His claims decrying vaccines have roiled scientists and medical experts and stoked anger over whether his work harms children. He has made suggestions about the cause of covid-19 that he acknowledges sound racist and antisemitic.

Bolstered by his famous name and family’s legacy, his campaign of conspiracy theories has gained an electoral andÌý. He is running as an independent — having abandoned his pursuit of the Democratic Party nomination — andÌýraisedÌý. A political action committee pledged to spend between $10 million and $15 million to get his name on the ballot in 10 states.

Even though he spent the past two decades as a prominent leader of the anti-vaccine movement, Kennedy rejects a blanket “anti-vax” label that heÌýÌýin July makes him “look crazy, like a conspiracy theorist.”

But Kennedy draws bogus conclusions from scientific work. He employs “circumstantial evidence” as if it is proof. In TV,Ìý,Ìýand political appearances for his campaign in 2023, Kennedy steadfastly maintained:

• Vaccines cause autism.
• No childhood vaccines “have ever been tested in a safety study pre-licensing.”
• There is “tremendous circumstantial evidence” that psychiatric drugs cause mass shootings, and the National Institutes of Health refuses to research the link out of deference to pharmaceutical companies.
• Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine were discredited as covid-19 treatments so covid vaccines could be granted emergency use authorization, a win for Big Pharma.
• Exposure to the pesticide atrazine contributes to gender dysphoria in children.
• Ìý“targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”

For Kennedy, the conspiracies aren’t limited to public health. Ìý“members of the CIA” were involved in the assassination of his uncle, John F. Kennedy.ÌýÌý“believe that (Sirhan) Sirhan’s bullets ever hit my father,” former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.ÌýÌýthe 2004 presidential election was stolen from Democratic candidate John Kerry.

Ìý, includingÌý, have documented why those claims, andÌýÌý, are false, speculative, or conspiracy-minded.

Kennedy has sat for numerous interviews and dismissed the critics, not with the grievance and bluster of former President Donald Trump, but with a calm demeanor. He amplifies the alleged plot and repeats dubious scientific evidence and historical detail.

Will his approach translate to votes? InÌý of a three-way matchup between President Joe Biden, Trump, and Kennedy, Kennedy pulled 16% to 22% of respondents.

Kennedy’s movement exemplifies the resonance of conspiratorial views. Misinformers with organized efforts are rewarded with money and loyalty. But that doesn’t make the claims true.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign based on false theories is PolitiFact’s 2023 Lie of the Year.

How an Environmental Fighter Took Up Vaccines

Kennedy, the third of 11 children, was 9 when he was picked up on Nov. 22, 1963, from Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C., because Lee Harvey Oswald had shot and killed Uncle Jack. He was 14 when he learned that his father had been shot by Sirhan Sirhan following a victory speech after the California Democratic presidential primary.

RFK Jr., who turns 70 in January, wouldn’t begin to publicly doubt the government’s findings about the assassinations untilÌý.

As a teenager, heÌý. He was expelled from two boarding schools andÌý for marijuana possession. None of that slowed an elite path through higher education, including Harvard University for his bachelor’s degree and the University of Virginia for his law degree.

HeÌýÌýas an assistant district attorney in Manhattan in 1982 but failed the bar exam and resigned the next year. Two months later, he was arrested for heroin possession after falling ill on a flight. HisÌýÌýinvolved a drug treatment program, aÌý,Ìýand volunteer work with a local anglers’ association that patrolled the Hudson River for evidence of pollution that could lead to lawsuits.

Kennedy’s involvement with Hudson Riverkeeper and the Natural Resources Defense Council ushered in a long chapter of environmental litigation and advocacy.

An outdoorsman and falconer, Kennedy sued companies and government agencies over pollution in the Hudson River and its watershed. (He joined the New York barÌý.) He earned a master’s degree in environmental law at Pace University, where he started aÌýÌýto primarily assist Riverkeeper’s legal work. He helped negotiate a 1997 agreement that protected upstate New York reservoirs supplying New York City’s drinking water.

