we don't think

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Speaker 1: it's necessary. So you have a COVID denying group who

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Speaker 1: refused to wear masks and refused to quarantine. That's one group.

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Speaker 1: Then you have an anti vaccine group that's another group.

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Speaker 1: And then you have a third group that in all

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Speaker 1: normal circumstances are pro vaccine, but because they fear that

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Speaker 1: the president is trying to push this thing through for politics.

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Speaker 1: Is that what's made this anti vaccination movement so powerful. Yes, exactly.

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Speaker 1: And I think there's a lot of overlap between kind

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Speaker 1: of the general anti vactors and the anti maskers or

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Speaker 1: COVID deniers, and I think the ones who are skeptical

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Speaker 1: because this vaccine is coming out of a Trump administration

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Speaker 1: are are kind of a separate group from those. I

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Speaker 1: understand the reaction. You have to put your trust in someone,

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Speaker 1: and if you're putting your trust in a government institution

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Speaker 1: that you all believe in that you think has wronged you,

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Speaker 1: understandably you're not going to accept what they are saying.

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Speaker 1: We'll be back after the break. So what's interesting is

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Speaker 1: anti vaxers don't have a stereotype, right is that what

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Speaker 1: makes it so hard to cut it off. What it

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Speaker 1: takes to sway them, regardless of what side they're on,

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Speaker 1: usually is some kind of a personal connection, unless they

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Speaker 1: have somebody in their family or a close friend or

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Speaker 1: something like that who has had a really serious case

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Speaker 1: and maybe even died from it. Those are the types

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Speaker 1: of things that unfortunately it takes to change minds, whether

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Speaker 1: coming in from the mindset of either side, it really

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Speaker 1: feeds some of these pre existing biases that people have.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I totally understand that people are distrustful of

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Speaker 1: pharmaceutical companies. I totally understand that they're just trustful of

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Speaker 1: the government. And so when you write articles against vaccination

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Speaker 1: and you pull in some of those pre existing biases,

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Speaker 1: people believe those articles. People share those articles because they

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Speaker 1: generate outrage two institutions that people already largely dislike. They

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Speaker 1: use that outrage. They use that knowledge to get those

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Speaker 1: articles to be pushed higher and higher, and the stories sell.

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Speaker 1: The stories get circulated on social media, and that can

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Speaker 1: be terrifying to parents. You know, you can't really counter

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Speaker 1: some of those emotional stories with dry scientific evidence. The

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Speaker 1: story is out there, the emotion is out there, and

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Speaker 1: that's what people really latch onto. I often say on

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Speaker 1: my show, the truth matters, but only if you see it,

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Speaker 1: only if you hear it. How much of this misinformation

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Speaker 1: stronghold can we blame social media for? If I wanted

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Speaker 1: to write an article that said the vaccine they're working

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Speaker 1: on is going to make men go bald, women are

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Speaker 1: gonna become infertile, and children are gonna end up with

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Speaker 1: two left feet, and I wanted to publish that on

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Speaker 1: NBC news dot Com tomorrow, that would not be an

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Speaker 1: option for me. Legal and standards would give me my

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Speaker 1: walking papers. However, if I wanted to write that article

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Speaker 1: and buy the domain Concerned American Moms dot com. I

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Speaker 1: could do that, plug it into all of these Facebook groups,

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Speaker 1: and within hours or minutes it could be out there

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Speaker 1: in the universe, and by dinner time, my mom is

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Speaker 1: calling me on the phone warning me against it. How

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Speaker 1: much has social media played a role in this and

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Speaker 1: how much harder has it made it for you to

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Speaker 1: do your job? Social media in cases kind of a nightmare.

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Speaker 1: I use it to try to, you know, talk to

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Speaker 1: people directly, to get my messages out there. I don't

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Speaker 1: have millions of followers, so anything from kind of their

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Speaker 1: side tends to spread faster and to percolate, so it

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Speaker 1: spreads really quickly, and it's really hard once something is

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Speaker 1: out there to pull it back right. Pinterest has been

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Speaker 1: one that for a long time has kind of cracked

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Speaker 1: down on some of this Facebook and Twitter less, so

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Speaker 1: I know it's really a lot of whack a mole

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Speaker 1: that you take down the groups, but then they just

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Speaker 1: pop up again. So I don't know that you know,

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Speaker 1: just eliminating them from certain platforms is going to be

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Speaker 1: the answer. I think that can help sometimes, but you

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Speaker 1: really have to have people at those social media companies

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Speaker 1: who are really invested in that and really understand what

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Speaker 1: it means to eliminate them from those platforms without them

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Speaker 1: just popping back up. But this is real life, and

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Speaker 1: this is really happening. How dangerous do you think it is? Right?

