A QAnon supporter participates in a rally against mandatory flu vaccines in Boston, Massachusetts, in August 2020. Source: Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images
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While the days of lockdowns and social distancing are behind us, anti-vaccine narratives remain prevalent on social media, and extremists continue to exploit these sentiments to recruit new members, raise money and mainstream their beliefs. Many extremists view anti-vaxxers as a massive pool of potential fresh recruits and followers primed for the “red pill.”
While the mainstreaming of once-fringe anti-vaccine beliefs poses obvious risks to public health, it also endangers society more broadly. Anti-vaccine beliefs are strongly associated with lack of trust in the government, media and public health—institutions that serve as bedrocks of any democracy. Extremists’ exploitation of anti-vaccine sentiments serves to strengthen extremist networks by creating opportunities for further recruitment, radicalization and, in extreme cases, violence targeting healthcare workers and public officials.
Extremists appear poised to exploit concerns about vaccine policies and mask mandates during the 2024 presidential election cycle – and during any surges in COVID-19, flu and respiratory virus cases. Drawing on baseless theories that the COVID-19 pandemic was “planned,” some conspiracy theorists and extremists have alleged that “global elites” and the “Deep State” are conspiring to release a new “plandemic” known as “Disease X” later in 2024, timed to interfere with the presidential election.
Using anti-vax beliefs to recruit and mainstream hate
For many extremists, the COVID-19 pandemic—and relatively quick vaccine rollout—reinforced long-standing fears about government control and efforts to “depopulate” the world, with some tying the vaccines into long-standing conspiracy theories about “white genocide” or a New World Order. They viewed the pandemic and vaccines as tools of manipulation by “global elites,” the government or – in some cases – Jews to strip people of their freedoms and bodily autonomy.
Animated by these grievances and longstanding distrust of the government, mainstream media and “big pharma,” some extremists have attempted to find common ground with anti-vaccine activists and the broader public, exploiting anti-vaccine sentiments to recruit new members and promote antisemitic, racist and Sinophobic conspiracy theories about the virus’s origins and the “true purpose” of vaccines.
Extremists incorporating anti-vax sentiments into propaganda
Since 2020, various white supremacist groups have incorporated anti-vaccine and COVID-19-related messaging into their propaganda.
The Goyim Defense League (GDL), a network of antisemitic provocateurs and white supremacists, has distributed fliers incorporating antisemitic anti-vaccine and COVID-19-related messages on at least 188 occasions since September 2021. For example, following reports that 2024 presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., during a July 2023 event, suggested COVID-19 had been “engineered” to spare Ashkenazi Jews, GDL created a flier featuring his quote along with the message, “Does COVID-19 target Blacks and Whites?”
Examples of antisemitic GDL fliers related to COVID-19 and vaccines.
Other white supremacist groups – such as the National Socialist Movement (NSM), Active Clubs, Patriot Front, the New Jersey European Heritage Association (NJEHA) and Hundred Handers – have also incorporated anti-vaccine and COVID-19-related messaging into their propaganda since 2020.
Examples of white supremacist propaganda incorporating anti-vaccine and COVID-19-related messages.
During a January 2022 demonstration in Kissimmee, Florida, NSM and GDL members displayed a banner that read “Vax the Jews,” a nod to conspiracy theories that COVID-19 vaccines are being used to kill people as part of a sinister global depopulation effort. Members of GDL and NatSoc Florida (NSF) also projected “Vax the Jews” and other antisemitic messages on buildings in Orlando, Florida, on New Year’s Eve 2022.
NSM and GDL members displayed a banner that read “Vax the Jews” during a January 2022 demonstration in Kissimmee, Florida. Source: Flashpoint
Promoting anti-vax sentiments at rallies and conferences
Seeking additional ways to inject their views into the mainstream and find potential recruits, some extremists participated in various anti-vaccine and lockdown demonstrations across the country.
Extremists and QAnon supporters have frequently participated in far-right political conferences that prominently feature anti-vax narratives, such as the “Reawaken America” tour in 2023. These events allowed convicted January 6th insurrectionist Dr. Simone Gold and Ann Vandersteel, a QAnon influencer and sovereign citizen, to rub elbows, and to hobnob with elected officials, political candidates and advisors to former President Trump, like Michael Flynn and Eric Trump. The appearance of political leaders and elected officials at these types of events lends legitimacy to anti-vaccine and other conspiratorial beliefs, helping to normalize and further propel them into the mainstream.
