Tag: Anti-Vaccine

Anti-vaccine, Climate change, Dangerous Republicans, Education, Extremism, Janet Rowland, Public health, Racism, Ray Scott, Stephen D. Daniels

Mesa County Public Library to offer class on how to tell good sources from bad on the internet

by Anne Landman • June 11, 2024 • 9 Comments

The Mesa County Central Library will hold a very important 90 minute class Monday, June 24 from 3:00-4:30 p.m. on how to evaluate online sources for credibility and authoritativeness to help boost internet users’ ability to tell fact from fiction.

This class is sorely needed in Mesa County, especially by Republican local elected officials who have demonstrated a lack in the ability to tell credible sources of information from websites that peddle lies and false information to readers.

In 2020, Mesa County Commissioner Janet Rowland displayed a chilling inability to tell fact from fiction after she publicly promoted the Infowars conspiracy theory that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control was intentionally inflating the number of Covid deaths. Rowland wrote on her her social media that hospitals were being pressured to inflate the numbers of Covid deaths because it meant they would get more funding. The truth is that hospitals make money by treating people, not by listing specific causes of deaths on death certificates. At the time, Rowland’s false theory was being promoted by Laura Ingraham of Fox News — one of Rowland’s most frequently-cited news sources. Fox News has a reputation for knowingly

Stephen D. Daniels, Janet Rowland-appointed Chair of the Mesa County Board of Public Health, is a prodigious spreader of disinformation on social media, including about vaccines and gender issues, without citing credible sources. (Photo: Mesa County)

telling lies to the public.

Rowland’s new Director of the Mesa County Board of Public Health, Stephen D. Daniels, is also prodigious spreader of lies and disinformation on his social media. His posts target a wide range of subjects including the U.S. Department of Justice, gender issues, religion and the efficacy and safety of vaccines, including ideas spread by anti-vaxx presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who claimed that Covid-19 was “ethnically targeted” to attack caucasians and Black people, and to spare Jews.

Janet Rowland, whose college degree is a bachelor in Bible studies, is running for a 4th term as County Commissioner, after lying to the public on her social media about Covid topics and never apologizing to the public for spreading disinformation. (Photo: Janet Rowland campaign website)

In 2019, while still a State Senator, Ray Scott cited a full-on wacko nutbag information source in a tweet about climate change in which he wrote “NASA admits that climate change occurs because of changes in Earth’s solar orbit, and NOT because of SUVs and fossil fuels.” To support his claim, Scott cited an article published on a website called “NaturalNews.com.” NaturalNews.com had been discredited as an off-the-wall, full-on wacko conspiracy website and was rated #1 on the list of the Top Ten Worst Anti-Science Websites. Scott also said that studies about climate change made no sense and that we “have better things to do” than to address the crisis.

Let’s hope some of these Republican elected officials attend this talk.

Former State Senator Ray Scott cited a full-on wacko website as a source of information on climate change in 2019. The site was rated #1 on a list of the top ten worst anti-science websites.

Anti-vaccine, Conspiracy theories, Extremism, Health, Janet Rowland, Local concerns, politics, Public health, Stephen D. Daniels

KREX TV explores how the County seized control over all of Mesa County Public Health Department’s contracts when it only contributes 4.2% of the agency’s budget

by Anne Landman • November 20, 2023 • 9 Comments

KREX reporter Michael Loggerwell’s story about Mesa County’s new Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) with the Health Department- Part 1

KREX-TV News recently did a two-part series about the Mesa County Commissioners’ new, post-Jeff Kuhr Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) that more tightly regulates the County’s relationship with the Public Health Department (MCPHD), and how it differs from the old 2012 agreement in important ways that could negatively affect public health and safety in the county.

Mesa County Commissioners’ new chair of the Public Health Board refuses to say if he believes Covid-19 was “targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people” and spare Jews and Chinese people

by Anne Landman • July 19, 2023 • 17 Comments

On of the many Facebook and Instagram posts by Mesa County Board of Public Health chair Stephen D. Daniels, lauding Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a vocal anti-vaxxer who has spread lies and conspiracy theories for “the better part of two decades.”

The Mesa County Commissioners’ newly-appointed Chair of the Public Health Board, Stephen D. Daniels, has made it known that he is a strong supporter of anti-vax conspiracy theorist and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (RFK). In multiple posts on his social media accounts, Daniels urges people to be open to discussion about Kennedy’s views and believe what Kennedy has to say.

But does Daniels support what RFK told a table full of people last week at a press event in Manhattan (video), that the Covid-19 virus is “ethnically targeted” to attack Caucasians and Black people, and to spare Jews and Chinese people?

RFK’s comments were widely reported as being a “Bigoted new Covid conspiracy about Jews and Chinese” (NY Times), as being “deplorable” and “hurtful” (Fox News), as spreading “false claims” about Covid-19 (CBS News) and being “antisemitic and racist” (ABC News).

Specifically, RFK said in part,

“There is an argument that it [Covid-19] is ethnically targeted. COVID-19 attacks certain races disproportionately. COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”

Newly-appointed Board of Public Health member is anti-vax, anti immigrant, anti-gay extremist

by Anne Landman • July 7, 2023 • 32 Comments

Stephen Daniels, an extremist and anti-vaxxer the Commissioners just appointed to be Chair of the Mesa County Board of Public Health (Photo: Facebook)

A person the Mesa County Commissioners appointed to the Board of Health yesterday, Stephen D. Daniels, is a strong supporter of anti-vax conspiracy theorist and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (RFK), according to his social media accounts. Posts on the same sources also reveal Daniels is anti-immigrant, anti-gay, anti-Disney, and a climate change denier who opposes Colorado’s new family and medical leave law, which gives workers paid time off to care for a new baby or a loved one who has a serious health condition.

Presidential candidate RFK, whom Daniels supports, opposes vaccines that prevent dire illnesses in children and adults, like polio, measles and smallpox. In 2017, Scientific American wrote that “For more than a decade, Kennedy has promoted anti-vaccine propaganda completely unconnected to reality,” and if his anti-vax advocacy “leads to even a small decline in vaccine rates across the country, it will result in the waste of untold amounts of money and in all likelihood, the preventable deaths of infants too young to be vaccinated.”