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Speaker 1: You're not going to return immunity levels if you don't

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Speaker 1: get enough people to take it, And so I think

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Speaker 1: that is what is so concerning here. You know, once

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Speaker 1: you're into some of those anti vaccine groups, especially on

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Speaker 1: social media, it's really hard to get disentangled from those.

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Speaker 1: My concern, of course, is that this is going to

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Speaker 1: bring more people into their ideas without examining them closely,

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Speaker 1: just kind of jumping on the bandwagon and becoming part

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Speaker 1: of those groups. Public confidence in vaccines in general, in

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Speaker 1: vaccination is significantly higher than public confidence in a coronavirus vaccine,

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Speaker 1: and that is absolutely attributable to politics. Right usually, where

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Speaker 1: we would have the CDC to act as kind of

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Speaker 1: an arbiter of truth, we know that the CDC has

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Speaker 1: also been politicized. So I think it's understandable that there

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Speaker 1: is just a lot of mistrust out there about the science,

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Speaker 1: about vaccines, about everything that is going on during this pandemic.

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Speaker 1: So given where we are in this moment in time,

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Speaker 1: that you've got so much misinformation out there, You've got

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Speaker 1: anti vaxers, other people who want to deny COVID, what's

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Speaker 1: the real impact of this. Yeah, and I think we

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Speaker 1: don't know that. I mean, I think we can see

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Speaker 1: right now some of the COVID denial aspects are leading

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Speaker 1: to increasing spread. You know, people who are not distancing,

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Speaker 1: who are not wearing masks, who are not listening to

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Speaker 1: guidance about gatherings. You know, that's what we're seeing, at

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Speaker 1: least in the Midwest. Most of our cases are coming

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Speaker 1: from like small family gatherings, you know, weddings or reunions

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Speaker 1: or just dinners with people that usually you don't see.

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Speaker 1: They are happening inside and unmasked, you know, extended period

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Speaker 1: of time, and that's how people are getting this infection.

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Speaker 1: I'm hoping that, you know, once we do have a

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Speaker 1: COVID vaccine available, that people will see others using it.

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Speaker 1: I mean, we anticipate that frontline workers would get at first,

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Speaker 1: and that other people who are at high risk, followed

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Speaker 1: by kind of the general public. So I'm hoping that

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Speaker 1: people will see in those groups, that it is safe,

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Speaker 1: that it is effective, that it is something that has

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Speaker 1: been studied well by the pharmaceutical companies, and they didn't

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Speaker 1: release a bad product. So I'm hoping that could change

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Speaker 1: the tide a little bit. In this podcast, we are

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Speaker 1: trying to get straight to the point and leave you

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Speaker 1: some time to think. Something Tara left me thinking is this.

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Speaker 1: For months, everyone has talked about a return to normal,

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Speaker 1: but increasingly it looks like the only way we'll even

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Speaker 1: start to get there is if enough people take an

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Speaker 1: effective vaccine. That is why these fringe movements and misinformation

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Speaker 1: campaigns are dangerous and why every single American should care

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Speaker 1: how widespread they are. Misinformation can be fought, but what

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Speaker 1: defense do we really have in place to protect against it?

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Speaker 1: And if a vaccine camp bring us together, what will

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Speaker 1: I'm Stephanie Rule and you're listening to Modern Rules, a

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Speaker 1: podcast from NBC Think, MSNBC and I Heart Radio. This

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Speaker 1: podcast is hosted by Me Stephanie Rule. Mike Beet and

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Speaker 1: Katrina Norvell are executive producers. Meredith Bennett Smith is Senior

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Speaker 1: editor for NBC Think and our editorial lead. The podcast

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Speaker 1: is engineered and edited by Josh Fisher, Additional production support

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Speaker 1: provided by Charles Herman, Rachel Rosenbaum and Lauren Wynn, and

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Speaker 1: special thanks to Katherine kim Are, Global head of Digital

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Speaker 1: News right here at NBC News and MSNBC. For more

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Speaker 1: thought provoking analysis, visit NBC news dot com slash thing