GoFundMe Prohibits Anti-Vaxxers Raising Money to Spread Disinformation: MEDICINE & HEALTH: Science Times

Anti-vaxxers have been using GoFundMe for a long time to raise funds to spread their dangerous message, but the site is cutting them now, The Daily Beast has learned.

"The fundraising campaigns to promote vaccine misinformation violate GoFundMe's terms of service and will be removed from the platform," spokesman Bobby Whithorne told the Daily Beast.

"We are conducting a thorough review and will remove all ongoing campaigns on the platform."

This is the latest crackdown on activists who challenge the facts and believe that the medical establishment, the government and the pharmaceutical industry are engaged in a plot to harm American children.

The American anti-vax movement was blamed for two measles outbreaks that infected some 300 people, mostly children.At New York and the Pacific Northwest.

Last week, the American Medical Association warned giants of social media, including Amazon, Facebook, Google, Pinterest, Twitter and YouTube, that they helped to amplify the propaganda and to confuse the parents.

But as The Daily Beast has already pointed out, anti-vaxxers have also used sites like GoFundMe to secure their email campaigns.

Whithorne said such fundraisers were "extremely rare" and that the site had removed less than 10 campaigns to date.

The Daily Beast found that fundraisers that have been benefited or encouraged by anti-vaccination groups or "vaccine choices" have yielded at least $ 170,000 over the past four years. They understand:

• Importantmilitant anti-vax Larry Cook, who spent more money than anyone to get his message acrosson Facebook and raised $ 79,900 in various GoFundMe campaigns.
• A legal advocacy fund of a lawyer providing vaccine exemptions, which raised $ 25,220, was promoted by Health Freedom Idaho and Sarasota for Vaccine Choice.
• Three campaigns promoted by the A Voice for Choice Facebook page raised $ 39,801.

Melissa Sullivan, executive vice president of Health Choice Connecticut, who raised $ 2,650 under her previous name, Vaccine Choice CT, said the expulsion of GoFundMe was a "violation of the first amendment" and suggested, without no evidence to support, that the platform was "under pressure". of Big Pharma ".

"Whether you believe it's true or not, everyone is entitled to their opinion," said Sullivan. "I hope that they will reconsider their reflections.This movement must be able to obtain funds to fight against the giants of the pharmaceutical sector such as Merck and other vaccine manufacturers."

The fundraising campaigns of Cook, who funded Facebook Ads Targeting Women of Childbearing Age in Washington State during the last measles outbreak, appear to have been eliminated earlier this week.

Earlier this week, he banned fundraising campaigns to cover treatment provided by a controversial German cancer clinic that offers unproven treatments for "high-dose vitamin infusions" and "treatment with l & # 39; ozone ". GoFundMe told Financial Times it would be "talking to organizations and experts" in the United States and the United Kingdom to combat medical misinformation.

"We know we have a major role to play on major issues like this one, and as we continue to make progress … our policies will continue to evolve to ensure we serve people better," he said. said a spokesman to the newspaper.