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Parliamentary hearings around the world served to spread anti-vaccination conspiracies – Health and Lifestyle News – Report by AFR

As she stood on the podium at the Ohio Statehouse in the United States last year, a nurse pressed a key against her neck to prove that Covid vaccines make people magnetic.

The key — like the theory — didn’t stick, instead falling down her neck, causing video of her statement to go viral.

While the nurse’s failure mainly drew derision, it was just one example of how parliamentary hearings have been abused around the world to spread misinformation about vaccines since the pandemic began.

Parliaments have hosted well-known conspiracy theorists who quickly post edited videos of their testimony on social media, where the prestigious platform gives them some semblance of legitimacy, experts warn.

Following the lead of anti-vaccination activist Sherri Tenpenny, who previously testified at the invitation of Republican lawmakers, the Ohio Statehouse nurse has advanced the thoroughly debunked theory that coronavirus vaccines make people magnetic.

Known spreaders of Covid-19 misinformation have turned to hearings in the United States, such as Peter McCullough, who testified before a Texas Senate committee as well as the US Senate in Washington DC.

Such parliamentary hearings “are part of an arsenal of disinformation,” said Sebastian Dieguez, a neuroscientist specializing in conspiracy theories at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland.

These figures “paradoxically need the seal of legitimacy that the ‘system’ gives them,” like mainstream politicians and media, that they spend so much time with and reject, he told AFP.

– ‘A trap’ –

“I think the opportunity to attend hearings gives these perspectives a legitimate platform,” Molly Reynolds of the US think tank Brookings Institution told AFP.

She said she suspects that in some cases Republicans have invited anti-vaccination hearings to support their own views.

Dieguez said one argument is that in a democratic legislative process, all voices have the right to be heard.

But this could be “a small trap,” he warned, “if it means creating a false balance by offering positions that are not only in the minority but are often quite outrageous.”

This is exactly what the Parliamentary Office for the Evaluation of Scientific and Technological Decisions in France has been accused of.

Earlier this year it heard from speakers giving misleading statistics on the side effects of Covid-19 vaccines.

Alain Fischer, who coordinates France’s pandemic vaccine strategy, has criticized the office after testifying himself at the Senate hearing in May.

It was “regrettable … that a public hearing was held where specialists based on scientific data and pseudo-experts spreading opinions not based on facts were put on an equal footing,” he told L’ newspaper. Express.

“It amounts to giving them formal legitimacy.”

– Time to change the rules? –

Mathematician and politician Cedric Villani, then-president of the bureau, dismissed the criticism, saying the body “does not purport to confer any more or less legitimacy on any individual”.

Senator Sonia de La Provote, the bureau’s rapporteur, said the bureau is “proud” to hear from everyone.

“Giving the floor only to those we believe have the right to speak strikes me as particularly detrimental to our democratic functioning,” she told AFP.

In tiny neighboring Luxembourg, several well-known anti-vaccination opponents, including French scientist Luc Montagnier, spoke in parliament in January.

They were brought by a group whose petition on mandatory Covid vaccines garnered enough signatures to spark a parliamentary debate.

The President of Luxembourg’s Chamber of Deputies, Fernand Etgen, told AFP in January that it was “obvious” that “most of their claims were untrue, false or misleading”.

Parliament is considering changing the rules on how many notifications it receives about the identities of those who testify.

Who will speak in January only became known the day before the event, which “makes preparation impossible for MPs,” said Etgen.

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