Emerald Robinson, the White House correspondent for far right wing media operation Newsmax was inundated with fact checks and mockery Monday night after she posted a totally false tweet mixing religious right falsehoods with anti-vaxx falsehoods in a fear-mongering message directed to “Christians.”
“Dear Christians,” she began, “the vaccines contain a bioluminescent marker called LUCIFERASE so that you can be tracked.”
“Read the last book of the New Testament to see how this ends,” she added, referring to the “Book of Revelation.”
Robinson has previously been labeled an “anti-vaxxer conspiracy theorist.”
White House correspondents are assumed to hold some degree of objectivity, and some degree of fact-checking ability before reporting – and statements on social media by news professionals are frequently quoted as reporting.
But in this case there appears to have been none.
As some noted earlier, “Luciferase” was trending, thanks to Robinson’s false claim, which has since been deleted. NCRM did capture it Monday night:
Many responded directly or indirectly to Robinson, including many medical professionals and scientists. A small sampling:
Virologist Dr. Angela Rasmussen, who has worked on Ebola and COVID-19, set the record straight, mocking Robinson to boot, concluding “Luciferase is a natural enzyme that makes fireflies’ asses light up.”
Scientist and healthcare professional Dr Audrey Glover responded to one of many questions:
Dr. Nahid Bhadelia, the Founding Director for the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases Policy & Research also blasted Robinson:
And a reporter on USA Today’s investigative team pointed to that paper’s own fact check from April – meaning Robinson was spreading long-debunked disinformation.