Alex Berenson | |
---|---|
Born | Alex Norman Berenson January 6, 1973 New York, U.S. |
Education | Yale University (BA) |
Genre | Nonfiction, spy fiction |
Subject | Politics |
Notable awards | Edgar Award (2007) [1] |
Spouse | Jacqueline Anne Basha (m. 2009) |
Website | |
Official website |
Alex Norman Berenson [2] (born January 6, 1973) is an American writer who was a reporter for The New York Times , and has authored several thriller novels as well a book on corporate financial filings. His 2019 book Tell Your Children: The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness and Violence sparked controversy, earning denunciations from many in the scientific and medical communities. [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]
During the coronavirus pandemic, Berenson appeared frequently in American right-wing media, spreading claims about COVID-19 and its vaccines. [8] He spent much of the pandemic arguing that its seriousness was overblown. Once the COVID-19 vaccines became available, he made claims about the lack of safety and effectiveness of the vaccines. [9] [10] [11] [12] [13]
Berenson was born in New York, and grew up in Englewood, New Jersey. [14] After attending the Horace Mann School, he graduated from Yale University in 1994 with bachelor's degrees in history and economics. [15]
Berenson describes himself as a Reform Jew. [16]
Berenson joined The Denver Post in June 1994 as a business reporter. In August 1996, he left the Post to join TheStreet, a financial news website founded by Jim Cramer. In December 1999, Berenson joined The New York Times as a business investigative reporter.
In the fall of 2003 and the summer of 2004, Berenson covered the occupation of Iraq for the Times. He then covered the pharmaceutical and health care industries, specializing in issues concerning dangerous drugs. [17] Beginning in December 2008, Berenson reported on the Bernard Madoff $50 billion Ponzi scheme scandal.
In 2010, Berenson left the Times to become a full-time novelist.
He has written 12 spy novels, all featuring the same protagonist, CIA agent John Wells. His first novel, The Faithful Spy , was released in April 2006 and won an Edgar Award for best debut by an American novelist. [18] The Faithful Spy was ranked #1 on The New York Times Bestseller List for paperbacks. [19]
In 2008, Berenson released his second thriller, The Ghost War. His third novel, The Silent Man, followed in 2009. His fourth, The Midnight House, was released in 2010 and debuted at #9 on The New York Times bestseller list. [20] The fifth, The Secret Soldier, was released in 2011 and debuted at #6 on the bestseller list. [21] The sixth, The Shadow Patrol, was released in 2012, and debuted at #8. [22] [23] In July 2012, The Shadow Patrol was named a finalist for the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award, given by Britain's Crime Writers' Association. [24] [25]
In 2019, Berenson authored the book Tell Your Children: The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness and Violence, which argues that marijuana use contributes to psychotic disorders and violent crime. The book "received positive coverage from The New Yorker and Mother Jones for what some called its troubling truths" [26] but was denounced as alarmist and inaccurate in the scientific and medical communities because of his claims that cannabis causes psychosis and violence; many scientists state that he is drawing inappropriate conclusions from the research, primarily by inferring causation from correlation, [3] : 1 [6] : 1 [27] : 1 [4] : 1 [8] : 1 as well as cherry picking [5] : 1 data that fits his narrative, and falling victim to selection bias via his use of anecdotes [5] : 1 to back up his assertions. [27] : 1 [4] : 1 [6] : 1 [28] : 1 [7]
Early in the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, Berenson vocally argued that people and the media were overestimating the risk of the new virus, that it posed little risk to young Americans, and that it was being used as a cover for government overreach. [8] [29] Many public health experts have rejected his claims. [8] [29] : 1
In May 2020, Fox News announced that Berenson would host a TV show called COVID Contrarian on its online streaming platform Fox Nation. However, by July 2020, amid surges in coronavirus cases across parts of the United States, Fox News appeared to have backtracked and removed the announcement of his show from its website. [30]
