Vernon Coleman | |
|---|---|
 Coleman in 2019 | |
| Born | 1946 (age 77–78) |
| Occupations |
|
| Years active | 1970–2016 (as a GP) |
| Notable work | Mrs Caldicot's Cabbage War |
Vernon Edward Coleman (born 1946) is an English conspiracy theorist and writer, who writes on topics related to human health, politics and animal welfare. He was formerly a general practitioner (GP) and newspaper columnist. Coleman's medical claims have been widely discredited and described as pseudoscientific conspiracy theories. [1] [2] [3]
Coleman was born in 1946, the only child of an electrical engineer. [4] He was raised in Walsall, Staffordshire, in the West Midlands of England, where he attended Queen Mary's Grammar School [4] and a medical school in Birmingham. [5] [6]
 | This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (January 2024) |
Coleman qualified as a physician in 1970 and worked as a GP. In 1981, the Department of Health and Social Security (DHSS) fined him for refusing to write the diagnoses on sick notes, which he considered a breach of patient confidentiality. [7]
After publishing his first book, The Medicine Men, in 1976, which accused the National Health Service of being controlled by pharmaceutical companies, Coleman left the NHS. [4] [8] [9]
Coleman has since written under multiple pen names; in the late 1970s, he published three novels about life as a GP under the name Edward Vernon. [10]
In 1987 Coleman appeared on the Central Weekend Programme as a sceptic against jogging for fitness. [11] An anti-vivisectionist, Coleman provided a supplementary memorandum for the House of Lords on the topic of vivisection in 1993. [12]
In 1994 Coleman was ordered to pay damages for threatening scientist Colin Blakemore, who had been targeted by anti-vivisection activists after a letter bomb sent by animal rights group calling itself 'The Justice Department' was sent to Blakemore's home, with another exploding and injuring three people. Blakemore was later granted a temporary injunction by a High Court judge after Coleman had said he would publish a pamphlet with Blakemore's home address and telephone number to encourage the public to 'get in touch with you to discuss your work'. Coleman was ordered not to publish anything that might jeopardize Colin Blakemore's safety and to give solicitors the names of anyone to whom he might already have given the information. [13] [14]
In 1995, Coleman published the book How to Stop Your Doctor Killing You, which the Advertising Standards Authority later subjected to an advertisement ban. [15]
Coleman went on to work as a newspaper columnist for a number of publications, including The Sun and The Sunday People , [4] where he was an agony uncle until he resigned in 2003. [16] [17] [18]
He relinquished his medical licence in March 2016 and is no longer registered or licensed to practice as a GP. [19]
Coleman was reported to have been made an honorary professor by the International Open University based in Sri Lanka. [5]
Coleman's self-published books and blog have been reported as a major source of misinformation regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, cancer, HIV/AIDS, vaccines and human health. [20] [16] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25]
A 1989 editorial in the British Medical Journal criticised Coleman's comments made for The Sun as the 'Sun Doctor' on leprosy as a 'particularly distasteful piece of tabloid journalism...[containing] a catalogue of selected facts and misinterpretations' following the announcement that Diana, Princess of Wales, was to shake hands with a person with leprosy. The incident was later covered on Channel 4's Hard News, with Coleman declining to defend his statement without a fee covering travel costs. [26]
Coleman's 1993 novel Mrs Caldicot's Cabbage War was turned into a film in 2002 with the same name. [27]
Whilst working for The Sunday People, Coleman wrote that if children diagnosed with autism were "stuck up to their necks in a vat full of warm sewage for 10 hours they would soon learn some manners" and that diagnoses of hyperactivity and autism were "misused by middle-class, aspirational parents to excuse the behaviour of their obnoxious children." [28] Following the article, autism charities received phone calls from distressed parents. The Chairman of the East Anglian Autistic Support Trust, Owen Spencer-Thomas, whose elder son has severe autism, condemned Coleman's remarks as "irresponsible, medically unsound and deeply hurtful" to families that had a child with autism. Spencer-Thomas challenged Coleman to spend 24 hours caring for his son in the presence of fully trained carers who understood the effects of autism. Coleman declined and refused to withdraw his remarks leading to an investigation by the Press Complaints Committee. [29] During his time at the paper, Coleman was again censured by the Press Complaints Commission for making misleading medical claims. [5] [30]
Coleman became a self-published author in 2004 after Alice's Diary, a book about his cat, was turned down by traditional publishers. [30] [8]
