The Anti-Vaccine Influencers Who Are Merely Asking Questions

Life can go back to normal in the United States only if millions more Americans get vaccinated against COVID-19. The problem is that today’s communication environment is perfectly engineered to discourage that. Wild claims go viral, and partisans exploit any scientific uncertainty for political advantage. So when the FDA and the CDC paused the use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine last week, the problem wasn’t just that a small number of people who had received it had developed a severe type of blood clot, or that experts openly disagreed about whether the move was justified or an overreaction. The April 13 announcement also created yet another opportunity for influencers to undercut public confidence in vaccination.

Never mind that experiencing a blood clot after receiving the J&J vaccine appears more unlikely than being struck by lightning. “There are reasons to believe those in fact aren’t the real numbers,” the Fox News host Tucker Carlson speculated hours after the FDA and CDC announcement. His treated the government’s