The definitive guide to Fox News' vaccine conspiracy theories
Written by Madeline Peltz
Published
A review by Media Matters found that Fox News’ A-list personalities, including Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, and Jeanine Pirro, have made a number of baseless claims related to COVID-19 vaccine and therapeutic development. Many of their conspiracy theories hinge on funding provided by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for vaccine research, which they claim was given for various malevolent reasons, including to enact “mass social control” in the name of climate change, force “population control,” and create a “vast mass surveillance system” for “digitally tracking Americans’ every move.”
The network’s dangerous anti-vaccination conspiracy theories are having an impact on its viewers: A Yahoo/YouGov poll in May found that fully half of people who get their news primarily from Fox believe Gates wants to vaccinate Americans in order to digitally track them. Among MSNBC viewers, that number was just 15%.
Conspiracy theories are partly fueling the widespread public mistrust of the coronavirus vaccine and therapeutic approval process overseen by the Food and Drug Administration. A recent poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that “less than half of Americans surveyed would want to get vaccinated against Covid-19 if a vaccine was available before November,” and 14% of respondents mistakenly believe a cure for the coronavirus already exists.
Other vaccine-related conspiracy theories on Fox News claim Democrats want to force Americans to get a vaccine if one becomes available. At one point, Carlson said Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris wants to apply “affirmative action” so that only “people of a certain color” get a vaccine for the coronavirus.
Here is a guide to how Fox personalities have spread anti-vaccine conspiracy theories on and off the air.
Anti-vaccine conspiracy theories related to Bill Gates
- On August 24, Carlson spun a bizarre conspiracy theory about Gates and the director general of the World Health Organization making a COVID-19 vaccine mandatory as part of an effort to enact “mass social control.” He said the goal would be to advance a global climate change agenda and to cover up for the Chinese government’s response to the pandemic.
Citation From the August 24, 2020, edition of Fox News' Tucker Carlson Tonight
TUCKER CARLSON (HOST): At first, you'll remember, the authorities told us we could resume our lives when hospital admissions tapered off and we flattened the curve. The curve stayed flat -- in most places, it never bent.
So we get a new benchmark for when we can get back to normal: when we get a vaccine. Everything will be fine once we can vaccinate against COVID-19. Many in authority told us that. They're still telling us that.
The state of Virginia has announced that when a vaccine finally does arrive, it will be mandatory. Not all vaccines. Virginia will not require vaccines for hepatitis or HIV. They don't require a vaccine for meningitis either to fight, despite the fact that meningitis kills a lot more, say, college students than coronavirus does. But once you get a corona vaccine, they're telling us, all will be well.
But now they've changed that. Not true anymore. According to a new announcement from the World Health Organization, a vaccine, even if we get one, will not be the end of all of this. It will never end. You can get your injection. They'll make you get it. But you'll still be under arrest.
The World Health Organization says that finding a vaccine is not the goal. Reordering society is the goal. Quote, “We will not, we cannot go back to the way things were.” That's a direct quote from the leader of the World Health Organization, Dr. Tedros, who by the way, is not really a doctor. Because COVID-19 is not a public health crisis really, or even a mere virus. According to Tedros, COVID-19 is in fact -- this may surprise you -- COVID-19 is really about global warming.
As he puts it, quote: “The COVID-19 pandemic has given new impetus to the need to accelerate efforts to respond to climate change.” I bet you didn't see that coming.
Bill Gates did. He agrees to that wholeheartedly.
Earlier this month, Gates posted an essay to his personal website, which you probably haven’t seen, arguing that the lesson of the corona pandemic is that the rest of us will have to sacrifice even more to keep the Earth from warming. Now for people who aren’t billionaire global influencers, this is all pretty confusing. Quick, what does the coronavirus have to do with climate change? Well for one thing, China caused both of them. That’s the obvious link. But that is definitely not the point Dr. Tedros and Bill Gates are making. Both of them bow before China -- they would never meaningfully criticize the Chinese government. So you can be assured that is not the connection they’re drawing.
No, for Dr. Tedros and Bill Gates, pandemic and climate change share a very different connection. Both are useful pretexts for mass social control. Both are essentially unsolvable crises they can harness to bypass democracy and force powerless populations to obey their commands.
- Former Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) appeared on the August 3 edition of Fox Business' Varney & Co. to tell viewers it should make them “very nervous” that Gates is helping to fund vaccine research. Paul said rather than focusing on a vaccine, he would “emphasize” the tactic of “natural immunity” achieved through mass infection in the population, an approach that would overrun the health care system and lead to millions of unnecessary deaths. Paul suggested this dangerous anti-vaccination strategy is needed to protect “freedom of choice in not having certain treatments run down our throat by the government.” Immediately following his appearance on the network, Paul went live on YouTube in a stream titled “Vaccine Tyranny - Will You Take Bill Gates’ Shot?” (Paul has repeatedly pushed COVID-19 conspiracy theories on his Facebook and YouTube pages.)
- On a livestream in April, Fox News’ Diamond & Silk said they will refuse any COVID-19 vaccine Gates was involved with, falsely claiming he “pushed for population control.” Fox News has since “cut ties” with the duo.
- On April 7, Fox host Laura Ingraham quote-tweeted an anti-vaccine activist to spread the conspiracy theory that Gates is helping fund vaccine research to enable “digitally tracking Americans’ every move.” On April 24, she pushed the same conspiracy theory on her show, saying Gates wants “a pretty vast mass surveillance system to be put in place” to fight the coronavirus.
Citation From the April 24, 2020, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle
- On April 15, Ingraham and her guest speculated that the funding Gates gave the World Health Organization for vaccine research was a bribe to get the WHO to declare a global pandemic: “Should we be concerned with how much one man has maybe an outsized influence with an obviously corruptible entity such as the WHO?”
Other anti-vaccine conspiracy theories
- On August 19, Carlson said Democrats want a COVID-19 vaccine to be mandatory: “Their message is clear and has been from day one: ‘COVID-19 is an imminent mortal threat to everyone in America, young and old, healthy and sick. A mandatory vaccine is our only hope. Until that arrives, you must do exactly what we say.’ That’s their position -- it’s not science, it is propaganda.”
- On August 12, Carlson said Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris wants only “people of a certain color” to get a vaccine for the coronavirus, saying: “It's likely you never imagined affirmative action would be applied to lifesaving medical treatment. But Kamala Harris thinks it should be.”
- In late July, Fox’s Jeanine Pirro said she doesn’t “want a vaccine” for the coronavirus during an appearance on London Real, a digital program that has previously hosted discredited anti-vaccination activists. Pirro agreed with the host that people should be “wary” of a COVID-19 vaccine in part because “it feels like we're kind of all being herded in this one direction. And yet a lot of this technology seems to also be owned by some strange characters that have financial interests, even some of the institutions.” (Days after the appearance by Pirro, London Real served as the launching ground for the sequel to COVID-19 conspiracy theory film Plandemic.)
Citation From the July 27, 2020, edition of London Real
Fox Nation host Isaiah Washington (who is also a QAnon conspiracy theorist) has pushed anti-vaccine conspiracy theories and other coronavirus misinformation on Facebook.