Writing for The Sun newspaper in 1989, Coleman denied that AIDS was a significant risk to the heterosexual community. [31] He later claimed AIDS is a hoax, writing, "it is now my considered view that the disease we know as AIDS probably doesn't exist and has never existed". [32] Such claims have been rejected by the medical community. [33]
On 17 November 1989, The Sun published an article under the headline "Straight sex cannot give you AIDS—official", claiming "the killer disease AIDS can only be caught by homosexuals, bisexuals, junkies or anyone who has received a tainted blood transfusion". The following day, Coleman supported The Sun's claims with an article under the headline "AIDS—The hoax of the century", similarly claiming AIDS was not a significant risk to heterosexuals, that medical companies, doctors and condom manufacturers were conspiring to scare the public and had vested interests in profiteering from public service announcements, and that moral campaigners were attempting to frighten young people into celibacy to establish traditional family values. Coleman also claimed gay activists were "worried that once it was widely known that AIDS was not a major threat to heterosexuals, then funds for AIDS research would fall". [34] [31]
Journalist David Randall argued in The Universal Journalist that the story was one of the worst cases of journalistic malpractice in recent history. [35]
 | This section may contain an excessive amount of intricate detail that may interest only a particular audience.(January 2024) |
Coleman has claimed that COVID-19 is a hoax, that vaccines are dangerous, and that face masks cause cancer. All these claims have been debunked by more senior medical professionals. [36] [37] [38] Coleman has also claimed the Coronavirus Pandemic has links to the Agenda 21 Conspiracy Theory and the Great Reset Theory, which both suggest a cabal of elite figures are attempting to depopulate the global community. No evidence has been found to support these claims. [39]
In 2019, Coleman wrote a book entitled Anyone Who Tells You Vaccines Are Safe And Effective Is Lying which booksellers were criticised for selling. [40] [41] [42] [43]
Coleman later claimed "no one can possibly know if the COVID-19 vaccine is safe and effective because the trial is still underway; thousands of people who had the vaccine have died or been seriously injured by it; legally, all those people giving vaccinations are war criminals". [1] [44] These claims were debunked by Health Feedback, a member of the World Health Organization-led project Vaccine Safety Net. [45] [46] Coleman later claimed "COVID-19 vaccines are dangerous" and that "bodies of vaccinated people are laboratories making lethal viruses". Both claims were similarly debunked as inaccurate, misleading and unsupported by the Poynter Institute due to a lack of evidence from the legitimate medical community. [47] [48] [49] [50] [51] [52] [53] [54] [55] Coleman has also claimed in a viral video that "the jabbed will be lucky to last five years" which was again proven to false due to a lack of evidence. [56] [57] In a similar widely circulated social media post, Coleman claimed "more children will be seriously injured or killed by the vaccination than the COVID-19 infection itself" which was again found to be false as there is no evidence that children suffer more from COVID-19 vaccines than from COVID-19. [58] [59]
At an anti-lockdown protest in London on 24 July 2021, Coleman claimed that the wearing of face masks caused cancer, dementia, hypoxia and hypercapnia, bacterial pneumonia due to oxygen deficiency. These claims were similarly debunked by the medical community due to a lack of peer-reviewed evidence. [60] [61] [2] Coleman later claimed that the wearing of face masks caused mucormycosis, despite no link being found between mask wearing and mucormycosis. [62] All evidence suggests that wearing masks are safe and an effective way towards protecting individuals from COVID-19. [63]
In November 2021, Coleman made the false claim that "this [vaccination] jab was an experiment certain to kill and injure" which was debunked due to its lack of evidence and a reliance upon a discredited research report authored by Steven Gundry. [64] [65] [66] [67] [68]
Despite being debunked, Coleman's conspiracy theories have been used to push COVID-19 denial, pseudoscience and anti-mask propaganda. Police officers urged residents in Prestwich, Greater Manchester to dismiss anti-vaccination leaflets in May 2021 which had been distributed in the area and credited to Coleman. In a statement, the local authority "requested the public to dismiss the message being sent out and is encouraging all relevant age groups to take up the offer of a vaccine". [69] The same leaflets were also distributed in Luton, Bedfordshire with Luton Council warning that the leaflets contained "dangerous misinformation". [70] Similar leaflets have been distributed across Scotland and condemned by Shirley-Anne Somerville of the Scottish Parliament. [71] [72] [73] The Catholic Church has also urged parishioners to "read the Vatican document on vaccination morality" after Coleman's anti-vaccination videos and quotations were circulated in 2021 by a Franciscan priest in Gosport, Hampshire. In an investigation, the Diocese of Portsmouth announced "The Catholic Diocese of Portsmouth is very disappointed that one of the Family of Mary Immaculate and St Francis in Gosport has publicly expressed a personal view about the Covid vaccination programme that is contrary to the official position of the Catholic Church and the Diocese. We would encourage all our parishioners to benefit from the protection afforded by the vaccine." [74]
