Disturbing rise of the cult of hard-line anti-vaxxers

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This article was published 02/02/2022 (1702 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Make no mistake about it, there’s a cult of hard-line anti-vaxxers spreading across Canada that is becoming bolder, more daring — and more dangerous.

Fuelled by paranoia and conspiracy theories, these anti-vax cultists are taking more and more public action that threatens to become violent as they try to shove their far-right activism and vision of “freedom” into the national spotlight.

Most Canadians got their first real look at this anti-vax, anti-lockdown cult as they watched the trucker protests in recent days in downtown Ottawa and at the Alberta-Montana border.

Intoxicated by their power to gain widespread media coverage, not just here but around the world, these hard-line anti-vaxxers were on full display, spreading mayhem and fear, defying all public health guidelines around COVID-19, demanding the overthrow of the duly elected government, waving a Confederate flag (a symbol of white supremacy), threatening workers in fast-food outlets and more.

The more serious long-term threat from this new anti-vax cult is its ability to spread disinformation (along with warnings of pending violence) to their followers via social media and other online outlets.

Importantly, it’s up to those of us who are vaccinated, as well as the more rational among vaccine-hesitant Canadians, to call out this cult-like behaviour and show we don’t in any way support it.

A cult is generally considered to be a group or movement held together by a shared belief or cause that is generally unacceptable to mainstream society and creates obedience and dependency by requiring a high level of commitment by its followers.

Steven Hassan, a leading U.S. cult expert and former Moonie cult member, says anti-vaxxers are using the same tactics as religious cults to gain followers. Writing for CNN Business Perspectives last fall, he says cult leaders use emotional-control techniques that expose people to a series of “persistent, irrational fears that initiate a closed cycle of fearful images, thoughts and feelings.”

“Anti-vax influencers” are using the same techniques today, Hassan argues, noting they use social media “to bombard their targets with message that sow doubt, fear and confusion about the COVID-19 vaccine.”

Specifically, they highlight examples of adverse vaccine reactions without saying how rare they are, withhold positive information about the vaccines, distort information by misinterpreting data, casting doubt about public-health experts, and spreading outright lies on social media about vaccinations.

Here in Canada, cult-like anti-vaxxers are stepping up their tactics of harassment and intimidation, especially against health-care professionals and politicians — all with the aim of getting them to reverse their stand on the need for vaccinations and some lockdown restrictions.

One Canadian medical officer of health, writing anonymously last week in the Healthy Debate online website, argues that anti-vaxxers, who have protested outside their home, “demonstrate a cult-like phenomenon and are conflating broad antagonism with the system and government with anti-vaccination (and anti-lockdown, anti-mask) rhetoric.”

Journalists are also targeted by anti-vax cultists. Like the health-care workers and politicians, they receive warnings that their homes are being watched, their addresses and vehicle licence plate numbers are being posted online.

How can we fight back against this cult’s misinformation and intimidation tactics that threaten the health of all of us?

First, share good information about vaccines from trusted medical experts.

Second, don’t try to engage with anti-vaxxers on social media to point out the errors and lies in their misinformation campaigns because it can backfire by just spreading their lies to a wider audience.

Three, insist that police act to ensure the safety of health-care workers and others by laying criminal charges against anti-vaxxers who harass or intimidate them.

We should not remain silent.

That’s because, as the medical officer of health stated so forcefully in Healthy Debates, “we need to act urgently before more individuals are recruited, their support base grows and confidence in vaccines and public health more broadly erodes further.”

Bob Hepburn is a Star politics columnist based in Toronto. Twitter: @BobHepburn