In 1999, Kennedy founded the Waterkeeper Alliance, an international group of local river and bay-keeper organizations that act as their “community’s coast guard,” he toldÌý. He stayed with the groupÌý, when he left “to devote himself, full-time, to other issues.”

On Joe Rogan’s podcast in June, Kennedy said that virtually all of his litigation involved “some scientific controversy. And so, I’m comfortable with reading science and I know how to read it critically.”

PolitiFact did not receive a response from Kennedy’s campaign for this story.

He became concerned about mercury pollution from coal-burning power plants;ÌýmethylmercuryÌýcan , posing a risk to humans and wildlife. As he traveled around the country,Ìý,Ìýwomen started appearing in the front rows of his mercury lectures.

“They would say to me in kind of a respectful but vaguely scolding way, ‘If you’re really interested in mercury contamination exposure to children, you need to look at the vaccines,’” Kennedy told Rogan, whose showÌý an episode.

Kennedy said the women sounded “rational” as they explained a link between their children’s autism and vaccines. “They weren’t excitable,” he said. “And they had done their research, and I was like, ‘I should be listening to these people, even if they’re wrong.’”

He did more than listen. In June 2005, Rolling Stone and Salon co-published Kennedy’s article “Deadly Immunity.” Kennedy toldÌýÌýabout a study that revealed a mercury-based additive once used in vaccines, thimerosal, “may have caused autism in thousands of kids.” Kennedy alleged that preeminent health agencies — the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, the World Health Organization — had colluded with vaccine manufacturers “to conceal the data.”

Kennedy’s premiseÌýÌýÌýas inaccurate and missing context. He left out the ultimate conclusion of the , by Thomas Verstraeten, which said “no consistent significant associations were found between [thimerosal-containing vaccines] and neurodevelopmental outcomes.”

Kennedy didn’t clearly state that,Ìý, thimerosalÌýwas not being usedÌýin childhood vaccines when his article was published. He also misrepresented the comments of health agency leaders at a June 2000 meeting, pullingÌýcertainÌýportions of a 286-page transcript thatÌýappeared to supportÌýKennedy’s collusion narrative.

Scientists who have studied thimerosal have found no evidence that the additive, used to prevent germ growth, causes harm, according to aÌý about thimerosal. Unlike the mercury in some fish, the CDC says, thimerosal “doesn’t stay in the body, and is unlikely to make us sick.”ÌýÌýÌýhas not established a link between thimerosal and autism.

By the end of July 2005, Kennedy’s Salon article had been appended with five correction notes. In 2011, SalonÌý. ItÌý.

Salon’s retraction was part of a broader conspiracy of caving “under pressure from the pharmaceutical industry,” Kennedy told Rogan. The then-Salon editorÌý, saying they “caved to pressure from the incontrovertible truth and our journalistic consciences.”

Kennedy has not wavered in his belief: “Well, I do believe that autism does come from vaccines,” ÌýFox News’ Jesse Watters in July.

David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker, interviewedÌýKennedyÌýfor a . Noting that Kennedy was focusing more on vaccine testing rather than outright opposition, Remnick asked him whether he was having second thoughts.

“I’ve read the science on autism and I can tell you, if you want to know,” Kennedy said. “David, you’ve got to answer this question: If it didn’t come from the vaccines, then where is it coming from?”

How Covid-19 Helped RFK Jr.’s Vaccine-Skeptical Crusade

In 2016, KennedyÌý to address mercury in fish, medicines, and vaccines. In 2018,ÌýÌýChildren’s Health Defense, a legal advocacy group that works “aggressively to eliminate harmful exposures,” its website says.

Since at least 2019, Children’s Health Defense has supported andÌýÌýchallenging vaccination requirements,Ìý,Ìýand social media companies’ misinformation policies (including aÌý against Facebook and The Poynter Institute, which owns PolitiFact).

From the beginning, the group hasÌýsolicitedÌýstories about children “injured” by environmental toxins or vaccines. This year, it launched a national bus tour to collect testimonials. The organization also produces documentary-style films and books, including Kennedy’s “The Wuhan Cover-Up and the Terrifying Bioweapons Arms Race” and “The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health.”