In 2021, Berenson tweeted that COVID-19 vaccinations had led to 50 times more adverse effects than flu vaccine. PolitiFact rated the claim "mostly false". [12] The Atlantic called him "The pandemic's wrongest man", owing to what they termed his "dangerously, unflaggingly, and superlatively wrong" claims of the vaccine's ineffectiveness. [10]
On January 25, 2022, Berenson appeared on the Fox News show Tucker Carlson Tonight declaring that existing mRNA vaccines are "dangerous and ineffective" against COVID-19, and further demanding that they be withdrawn from the market immediately. [31] The Washington Post 's Philip Bump denounced Carlson for "inviting Berenson on, despite his proven track record of misinformation and cherry-picking" and observed that "Berenson's claims went unchallenged." [32]
On August 28, 2021, Twitter permanently suspended Berenson for repeated violations of its policy on COVID-19 misinformation, but after Berenson filed suit in December 2021 demanding reinstatement, Twitter reinstated Berenson's account in early summer 2022, in a "mutually acceptable resolution". [33] [34] This reinstatement was referred to as "significant" by The Atlantic, given that most social-media-banned people fail to win their court cases. [34]
Berenson did not regain Twitter access because of a First Amendment free speech claim, which was rejected by the judge. [34] Eric Goldman, a law professor at Santa Clara University School of Law, theorizes that Twitter settled because of documentation of promises made to Berenson by a high-level Twitter employee concerning the nature of his tweets. [34] Goldman stated that Internet company executives have always been advised by their attorneys not to make promises to or even to speak to anyone about their individual accounts "for reasons that should now be obvious". [34]
On April 14, 2023, Berenson filed a lawsuit in a federal district court against president Biden in his official capacity, members of his administration in their individual capacities, and a board member and the CEO of Pfizer regarding allegations of First Amendment violations and other claims resulting from the Twitter ban of Berenson. [35]
Berenson describes growing up "center, center-right" but always voting Democrat. [16] He says he voted for Donald Trump in the 2024 election. [36]
He lives in Garrison, New York, [37] with his wife Jacqueline, a forensic psychiatrist. [5] : 1 [38]
John Wells series
No. | Title | Publisher | Date | Genre | ISBN |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | The Faithful Spy | Random House | April 25, 2006 | Spy fiction | 978-0-345-47899-3 |
2 | The Ghost War | Putnam | February 12, 2008 | Spy fiction | 978-0-399-15453-9 |
3 | The Silent Man | Putnam | February 10, 2009 | Spy fiction | 978-0-399-15538-3 |
4 | The Midnight House | Putnam | February 10, 2010 | Spy fiction | 978-0-399-15620-5 |
5 | The Secret Soldier | Putnam | February 8, 2011 | Spy fiction | 978-0-399-15708-0 |
6 | The Shadow Patrol | Putnam | February 21, 2012 | Spy fiction | 978-0-399-15829-2 |
7 | The Night Ranger | Putnam | February 12, 2013 | Spy fiction | 978-0-399-15972-5 |
8 | The Counterfeit Agent | Putnam | February 11, 2014 | Spy fiction | 978-0-399-15973-2 |
9 | Twelve Days | Putnam | February 10, 2015 | Spy fiction | 978-0-399-15974-9 |
10 | The Wolves | Putnam | February 9, 2016 | Spy fiction | 978-0-399-17614-2 |
11 | The Prisoner | Putnam | January 31, 2017 | Spy fiction | 978-0-399-17615-9 |
12 | The Deceivers | Putnam | February 6, 2018 | Spy fiction | 978-0-698-40753-4 |
The Power Couple February 9, 2021 Mystery, Thriller Simon & Schuster
Alex Michael Azar II is an American attorney, businessman, lobbyist, and former pharmaceutical executive who served as the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services from 2018 to 2021. Azar was nominated to his post by President Donald Trump on November 13, 2017, and confirmed by the United States Senate on January 24, 2018. He was also chairman of the White House Coronavirus Task Force from its inception in January 2020 to February 2020, when he was replaced by Vice President Mike Pence.
