Michael Hiltzik: The anti-vaxxers' campaign against public health advocates gets scarier and more rabid

Last December, we reported on the threatening behavior of a group of anti-vaccine activists toward Kristina Lawson, the president of the Medical Board of California.

As Lawson recounted then, they surveilled her house, watched her children leave for school, then physically intimidated her at the garage of her business office.

That was all because she headed an agency tasked with keeping doctors from spreading misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic.

Now the group, which calls itself America's Frontline Doctors, has stepped up its campaign against Lawson.

The group has released a 21-minute video that depicts Lawson in Nazi regalia, a whip in her hand and swastika on her shoulder, and shows a clip of the garage confrontation validating Lawson's description.

The video implies that Lawson is comparable to dictators such as Stalin and Hitler, and describes her as the "primary suspect" in the "crime of hunting doctors who are on the front lines of critical care and scientific study."

As she did in December, Lawson called out her accusers. "It is disturbing to be targeted by anti-science zealots and the people they seek to manipulate," she said through a spokesman on Friday.

Since the video's release a few days