In 2020, Children’s Health Defense and the anti-vaccine movement turned attention to the emerging public health crisis.

Kolina Koltai, a senior researcher at Bellingcat, an investigative journalism group, had seen anti-vaccine groups try to seize on Zika and Ebola outbreaks, with little success. But the covid-19 pandemic provided “the exact scenario” needed to create mass dissent: widespread fear and an information vacuum.

Children’s Health DefenseÌýÌýÌýin March and April 2020 claiming the “viral terror” was an attempt to enact the “global immunization agenda” and a “dream come true” for dictators. The group echoed these points in ads and social media posts and grew its audience, includingÌý.

On X, then known as Twitter, Children’s Health Defense outperformed news outlets that met NewsGuard’s criteria for trustworthiness from the third quarter of 2020 to the fourth quarter of 2021, according to Ìýby the German Marshall Fund think tank, even as Children’s Health Defense published Ìýabout covid-19 and vaccines.

In 2019, Children’s Health DefenseÌýreportedÌýit had , and paid Kennedy a $255,000 salary. Its revenue grew 440% through 2021, according toÌý, hitting $15.99 million. Kennedy’s salary increased to $497,013. (Its 2022 form 990 for tax disclosure is not yet public. Kennedy has been on leave from the organization since he entered the presidential race in April.)

On social media, the message had limits. Meta removed Kennedy’s personal Instagram account inÌýÌýfor spreading false claims about covid-19 and vaccines, the company said, but left his Facebook account active. A year and a half later, Meta banned Children’s Health Defense’s main Facebook and Instagram accounts for “repeatedly” violating its medical misinformation policies.ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý.

As the group’s face, Kennedy became a leader of a movement opposed to masks and stay-at-home orders, said David H. Gorski, managing editor of Science-Based Medicine and a professor of surgery and oncology at the Wayne State University School of Medicine.

“The pandemic produced a new generation of anti-vaxxers who had either not been prominent before or who were not really anti-vax before,” Gorski said. “But none of them had the same cultural cachet that comes with being a Kennedy that RFK Jr. has.”

Rallying a crowd before the Lincoln Memorial on Jan. 23, 2022, Kennedy protested covid-19 countermeasures alongside commentator Lara Logan and anti-vaccineÌý. The crowdÌýÌýÌýreading “Nuremberg Trials 2.0” and “free choice, no masks, no tests, no vax.” When Kennedy took the stage, mention of his role with Children’s Health Defense prompted anÌý.

In his speech, KennedyÌýÌýto denounce the “turnkey totalitarianism” of a society that requires vaccinations to travel, uses digital currency and 5G, and is monitored by Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates’ satellites: “Even in Hitler’s Germany, you could cross the Alps into Switzerland. You could hide in an attic like Anne Frank did.”

Days later, facing criticism fromÌý, the actor Cheryl Hines,Ìý, and Holocaust memorial organizations, Kennedy issued aÌýÌýfor his comments.

Asked about his wife’s comment onÌý, he said his remarks were taken out of context but that he had to apologize because of his family.

Recycle. Repeat. Repeat.

When he’s asked about his views, Kennedy calmly searchesÌýhis rhetorical laboratory for recycled talking points, selective research findings, the impression of voluminous valid studies, speculation, and inarguable authority from his experience. He refers to institutions, researchers, and reports, by name, in quick succession, shifting points before interviewers can note what was misleading or cherry-picked.

There is power in repetition. Take his persistent claim that vaccines are not safety-tested.

• In July, he told “,” “Vaccines are the only medical product that is not safety-tested prior to licensure.”
• OnÌýÌýon PBS NewsHour, Kennedy said vaccines are “the only medical product or medical device that is allowed to get a license without engaging in safety tests.”
• On Dec. 15, heÌý’s Kasie Hunt that no childhood vaccines have “ever been tested in a safety study pre-licensing.”

