Conspiracy theorists made Tiffany Dover into an anti-vaccine icon. She’s finally ready to talk about it. (1 Viewer)

[BlueTex]

Sad tale of mismanaged communication and the power of misinformation...

Tiffany did eventually post to her personal Instagram account. A few months after she fainted, she posted a carousel of photos from a family vacation in Colorado. But when she got back to work, she was formally reprimanded with a “work improvement plan,” which was viewed by NBC News. Among the concerns, the hospital listed “appropriateness and representation of self and hospital via social media.” It said her recent posts had started up the calls again and “dramatically affected hospital operations.” It recommended that she delete her account.

Tiffany was deflated. For the first time in her career, she said she felt like she was in trouble at work. Then her mother and grandmother both got very sick with Covid. Her mother improved, but Tiffany’s grandmother died in her unit. Outside of the hospital, she was still facing daily intrusions by conspiracy theorists.

Beyond anti-vaccine activists, Tiffany got the attention of QAnon followers, who accused Tiffany of being involved with a pedophile ring. In private messages and comments on her family’s social media posts, they claimed photos of pizza at her daughter’s birthday party and an old Halloween costume where Tiffany dressed up as the Little Caesars mascot proved her guilt. (The “pizzagate” conspiracy theory predated QAnon and posits that pizza is a secret code for child sexual abuse.)

In 2022, Christopher Key, an anti-vaccine activist who goes by the moniker “Vaccine Police,” came to Tiffany’s home. She was babysitting her 3-month-old nephew at the time. Tiffany called the police, and Key later posted a video online that he made from outside her home.

She became an anti-vaccine icon, and vanished. She’s finally ready to talk about it.

The Tennessee nurse stayed quiet in hopes that her silence would quiet false claims of her death. Now, she says it only hurt.

www.nbcnews.com

 

[phoenix2020]

Good article.

Very sad what the MAGA anti-vaxxers did to this nurse.

 

[NWRatCon]

Remember Voltaire's famous statement that "Those who can convince you of absurdities can make you commit atrocities"?* Conspiracy Theorists are the epitome of the concept, often being self-convinced and fanatically motivated.

*There are various translations of this statement, as it was written in French, centuries ago, but the gist is correct. The French version, penned by Voltaire himself is:
Il y a eu des gens qui ont dit autrefois, vous croyez des choses incompréhensibles, contradictoires, impossibles, parce que nous vous l’avons ordonné; faites donc des choses injustes parce que nous vous l’ordonnons. Ces gens-là raisonnoient à merveille. Certainement qui est en droit de vous rendre absurde, est en droit de vous rendre injuste."