Coleman has also claimed the National Health Service "kills more people than it saves" referencing a flawed study by The BMJ to support this claim. [75] He has also falsely claimed the NHS reduced "screening tests" to lower carbon emissions. Although there were a reduced number of cancer screenings due to a lack of resources during the COVID-19 pandemic, no evidence was found to support Coleman's claim that screenings were being limited in effort to combat global warming. [76]
Coleman denies climate change and claims global warming is a “malicious, dangerous myth”. [77]
In 2005, the UK's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) banned an advertisement for a book published by Coleman entitled How to Stop Your Doctor Killing You which claimed doctors were "the person most likely to kill you". The ASA upheld complaints that the advert was misleading, offensive and denigrated the medical profession. The ASA found Coleman's claims were lacking evidence, "irresponsible" and "likely to discourage vulnerable people from seeking essential medical treatment". [78] In response to the ruling, Coleman called for the ASA to be banned and later made a complaint to the Office of Fair Trading, claiming "the ASA's action(s) are in breach of Article 10 of the Human Rights Act". [79] The Office of Fair trading did not pursue Coleman's complaint. [80]
In 2007, the ASA again found Coleman had made misleading claims in an advertisement promoting a supposed link between eating meat and contracting cancer. Coleman failed to respond to the ASA's enquiries and was subsequently found to have again breached the organisation's code of conduct, with the ASA deeming Coleman's advert was again lacking evidence and likely to cause undue fear and distress. Coleman was instructed not to further run the advertisement and informed to respond to future ASA investigations. [81] [15]
Coleman is married. [82] He is a vegan and supports animal rights. [5] He has stated that he cross-dresses, and has written several articles about men who cross-dress. [5]
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| People | |
| Other | |
Joseph Michael Mercola is an American alternative medicine proponent, osteopathic physician, and Internet business personality. He markets largely unproven dietary supplements and medical devices. On his website, Mercola and colleagues advocate unproven and pseudoscientific alternative health notions including homeopathy and opposition to vaccination. These positions have received persistent criticism. Mercola is a member of several alternative medicine organizations as well as the political advocacy group Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, which promotes scientifically discredited views about medicine and disease. He is the author of two books.
Big Pharma conspiracy theories are conspiracy theories that claim that pharmaceutical companies as a whole, especially in terms of big corporations, act in dangerously secretive and sinister ways that harm patients. This includes concealing effective treatments, perhaps even to the point of intentionally causing and/or worsening a wide range of diseases, in the pursuit of higher profits and/or other nefarious goals. The general public supposedly lives in a state of ignorance, according to such claims.
Sherri J. Tenpenny is an American anti-vaccination activist and conspiracy theorist who promulgates disproven hypotheses that vaccines cause autism. An osteopathic physician by training, she is the author of four books opposing vaccination. In 2023 the State Medical Board of Ohio indefinitely suspended Tenpenny's medical license for failure to participate in its investigations. Her license was restored in 2024.
Vaccine Choice Canada (VCC) is Canada's main anti-vaccination group. It was founded in the 1980s under the name Vaccination Risk Awareness Network (VRAN) and adopted its current name in 2014. The group has been contributing to vaccine hesitancy in Canada, encouraging citizens to forgo immunization and legislators to support anti-vaccine regulations and legislation.
Del Matthew Bigtree is an American television and film producer who is the CEO of the anti-vaccination group Informed Consent Action Network. He produced the film Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe, based on the discredited opinions of Andrew Wakefield and alleges an unsubstantiated connection between vaccines and autism.