This is false. Vaccines, including theÌý, areÌýÌýbefore they are licensed. Researchers gather initial safety data and information about side effects during phase 1 clinical trials on groups of 20 to 100 people. If no safety concerns are identified, subsequent phasesÌýÌýof larger numbers of volunteers to evaluate a vaccine’s effectiveness and monitor side effects.

Kennedy sometimes says that some vaccines weren’t tested against inactive injections or placebos. That has an element of truth: If using a placebo would disadvantage or potentially endanger a patient, researchers might test new vaccinesÌýÌýwith known side effects.

But vaccines are among “the most tested and vetted” pharmaceutical products given to children, said Patricia Stinchfield, a pediatric nurse practitioner and the president of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases.

Kennedy encourages parents to research questions on their own, saying doctors and other experts are invariably compromised.

“They are taking as gospel what the CDC tells them,” Kennedy said on Bari Weiss’ Ìýin June.

Public health agencies have been “serving the mercantile interests of the pharmaceutical companies, and you cannot believe anything that they say,” Kennedy said.

Experts fret that the Kennedy name carries weight.

“When he steps forward and he says the government’s lying to you, the FDA is lying to you, the CDC is lying to you, he has credence, because he’s seen as someone who is a product of the government,” said Paul Offit, a pediatrics professor in the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s infectious diseases division and the director of the hospital’s Vaccine Education Center. “He’s like a whistleblower in that sense. He’s been behind the scenes, so he knows what it looks like, and he’s telling you that you’re being lied to.”

Kennedy name-drops studies that don’t support his commentary. When speaking with Rogan, Kennedy encouraged the podcaster’s staff to show a particular 2010 study that found that exposure to the herbicide atrazine caused some male frogs to develop female sex organs and become infertile.

Kennedy has repeatedly invoked that frog study to support his position that “we should all be looking at” atrazine and its impact on human beings. The researcher behind the studyÌýÌýin June that Kennedy’s atrazine claims were “speculation” given the vast differences between humans and amphibians.ÌýNo scientific studies in humansÌýlink atrazine exposure to gender dysphoria.

In July, Kennedy floated the idea that covid-19 could have been “ethnically targeted” to “attack Caucasians and Black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.” The claim wasÌý, but Kennedy insisted that it was backed by a July 2020 study by Chinese researchers. Ìýdidn’t find that Chinese people were less affected by the virus. It said one of the virus’s receptors seemed to be absent in the Amish and in Ashkenazi Jews and theorized that genetic factors might increase covid-19 severity.

Five months later, Kennedy invoked the study andÌý: “I can understand why people were disturbed by those remarks. They certainly weren’t antisemitic. … I was talking about a true study, an NIH-funded study.”

“I wish I hadn’t said them, but, you know, what I said was true.”

Kennedy answered using scientific terms (“furin cleave,” “ACE2 receptor”), but he ignoredÌýexplanations foundÌýin the study. He didn’t account for how the original virus has evolved since 2020, or how the study emphasized these potential mutations were rare and would haveÌýlittle to no public health impact.

Public health experts say that racial disparities in covid-19 infection and mortality — in the U.S., Black and Hispanic people often faced more severe covid-19 outcomes — resulted fromÌýsocial and economic inequities, not genetics.

Kennedy says “circumstantial evidence” is enough.

Antidepressants are linked to school shootings, he told listeners on a livestream hosted by Elon Musk. The government should have begun studying the issue years ago, he said, because “there’s tremendous circumstantial evidence that those, like SSRIs and benzos and other drugs, are doing this.”

Experts in psychiatry have ÌýandÌýÌýÌýthat there is no causal relationship between antidepressants and shootings. With 13% of the adult population using antidepressants, experts say that if the link were true they would expect higher rates of violence. Also, theÌýavailable dataÌýon U.S. school shootings shows most shooters were not using psychiatric medicines, which have an anti-violence effect.

Conspiracy Theories, Consequences, and a Presidential Campaign

The anti-censorship candidate frames his first bid for public office as a response to “18 years” of being shunned for his views — partly by the government, but also by private companies.

“You’re protected so much from censorship if you’re running for president,” Ìýconservative Canadian podcaster and psychologistÌýJordan Peterson in June.

