Fake News Is a Real Public Health Threat
Tucker Carlson’s toxic disinformation about Covid vaccines may well cost someone their life
Let me cut to the chase: Fox News’ Tucker Carlson is spreading dangerous disinformation about the Covid-19 vaccines. Given his long history of questionable and controversial statements, this isn’t surprising. But this time, his falsehoods may cost someone their life.
On a recent episode of his massively popular prime time show, Carlson reported that nearly 4,000 Americans have died after getting vaccinated against Covid-19. On that, he’s right — those statistics are available on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s own website.
The problem is that Carlson didn’t stop at the facts. After insisting he was “only asking questions,” he crossed over into speculation. By claiming “it’s clear that what is happening now, for whatever reason, is not even close to normal,” he was trying to link these deaths directly to the Covid vaccines themselves.
Yet again, Carlson is wrong. His assertion of a direct cause-and-effect association between these deaths and the Covid-19 vaccines directly contradicts the CDC’s finding — in bold, and in the same paragraph, Carlson found the number of deaths he reported on the show — that no such causal link exists.
