Fact-checking Judy Mikovits, the controversial virologist attacking Anthony Fauci in a viral

[Quixote1818]

Fact-checking Judy Mikovits, the controversial virologist attacking Anthony Fauci in a viral conspiracy video

By Martin Enserink, Jon CohenMay. 8, 2020 , 6:20 PM

In a video that has exploded on social media in the past few days, virologist Judy Mikovits claims the new coronavirus is being wrongly blamed for many deaths. She makes head-scratching assertions about the virus—for instance, that it is “activated” by face masks.

Mikovits also accuses Anthony Fauci, head of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and a prominent member of the White House’s Coronavirus Task Force, of being responsible for the deaths of millions during the early years of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The video claims Mikovits was part of the team that discovered HIV, revolutionized HIV treatment, and was jailed without charges for her scientific positions.

Science fact-checked the video. None of these claims are true. The video is an excerpt from a forthcoming movie Plandemic, which promises to “expose the scientific and political elite who run the scam that is our global health system.” YouTube, Facebook, and other platforms have taken down the video because of inaccuracies. It keeps resurfacing, including on the Plandemic website, which, in “an effort to bypass the gatekeepers of free speech,” invites people to download the video and repost it.

But first, who is Judy Mikovits?

Mikovits started her career as a lab technician at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in 1988. She became a scientist and obtained a Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology from George Washington University in 1991. By 2009, she was research director at the Whittemore Peterson Institute (WPI), a private research center in Reno, Nevada, but she remained largely unknown to the scientific community. That year, however, she co-authored a paper in Science that suggested an obscure agent named xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus (XMRV) caused chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).

More: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/05/fact-checking-judy-mikovits-controversial-virologist-attacking-anthony-fauci-viral

[lapucelle]

1. Vice has an excellent report on Mikovits

with embedded links to coverage of this woman, her ridiculous claims, and her revisionist history of her own failure to observe scientific ethics going back several years.

"Plandemic" Is Dangerous, Viral Nonsense

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/93597a/plandemic-viral-nonsense-judi-mikovits-plague-of-corruption

[brer cat]

2. Thanks for posting that link, lapucelle.

[gristy]

3. All you need is one virulent nutjob, and the damn internets spread it with abandon

Great article and fact-checking of the Mikovits interview at the link. I read the whole thing. Thanks for posting!