In June, Kennedy’s Instagram account wasÌýreinstatedÌý— with a verified badge noting he is a public figure. Meta’s rules on misinformation do not apply to active political candidates. (PolitiFact is a partner of Meta’s Third Party Fact-Checking Program, which seeks to reduce false content on the platform.)

In July, he was invitedÌýÌýbefore the Republican-led House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. He repeated that he had “never been anti-vax,” and railed against the Biden White House forÌýÌýto remove his January 2021 tweet that said Baseball Hall of Famer Hank Aaron’s death was “part of a wave of suspicious deaths among elderly,” weeks after Aaron, 86, received a covid-19 vaccine. The medical examiner’s office said Aaron died from unrelated natural causes.

Throughout 2023, alternative media has embraced Kennedy. He hasÌýÌýpodcasts such as Peterson’s, and has also participated in profiles byÌý,Ìý,ÌýandÌýÌý.

“You’re like, ‘But you’re talking right now. I’m listening to you. I hear your words. You’re not being censored,’” said Whitney Phillips, an assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Communication at the University of Oregon who researches how news media covers conspiracy theories and their proponents. “But a person can believe they’re being censored because they’ve internalized that they’re going to be,” or they know making the claim will land with their audience.

Time will tell whether his message resonates with voters.

Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, said Kennedy may be a “placeholder” for voters who are dissatisfied with Trump and Biden and will take a third option when offered by pollsters.

The only 2024 candidate whose favorability ratings are more positive than negative? , according toÌýFiveThirtyEight. However, a much higher percentage of voters are unfamiliar with him than they are with Trump or Biden — about a quarter — and Kennedy’s favorability edge has decreased as his campaign has gone on.

Nevertheless, third-party candidates historically finish with a fraction of their polling, Kondik said, and voters will likely have more names and parties on their fall ballots, including philosopher Cornel West, physician Jill Stein, and a potential slate from theÌýÌýmovement.

Kennedy was popular with conservative commentators before he became an independent, and he has avoided pointedly criticizing Trump, except on covid-19 lockdowns. When NBC News askedÌýÌýwhat he thought of Trump’s 2020 election lies, Kennedy said he believed Trump lost, but that, in general, people who believe elections were stolen “should be listened to.” Kennedy is one of them. He still says that the 2004 presidential election was “stolen” from Kerry in favor of Republican George W. Bush,Ìý.

American Values 2024 will spendÌýÌýto get Kennedy’s name on the ballot in 10 states including Arizona, California, Indiana, New York, and Texas. Those are five of the toughest states for ballot access, said Richard Winger, co-editor of Ballot Access News.

Four of Kennedy’s siblingsÌýcalledÌýKennedy’s decision to run as an independent to the nation. “Bobby might share the same name as our father, but he does not share the same values, vision or judgment,” the group wrote in a joint statement.

Kennedy brushes it off when asked, saying he has a large family and some members support him.

On her podcast, Weiss asked whether Kennedy worried his position on autism and vaccines would cloud his other positions and cost him votes. His answer ignored his history.

“Show me where I got it wrong,” he said, “and I’ll change.”

In a campaign constructed by lies, that might be the biggest one.

PolitiFact researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.​

PolitiFact’s source list can be found .

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Lies infected America in 2020. The very worst were not just damaging, but deadly.Ìý

President Donald Trump fueled confusion and conspiracies from the earliest days of the coronavirus pandemic. He embraced theories that COVID-19 accounted for only a small fraction of the thousands upon thousands of deaths. He undermined public health guidance for wearing masks and cast Dr. Anthony Fauci .Ìý

But the infodemic was not the work of a single person.Ìý

Anonymous bad actors offered up junk science. Online skeptics made bogus accusations that hospitals padded their coronavirus case numbers to generate bonus payments. Influential TV and radio opinion hosts told millions of viewers that and that states had all of the personal protective equipment they needed (when ).

