James O'Brien responds to shocking anti-vax rally in Trafalgar Square
26 July 2021, 11:33
'Shining a light on this is like vaccinating against misinformation.'
James O'Brien explains why the shocking anti-vax scenes from Trafalgar Square 'can't be ignored', after one conspiracy theorist warned doctors and nurses they could be 'hung' following Nuremberg-style trials.
It comes as Keir Starmer condemned the scenes from conspiracy theorist Kate Shemirani threatening NHS doctors and nurses as "absolutely shocking to see” and called for the incident to be investigated by the police.
After playing a clip of the speech from conspiracy theorist Kate Shemirani, James reflected on whether the media should give airtime to such people.
"I tried to point out to someone the other day that something they'd sent me about the Pfizer vaccine was hogwash and that it had been fact-checked by Reuters.
"And he came back saying, well I think you'll find the chairman of Reuters is on the board of Pfizer, so they're lying to you. And I thought - I can't reach you. Have I made it worse by trying to?
"Are other people looking at this now and thinking 'Ah yes, the chairman of Reuters is on the board of Pfizer'? Someone who doesn't know a lot about non-executive directorships and interplay between big global companies might go away thinking there's no smoke without fire."
James then said he was fairly confident that people will not be convinced by the comments from anti-vax conspiracist Kate Shemirani in Trafalgar Square, who "called for doctors and nurses to stop caring for people and ... that Nazi murderers who were qualified medics were hung after the Nuremberg trials."
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James continued: "That's what makes me think that shining a light on this sort of stuff is a disinfectant. Even, dare I say, a form of the vaccine, a form of cure."
James then recalled the storming of the US Capitol Building earlier this year whilst Congress was certifying the electoral college results of the US election:
"I keep thinking of Donald Trump because I keep thinking that this stuff can't be ignored. If you ignore it, you end up with a January 6th situation.
"Thankfully we don't yet have a public figure of such prominence who's buying into this sort of hogwash."
