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A disgraced scientist and a viral video: how a Covid conspiracy theory started

In Plandemic Dr Judy Mikovits blames coronavirus outbreak on a ‘circular cabal’ led by Bill Gates, accuses Dr Fauci of burying her research and says wearing a mask ‘activates your own virus’Coronavirus – live US updatesLive global updates
Judy Mikovits, right, in 2011 at the Whittemore Peterson Institute, where she lost her job after a controversy. Photograph: David Calvert/AP

On the surface, it is a classic tale of whistleblowing.

A brave insider claiming to lay bare corporate power corrupting the US government. A truth teller courageously naming names who are part of what she calls a “circular cabal” killing Americans.

Seen from another perspective, the viral video of Dr Judy Mikovits blaming the coronavirus outbreak on a conspiracy led by big pharma, Bill Gates and the World Health Organization is the work of a discredited crank. But scientists fear that does not make her claims any less dangerous because, in an age of conspiracy theories, those about medicine have unusual potency.

The film of Mikovits is taken from

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