China National Pharmaceutical Group Corporation (CNPGC), commonly referred to as Sinopharm, is a Chinese state-owned enterprise. The corporation was the indirect major shareholder of publicly traded companies Sinopharm Group, China Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai Shyndec Pharmaceutical, and Beijing Tiantan Biological Products.
Eric Liang Feigl-Ding is an American public health scientist who is currently an epidemiologist and Chief of COVID Task Force at the New England Complex Systems Institute. He was formerly a faculty member and researcher at Harvard Medical School and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He is also the Chief Health Economist for Microclinic International, and co-founder of the World Health Network. His research and advocacy have primarily focused on obesity, nutrition, cancer prevention, and biosecurity.
Tell Your Children: The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness and Violence is a 2019 book by Alex Berenson. In it, Berenson makes claims that cannabis use directly causes psychosis and violence, claims denounced as alarmist and inaccurate by many in the scientific and medical communities. The scientists state that Berenson is drawing inappropriate conclusions from the research he cites, primarily by inferring causation from correlation, as well as cherry picking data that fits his narrative, and falling victim to selection bias via his use of anecdotes to back up his assertions.
The Stop Mandatory Vaccination website and associated Facebook group are some of the major hubs of the American anti-vaccination movement. It was established by anti-vaccination activist Larry Cook in 2015.
The first confirmed case of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. state of Connecticut was confirmed on March 8, although there had previously been multiple people suspected of having COVID-19, all of which eventually tested negative. As of January 19, 2022, there were 599,028 confirmed cases, 68,202 suspected cases, and 9,683 COVID-associated deaths in the state.
Media coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic has varied by country, time period and media outlet. News media has simultaneously kept viewers informed about current events related to the pandemic, and contributed to misinformation or fake news.
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected innumerable scientific and technical institutions globally, resulting in lower productivity in a number of fields and programs. However, the impact of the pandemic has also led to the opening of several new research funding lines for government agencies around the world.
The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on the cannabis industry. Investor's Business Daily said the industry was affected as "customers stock up on prescriptions and recreational customers load up on something to make the lockdown a little more mellow or a little less boring".
Helen Branswell is a Canadian infectious diseases and global health reporter at Stat News. Branswell spent fifteen years as a medical reporter at The Canadian Press, where she led coverage of the Ebola, Zika, SARS and swine flu pandemics. She joined Stat News at its founding 2015, leading the website's coverage of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
President Donald Trump's administration communicated in various ways during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, including via social media, interviews, and press conferences with the White House Coronavirus Task Force. Opinion polling conducted in mid-April 2020 indicated that less than half of Americans trusted health information provided by Trump and that they were more inclined to trust local government officials, state government officials, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Anthony Fauci.
Plandemic is a trilogy of conspiracy theory films produced by Mikki Willis, promoting misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic. They feature Judy Mikovits, a discredited American researcher and prominent anti-vaccine activist. The first video, Plandemic: The Hidden Agenda Behind Covid-19, was released on May 4, 2020, under Willis' production company Elevate Films. The second film, Plandemic Indoctornation, which includes more interviewees, was released on August 18 by Brian Rose's distributor of conspiracy theory related films, London Real. Later on June 3, 2023, Plandemic 3: The Great Awakening was released on The Highwire, a website devoted to conspiracy theories run by anti-vaccine activist Del Bigtree.
America's Frontline Doctors (AFLDS) is an American right-wing political organization. Affiliated with Tea Party Patriots co-founder Jenny Beth Martin and publicly led by Simone Gold, the group is opposed to measures intended to control the COVID-19 pandemic, such as business closures, stay-at-home orders, and vaccination. The group promotes falsehoods about the COVID-19 pandemic and COVID-19 vaccines.