It was a symphony of counter-narrative, and Trump was the conductor, if not the composer. The message: The threat to your health was overhyped to hurt the political fortunes of the president.Ìý

Every year, PolitiFact editors review the year’s most inaccurate statements to elevate one as the Lie of the Year. The “award” goes to a statement, or a collection of claims, that prove to be of substantive consequence in undermining reality.Ìý

It has become harder and harder to choose when cynical pundits and politicians don’t pay much of a price for saying things that aren’t true. For the past month, of massive election fraud have tested democratic institutions and certainly qualify as historic and dangerously baldfaced. Fortunately, the constitutional foundations that undergird American democracy are holding.Ìý

Meanwhile, the coronavirus more than 300,000 in the United States, a crisis exacerbated by the reckless spread of falsehoods.

PolitiFact’s 2020 Lie of the Year: claims that deny, downplay or disinform about COVID-19.Ìý

‘I Wanted to Always Play It Down’

On Feb. 7, Trump book author Bob Woodward about the dangers of the new virus that was spreading across the world, originating in central China. He told the legendary reporter that the virus was airborne, tricky and “more deadly than even your strenuous flus.”

Trump told the public something else. On , the president appeared with his coronavirus task force in the crowded White House briefing room. A reporter asked if he was telling healthy Americans not to change their behavior.

“Wash your hands, stay clean. You don’t have to necessarily grab every handrail unless you have to,” he said, the room chuckling. “I mean, view this the same as the flu.”

Three weeks later, , he acknowledged to Woodward: “To be honest with you, I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down. Because I don’t want to create a panic.”

His acolytes in politics and the media were on the same page. Rush Limbaugh told his audience of on Feb. 24 that the coronavirus was being against Trump when it was just “the common cold, folks.” —Ìýeven in the early weeks, it was clear the virus had a higher fatality rate than the common cold, with worse potential side effects, too.

As the virus was spreading, so was the message to downplay it.Ìý

“There are lots of sources of misinformation, and there are lots of elected officials besides Trump that have not taken the virus seriously or promoted misinformation,” said Brendan Nyhan, a government professor at Dartmouth College. “It’s not solely a Trump story — and it’s important to not take everyone else’s role out of the narrative.”Ìý

Hijacking the NumbersÌý

In August, there was a growing movement on Twitter to the U.S. COVID-19 death toll.ÌýÌý

The skeptics Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data to claim that only 6% of COVID-19 deaths could actually be attributed to the virus. On Aug. 24, BlazeTV host Steve Deace on Facebook.

“Here’s the percentage of people who died OF or FROM Covid with no underlying comorbidity,” he said to his 120,000 followers. “According to CDC, that is just 6% of the deaths WITH Covid so far.”

That misrepresented the reality of coronavirus deaths. The CDC had always people with underlying health problems — comorbidities — were most vulnerable if they caught COVID-19. The report was noting that 6% died even without being at obvious risk.Ìý

But for those skeptical of COVID-19, the narrative confirmed their beliefs. Facebook users copied and pasted language from influencers like , who 2.2 million Facebook followers before he was banned. called it a “SHOCK REPORT.”

“I saw a statistic come out the other day, talking about only 6% of the people actually died from COVID, which is very interesting — that they died from other reasons,” Trump Fox News host Laura Ingraham on Sept. 1.

Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, addressed the claim on “ the same day.Ìý

“The point that the CDC was trying to make was that a certain percentage of them had nothing else but just COVID,” he said. “That does not mean that someone who has hypertension or diabetes who dies of COVID didn’t die of COVID-19 — they did.”

Trump the message that sported the slogans and symbols of QAnon, that claims Democrats and Hollywood elites are members of an underground pedophilia ring.Ìý

False information moved between social media, Trump and TV, creating its own feedback loop.

“It’s an echo effect of sorts, where Donald Trump is certainly looking for information that resonates with his audiences and that supports his political objectives. And his audiences are looking to be amplified, so they’re incentivized to get him their information,” said Kate Starbird, an associate professor and misinformation expert at the University of Washington.

Weakening the Armor: Misleading on Masks

At the start of the pandemic, the CDC healthy people not to wear masks, saying they were needed for health care providers on the front lines. But on April 3 the agency changed its guidelines, saying every American should wear non-medical cloth masks in public.