Various far-right extremists – including Three Percenters, Groypers, sovereign citizens, Proud Boys and QAnon adherents – were among the organizers and participants in the 2022 Canadian Freedom Convoy and U.S. People’s Convoy, which protested COVID-19 vaccine mandates, among other anti-government grievances. The late QAnon influencer Michael “Negative48” Protzman and a group of his followers joined the People’s Convoy in March 2022, teaching a fake version of numerology, or gematria, to convoy participants in hopes of attracting new people to their cause.
Michael Protzman teaches gematria to convoy participants in March 2022, using a truck door as a whiteboard. Source: Telegram
The January 2022 Defeat the Mandates Rally in Washington, D.C. – arguably the largest anti-vaccine demonstration in the U.S. in recent years – featured prominent Nation of Islam (NOI) member Rizza Islam as a speaker and drew members of the Proud Boys and white supremacist Groyper movement.
Disrupting public forums
Extremists have also promoted anti-vaccine beliefs at public forums such as city council meetings and legislative hearings, looking for opportunities to connect with like-minded citizens and harassing officials over their handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and promotion of vaccines.
On March 12, 2024, individuals associated with the Nevada county assembly, a sovereign citizen group, served members of the Nevada County, California Board of Supervisors with frivolous pseudo-legal documents demanding they vacate their positions within three days due to their promotion of the COVID-19 vaccines.
“We also demand that you immediately cease mandating all vaccinations, COVID-19 vaccinations, COVID-19 testing and masks to be worn and publicly broadcast your direction to the people through mass media,” the group’s representative told members of the board.
During a September 6, 2023, Marathon County, Wisconsin Health & Human Services Committee meeting, white supremacist and GDL associate Christopher Wood, who is currently running for mayor of Wausau, Wisconsin, read aloud the names of various Jewish figures who work for the CDC, Pfizer and Blackrock, implying Jews are behind the “COVID agenda.”
“I think a lot of people are well aware that COVID is a scam. Well, you know, the whole practice of it, everyone understands there's disease, but the fear that they've pushed is to such a great extent to try to control and manipulate us. So, I'm going to talk about who's actually behind it because not too many people want to do that,” Wood said.
Black nationalist Ayo Kimathi, known online as “Irritated Genie,” railed against vaccines during the Washington, D.C. city council’s June 22, 2023, meeting, accusing council members of willingly participating in “genocide against children in the United States of America.”
Through viral propaganda films
Extremists have also used the power of film to propel anti-vaccine views into the mainstream, producing and starring in several viral vaccine misinformation films in the years since the pandemic. These films, which have garnered millions of views, presented extremists with newfound platforms and fame – and an opportunity to normalize their hateful and conspiratorial beliefs.
The Nation of Islam’s Rizza Islam was featured in “Plandemic 3: The Great Awakening,” the third installment of Mikki Willis’ conspiratorial series about the COVID-19 pandemic, released in June 2023. Islam attended the film’s February 2024 Santa Monica Film Festival screening and accepted its “Best Feature Documentary” award.
Source: Instagram
California-based Nation of Islam Student Minister Tony Muhammad co-produced the anti-vaccine documentary “Medical Racism: The New Apartheid” with RFK Jr. and fellow anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Kevin Jenkins. The film, which targeted Black viewers and claimed the U.S. government sought to harm ethnic minorities through COVID-19 vaccines, had its first public showing at NOI’s Saviours’ Day weekend in February 2021, ahead of its official premiere in March 2021.
Meanwhile, “Died Suddenly,” which was released by far-right conspiracy theorist and antisemite Stew Peters in 2022, promotes the false claim that COVID-19 vaccines cause healthy individuals to develop deadly blood clots, suggesting this is proof that “global elites” are using the vaccines to depopulate the planet as part of a broader conspiracy to establish a global totalitarian regime. Conspiracy theorists have promoted this claim since the virus first emerged in 2020.