Kelly Brogan is an American author of books on alternative medicine who has promoted conspiracy theories and misinformation about discredited medical hypotheses.
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.
Misinformation related to immunization and the use of vaccines circulates in mass media and social media in spite of the fact that there is no serious hesitancy or debate within mainstream medical and scientific circles about the benefits of vaccination. Unsubstantiated safety concerns related to vaccines are often presented on the internet as being scientific information. A large proportion of internet sources on the topic are mostly inaccurate which can lead people searching for information to form misconceptions relating to vaccines.
Medical Racism: The New Apartheid is a 2021 video production that promotes conspiracy theories about COVID-19 vaccines. Distributed by the anti-vaccination group Children's Health Defense, it alleges the COVID-19 vaccination efforts are a cover to conduct experiments on the African American and Latin communities. Public health communication experts say the video presents past injustices committed against African Americans in order to make debunked anti-vaccination claims more believable.
Michael Yeadon is a British anti-vaccine activist and retired pharmacologist who attracted media attention in 2020 and 2021 for making false or unfounded claims about the COVID-19 pandemic and the safety of COVID-19 vaccines. The Times has described him as "a hero of Covid conspiracy theorists" and "a key figure in the antivax movement". Until 2011, he served as the chief scientist and vice-president of the allergy and respiratory research division of the drug company Pfizer, and is the co-founder and former CEO of the biotechnology company Ziarco.
Claire Ann Deeks is a New Zealand anti-vaccine activist who has challenged the government's response to COVID-19. She was an unsuccessful candidate for the Advance NZ party in the 2020 general election, and set up the group Voices for Freedom (VFF), which distributed pamphlets that have been criticised by experts as containing COVID-19 misinformation about vaccines, lockdown and the wearing of masks. As a food blogger, Deeks promoted the paleo diet and "healthy" lunchboxes for children, and developed a petition to stop the rating system for foods used by the NZ and Australian governments. She is a former intellectual property lawyer.
The World Doctors Alliance is a pseudo-medical organization of anti-vaccine activists, COVID-19 denialists and conspiracy theorists which was established in May 2020 by Mohammad Iqbal Adil.
In many countries a variety of unfounded conspiracy theories and other misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines have spread based on misunderstood or misrepresented science, religion, and law. These have included exaggerated claims about side effects, misrepresentations about how the immune system works and when and how COVID-19 vaccines are made, a story about COVID-19 being spread by 5G, and other false or distorted information. This misinformation, some created by anti-vaccination activists, has proliferated and may have made many people averse to vaccination. This has led to governments and private organizations around the world introducing measures to incentivize or coerce vaccination, such as lotteries, mandates, and free entry to events, which has in turn led to further misinformation about the legality and effect of these measures themselves.
John Lorimer Campbell is an English YouTuber and retired nurse educator known for his videos about the COVID-19 pandemic. Initially, the videos received praise, but they later diverged into COVID-19 misinformation. He has been criticised for suggesting COVID-19 deaths have been over-counted, repeating false claims about the use of ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment, and providing misleading commentary about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines. As of March 2024, his YouTube channel had 3 million subscribers and over 750 million views.
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.
The Exposé is a British conspiracist and fake news website created in 2020 by Jonathan Allen-Walker. It is known for publishing COVID-19 and anti-vaccine misinformation.
The World Council for Health is a pseudo-medical organisation dedicated to spreading misinformation to discourage COVID-19 vaccination, and promoting fake COVID-19 treatments.
Died Suddenly is a 2022 American anti-vaccination film produced by Stew Peters, a far-right and alt-right anti-vaccine activist. It promotes false claims about COVID-19 vaccines and Great Reset conspiracy theories. The film was released on Rumble and Twitter on November 21, 2022.
Anti-vaccine activism, which collectively constitutes the "anti-vax" movement, is a set of organized activities proclaiming opposition to vaccination, and these collaborating networks have often fought to increase vaccine hesitancy by disseminating vaccine-based misinformation and/or forms of active disinformation. As a social movement, it has utilized multiple tools both within traditional news media and also through various forms of online communication. Activists have primarily focused on issues surrounding children, with vaccination of the young receiving pushback, and they've sought to expand beyond niche subgroups into national political debates.