Trump the CDC’s guidance, then gutted it.

“So it’s voluntary. You don’t have to do it. They suggested for a period of time, but this is voluntary,” Trump said at a press briefing. “I don’t think I’m going to be doing it.”

Rather than an advance in best practices on coronavirus prevention, face masks turned into a dividing line between Trump’s political calculations and his decision-making as president. Americans didn’t see Trump wearing a mask until to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

Meanwhile, disinformers flooded the internet with wild claims: Masks . Masks . Masks Masks just .

In September, the CDC a correlation between people who went to bars and restaurants, where masks can’t consistently be worn, and positive COVID-19 test results. and skeptical countered with a misleading report about masks.

On Oct. 13, the story landed on Fox News’ flagship show, “Tucker Carlson Tonight.” During the show, Carlson “almost everyone — 85% — who got the coronavirus in July was wearing a mask.”

“So clearly [wearing a mask] doesn’t work the way they tell us it works,” Carlson said.

, and it misrepresented a small sample of people who tested positive. Public health officials and infectious disease experts have been consistent since April in saying that face masks are to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

But two days later, Trump repeated the 85% stat during and at a town hall with NBC’s Savannah Guthrie.Ìý

“I tell people, wear masks,” at the town hall. “But just the other day, they came out with a statement that 85% of the people that wear masks catch it.”

The Assault on HospitalsÌý

On March 24, registered nurse Melissa Steiner worked her first shift in the new COVID-19 ICU of her southeastern Michigan hospital. After her 13-hour workday caring for two critically ill patients on ventilators, she posted .

“Honestly, guys, it felt like I was working in a war zone,” Steiner said. “[I was] completely isolated from my team members, limited resources, limited supplies, limited responses from physicians because they’re just as overwhelmed.”Ìý

“I’m already breaking, so for f—’s sake, people, please take this seriously. This is so bad.”

Steiner’s post was one of offered by overwhelmed hospital workers last spring urging people to take the threat seriously. The denialists mounted a counteroffensive.

On March 28, Todd Starnes, a conservative radio host and commentator, a video from outside Brooklyn Hospital Center. There were few people or cars in sight.

“This is the ‘war zone’ outside the hospital in my Brooklyn neighborhood,” Starnes said sarcastically. The video racked up more than 1.5 million views.

Starnes’ video the first examples of #FilmYourHospital, a conspiratorial social media trend that pushed back on the idea that hospitals had been strained by of coronavirus patients.Ìý

Several internet personalities to go out and shoot their own videos. The result: a series of user-generated clips taken outside hospitals, where the response to the pandemic was not easily seen. Over the course of a week, #FilmYourHospital videos were uploaded to YouTube and posted tens of thousands of times on and .

Nearly two weeks and more than later, Fox News featured a guest who opened a new misinformation assault on hospitals.

Dr. Scott Jensen, a Minnesota physician and Republican state senator, that, because hospitals were receiving more money for COVID-19 patients on Medicare — a result of a coronavirus stimulus bill — they were overcounting COVID-19 cases. He had no proof of fraud, but the cynical .Ìý

Trump used the false report on the campaign trail to continue to minimize the death toll.Ìý

“Our doctors get more money if somebody dies from COVID,” Trump told supporters at a rally in . “You know that, right? I mean, our doctors are very smart people. So what they do is they say, ‘I’m sorry, but, you know, everybody dies of COVID.’”ÌýÌý

The Real Fake News: The Plandemic

The most viral disinformation of the pandemic was styled to look as if it had the blessing of people : scientists and doctors.

In a 26-minute video called “Plandemic: The Hidden Agenda Behind COVID-19,” a former scientist at the National Cancer Institute the virus was manipulated in a lab, hydroxychloroquine is effective against coronaviruses, and face masks make people sick.Ìý

Judy Mikovits’ conspiracies received more than 8 million views, partly credited to the online outrage machine — anti-vaccine activists, anti-lockdown groups and QAnon supporters — that push disinformation into the mainstream. The video in to promote Mikovits’ book release.