Despite being repeatedly debunked by fact checkers and medical experts, the claims promoted in “Died Suddenly” have gained a significant foothold. On X, formerly known as Twitter, the hashtag #DiedSuddenly has emerged as a rallying cry for anti-vaccine activists and conspiracy theorists who use it to promote baseless claims that the COVID-19 vaccine caused the deaths and illnesses of various individuals.
Data compiled by the ADL Center on Extremism shows that #DiedSuddenly was mentioned over 2.4 million times between November 21, 2022, and December 31, 2023, with posts mentioning the hashtag receiving more than 4.9 million likes and 2.5 million retweets.
Using anti-vax beliefs to generate revenue
Extremists and conspiracy theorists have also profited from anti-vaccine beliefs, leveraging them to sell merchandise and help people obtain religious exemptions from vaccines or alternative COVID-19 treatments.
The Goyim Defense League sells several conspiratorial anti-vaccine and COVID-19-related t-shirts via its online shop, drawing upon antisemitic conspiracy theories that the pandemic was a “hoax” orchestrated by Jews and that the vaccines are dangerous.
Examples of GDL’s anti-vaccine shirts
According to Media Matters researcher Alex Kaplan, in 2021, QAnon influencer Jeffrey Pedersen, known online as “intheMatrixxx”, collaborated with a religious ministry to help Americans obtain religious exemptions from COVID-19 vaccine mandates. The exemption letters were $17 for individuals using Pedersen’s referral code, a nod to the QAnon conspiracy theory (Q is the 17th letter of the alphabet).
In the early days of the pandemic, former QAnon promoter Dustin Nemos sold colloidal silver ($22.95 for one fluid ounce or $43.95 for four fluid ounces) as a supposed preventative treatment for COVID-19 via an online store; the FDA has warned that colloidal silver is not safe or effective for treating diseases and can cause serious side effects.
Far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has also hawked a range of dietary supplements and creams as treatments to prevent and cure COVID-19. In March 2020, New York Attorney General Letitia James sent Jones a cease and desist notice, ordering him to immediately stop “selling and marketing products as a treatment or cure for the coronavirus.”
How anti-vaccine narratives inform extremist violence and criminal activity
Over the past few years, dozens of healthcare workers and public officials have been harassed, threatened and even assaulted for administering or promoting vaccines, not just in the United States, but around the globe. This activity has been driven in part by vaccine mis/disinformation and conspiracy theories—which paint vaccines as inherently dangerous.
On February 4, 2024, Brian McGann Jr. allegedly beat his father, Brian McGann Sr., to death in a rage after learning his father had received a vaccine. He was charged with first-degree murder; a family friend told investigators that McGann Jr. was a “delusional conspiracy theorist.”
In August 2022, Romana Didulo, a Canadian QAnon figure who falsely claims to be the “Queen of Canada,” and around thirty of her supporters gathered in Peterborough, Ontario, to carry out “citizens arrests” on members of the Peterborough Police Service, who they claimed had committed “treason” for enforcing COVID-19 mandates. Several of Didulo’s supporters were arrested during the incident, which turned violent. Didulo’s followers have also been known to harass healthcare workers and public officials on other occasions, inspired by her fake "decrees" ordering the military to confiscate COVID-19 vaccines and instructing followers to arrest healthcare workers for administering COVID-19 vaccines to children.
November 2021 "decree" from Romana Didulo instructing U.S. followers to help confiscate and destroy COVID-19 vaccines and arrest individuals administering the vaccines to children. Source: Telegram
In August 2023, Tim Dever and Darris Moody were sentenced to ten years and two years in prison, respectively, on interstate threat charges for sending phony “writs of execution” to elected officials in North Carolina. Dever was one of the co-founders of the People’s Bureau of Investigation (PBI). This QAnon-influenced sovereign citizen group sought to “expose” and investigate government corruption in the United States by instructing members to “serve” fictitious writs against public officials. The fictitious writs accused government officials of various “crimes,” such as promoting COVID-19 vaccines.
The Wolverine Watchmen, who were arrested for plotting to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in October 2020, were motivated by anger over COVID-19 lockdown orders that sought to curb the virus’s spread.
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