The COVID-19 pandemic that started in 2020 has significantly impacted liturgical celebrations of the Catholic Church worldwide. The Pontifical Foundation Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) stated that the pandemic has become not "just a medical, social and economic problem, but also a pastoral problem", which led ACN to start encouraging a special program for the actions of priests and religious against the virus spread.
The Rapid Deployment Vaccine Collaborative (RaDVaC) is a non-profit, collaborative, open-source vaccine research organization founded in March 2020 by Preston Estep and colleagues from various fields of expertise, motivated to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic through rapid, adaptable, transparent, and accessible vaccine development. The members of RaDVaC contend that even the accelerated vaccine approvals, such as the FDA's Emergency Use Authorization, does not make vaccines available quickly enough. The core group has published a series of white papers online, detailing both the technical principles of and protocols for their research vaccine formulas, as well as dedicated materials and protocols pages. All of the organization's published work has been released under Creative Commons non-commercial licenses, including those contributing to the Open COVID Pledge. Multiple individuals involved with the project have engaged in self-experimentation to assess vaccine safety and efficacy. As of January 2022, the organization has developed and published twelve iterations of experimental intranasal, multivalent, multi-epitope peptide vaccine formulas, and according to the RaDVaC website, by early 2021 hundreds of individuals had self-administered one or more doses of the vaccines described by the group.
Misinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic has been propagated by various public figures, including officials of the United States government. The Trump administration in particular made a large number of misleading statements about the pandemic. A Cornell University study found that former U.S. President Donald Trump was "likely the largest driver" of the COVID-19 misinformation infodemic in English-language media, downplaying the virus and promoting unapproved drugs. Others have also been accused of spreading misinformation, including U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, backing conspiracy theories regarding the origin of the virus, U.S. senators and New York City mayor Bill de Blasio, who downplayed the virus.
During the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, many people began to spread false or un-confirmed data and information. This included politicians and other government officials from administrations in several countries. Misinformation about the virus includes its origin, how it spreads, and methods of preventing and curing the disease. Some downplayed the threat of the pandemic, and made false statements about preventative measures, death rates and testing within their own countries. Some have also spread COVID-19 vaccine misinformation. Changing policies also created confusion and contributed to the spread of misinformation. For example, the World Health Organization (WHO) originally discouraged use of face masks by the general public in early 2020, advising "If you are healthy, you only need to wear a mask if you are taking care of a person with suspected 2019-nCoV infection," although the WHO later changed their advice to encourage public wearing of face masks.
This timeline includes entries on the spread of COVID-19 misinformation and conspiracy theories related to the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada. This includes investigations into the origin of COVID-19, and the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 which is caused by the virus SARS-CoV-2. Social media apps and platforms, including Facebook, TikTok, Telegram, and YouTube, have contributed to the spread of misinformation. The Canadian Anti-Hate Network (CAHN) reported that conspiracy theories related to COVID-19 began on "day one". CAHN reported on March 16, 2020, that far-right groups in Canada were taking advantage of the climate of anxiety and fear surrounding COVID, to recycle variations of conspiracies from the 1990s, that people had shared over shortwave radio. COVID-19 disinformation is intentional and seeks to create uncertainty and confusion. But most of the misinformation is shared online unintentionally by enthusiastic participants who are politically active.
Berenson's victory was not based on his argument that his ban was a violation of the First Amendment; the judge rejected this claim. Instead, his success seems to have hinged on promises made to him by a high-level Twitter employee. "The points you're raising should not be an issue at all," the company's then–vice president of global communications assured Berenson at one point, according to the complaint. The lawsuit says the same executive later told Berenson that his name had "never come up in the discussions" about Twitter's COVID-19 misinformation policies. Goldman believes that the court's decision to allow a claim based on that correspondence prompted Twitter to settle. Internet-service executives have always been instructed by lawyers not to talk with people about their individual accounts and not to make any promises about what might happen, Goldman said, "for reasons that should now be obvious".