Flipping the Script: BMJ Article Smears Covid Vaccine Skeptics by Associating Them with Tobacco Companies

On Tuesday 22 November , the BMJ ran an article titled “Understanding and Neutralizing Covid-19 Misinformation and Disinformation.” An entire treatise on logical fallacies could be written using nothing but examples culled from this piece. Some selections follow:

Flipping the script:

Some [covid skeptic organizations] benefit from generous funding from those opposed to what they term 'big government.’

Arguing from authority:

Inevitably, given the complex technical issues, differentiating fact from fiction can be difficult.

Guilt by association:

This was set in the Brussels Declaration, which was drafted with substantial input from the tobacco companies.

Begging the question:

In times of crisis, people are more susceptible to misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracy theories, probably because their important psychological needs are unfulfilled, leading to frustration.

Straw man argument:

5G technology having deleterious health effects were also mentioned.

More flipping the script:

Given the lack of transparency in allowing academic researchers to examine the potential harms of these platforms...

The piece mentions the tobacco companies three times but never gets around to telling us that forty-five percent of the candidates and lobbying groups receiving money from Pfizer -- the nation's biggest pharmaceutical donor since 2010 --have also received money from Altria, the parent company of R.J. Reynolds.

These people hate us.