Around the same time, a similar effort propelled another video of fact-averse doctors to millions of people in only a few hours.Ìý

On July 27, Breitbart of a press conference hosted by a group called America’s Frontline Doctors in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. Looking authoritative in white lab coats, these doctors discouraged mask-wearing and there was already a cure in hydroxychloroquine, a drug used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and lupus.

Trump, who had been talking up the drug since and claimed to be taking it himself as a preventive measure in , clips of the event before Twitter as misinformation about COVID-19. He defended the “very respected doctors” in a .Ìý

When Olga Lucia Torres, a lecturer at Columbia University, heard Trump touting the drug in March, she knew it didn’t bode well for her own prescription. Sure enough, the misinformation led to a run on hydroxychloroquine, creating a shortage for Americans like her who needed the drug for chronic conditions.Ìý

A lupus patient, she went to her local pharmacy to request a 90-day supply of the medication. But she was told they were granting only partial refills. It took her three weeks to get her medication through the mail.Ìý

“What about all the people who were silenced and just lost access to their staple medication because people ran to their doctors and begged to take it?” Torres said.

No Sickbed Conversion

On Sept. 26, Trump hosted a Rose Garden ceremony to announce his nominee to replace the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the U.S. Supreme Court. More than 150 people the event introducing Amy Coney Barrett. Few wore masks, and the chairs spaced out.

In the weeks afterward, people close to Trump and the White House became infected with COVID-19. Early on Oct. 2, Trump announced his positive test.

Those hoping the experience and Trump’s at Walter Reed might inform his view of the coronavirus were disappointed.ÌýTrump snapped back into minimizing the threat during his first moments back at the White House. He yanked off his mask and .

“Don’t let it dominate you. Don’t be afraid of it,” he said, describing experimental and mostly out-of-reach therapies he received. “You’re going to beat it.”Ìý

In Trump’s telling, his hospitalization was not the product of poor judgment about large gatherings like the Rose Garden event, but the consequence of leading with bravery. Plus, now, he claimed, he had immunity to the virus.

On the morning after he returned from Walter Reed, Trump tweeted a seasonal flu death count of 100,000 lives and added that COVID-19 was “far less lethal” for most populations. More false claims at — the U.S. average for flu deaths over the past decade is 36,000, and experts said COVID-19 is more deadly for each age group over 30.

When Trump left the hospital, the U.S. death toll from COVID-19 was more than . Today it is more than 300,000. Meanwhile, this month the president has with a series of indoor holiday parties.Ìý

The Vaccine WarÌý

The vaccine disinformation campaign started in the spring but is still underway.

In April, blogs and social media users falsely claimed and powerful figures like wanted to use microchips to track which Americans had been vaccinated for the coronavirus. Now, false claims are taking aim at vaccines developed by Pfizer and BioNTech and .

• A blogger claimed Pfizer’s head of research said the coronavirus vaccine could cause female infertility. That’s
• An alternative health website wrote that the vaccine could cause an array of life-threatening side effects, and that the FDA knew about it. The list included all possible — — side effects.
• Social media users speculated that the federal government would force Americans to receive the vaccine. Neither Trump nor President-elect Joe Biden has advocated for that, and the federal government to mandate vaccines, anyway.

As is often the case with disinformation, the strategy is to deliver it with a charade of certainty.Ìý

“People are anxious and scared right now,” said Dr. Seema Yasmin, director of research and education programs at the Stanford Health Communication Initiative. “They’re looking for a whole picture.”Ìý

Most polls far from universal acceptance of vaccines, with only 50% to 70% of respondents willing to take the vaccine. Black and Hispanic Americans are even less likely to take it so far.

Meanwhile, the future course of the coronavirus in the U.S. depends on whether Americans take public health guidance to heart. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation , without mask mandates or a rapid vaccine rollout, the death toll could rise to more than 500,000 by April 2021.

“How can we come to terms with all that when people are living in separate informational realities?” Starbird said.

PolitiFact staff researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

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