I want you to imagine the wildest anti-vaxx claims you can think of. Go ahead. Let your mind run rampant, because whatever you come up with will pale in comparison to the actual anti-vaccination tweets that just got author Naomi Wolf’s Twitter account suspended. Wolf is perhaps best known for a 2019 incident in which she was promoting her newest book and learned, on-air during a radio interview, that the premise of said book was based on a misconception. The book’s release was later canceled.
On Monday, Wolf’s Twitter account was taken down after a history of sharing conspiracy theories and unfounded claims about vaccines. Among other falsehoods, Wolf has said vaccines are a “software platform that can receive uploads” and that “the best way to show respect for health-care workers if you are healthy and under 65 is to socialise sensibly and expose yourself to a low viral load.” To clarify, the COVID-19 vaccine is a vaccine, not a software platform, and health-care experts recommend that anyone who is able to get vaccinated.
In one of her most recent tweets before her account was suspended, per the BBC, Wolf said that vaccinated people’s urine and feces should be separated from general sewage supplies until tests are done to establish the impact the waste could have on unvaccinated people via drinking water. What — and I cannot stress this enough — the fuck? I’ll save you the humiliation of having to Google “anti-vaxx separating feces” to see where that notion even came from. The closest I could find is “vaccine shedding,” a false claim that the COVID-19 vaccine can release components of the virus outside the body. That is a myth, as no version of the COVID-19 vaccine contains the live virus.
In March, Wolf tweeted a photo credited to a Dr. John Sims in which Sims is quoted as saying, “If a vaccine is effective, then why do you need to pressure people to say it?” However, the quote was made up and the photo was actually of adult-film actor Johnny Sims. Wolf deleted the tweet before her account was suspended.
Wolf’s history of making absolutely buck-wild claims extends beyond vaccines. She has previously said that the city of Belfast feels “the way it did in the 1970s” because it doesn’t have 5G. She claimed to overhear a conversation from an Apple employee about nanoparticles that “let you travel back in time. Not kidding.” She has even compared Dr. Fauci to Satan. Truly, what lie hasn’t Wolf espoused?
Though some of her falsities are merely mockable, others are more sinister. In an April interview with Steve Bannon, Wolf compared mask mandates and other COVID restrictions to Jim Crow laws. Last month, Wolf told a U.S. congressional committee that vaccine passports would “re-create a situation that is very familiar to me as a student of history. This has been the start of many, many genocides.”
It’s unclear how long Wolf’s Twitter account will be suspended. Fingers crossed it’s for good.