CAMPAIGN An MP shouldn’t be allowed to put lives at risk
On Wednesday a Conservative MP was suspended from his party for spreading misinformation and conspiracy theories about Covid vaccines.
It was right that the Conservative Party took action. But up until this week Andrew Bridgen had been enabled to peddle dangerous, false claims for months without consequence —online, and in Parliament.
It is unacceptable that an MP should be allowed to put lives at risk like this. MPs are meant to be honest but they are not being held to account.
Since December Full Fact has repeatedly called on Andrew Bridgen to correct the record after making false and misleading claims, including that Covid-19 vaccines aren’t recommended while pregnant or breastfeeding. He failed to do so.
We then contacted Full Fact supporters in Andrew Bridgen’s constituency to ask for their help. We were grateful to everyone who wrote to Mr Bridgen to ask that he correct the record, and disappointed that he again refused.
These are not the standards we expect or deserve from our elected representatives. Earlier this week we all saw what happens across the world when people in power help conspiracy theorists and amplify dangerous health misinformation. It costs lives.
That’s why there is more to be done. We have written to party chair and former vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi to highlight the full extent of misinformation and conspiracy theories spread by Mr Bridgen, and to ask whether the Conservative Party seriously intends to endorse an MP who behaves like this at the next election.
It should not take multiple false claims, emails from constituents and suspension to make sure MPs conduct themselves honestly. Alongside more than 38,000 others, we will continue to demand changes in Parliament to make sure MPs can correct the record when they make false or misleading claims, and are held accountable when they do not.
At Full Fact we regularly hear from readers about their upsetting experiences when friends and family members fall victim to the kind of misinformation we have seen this week. We have previously published research on conspiracy beliefs and how you can respond to them in your own life. I hope you find it helpful.
Before Andrew Bridgen lost the Conservative whip, he was busy making multiple different false claims about Covid vaccines on social media. This week, we fact checked his claims about Covid-19 mRNA vaccines being "gene therapy".
Mr Bridgen made at least eight references to gene therapy or therapies on Twitter in regard to the mRNA vaccines since the start of the year.
Describing the mRNA vaccines as "gene therapy" is a common form of vaccine misinformation. We’ve written about similarly false claims that the mRNA vaccines are an example of gene therapy previously, as have other fact checkers around the world.
‘Gene therapy’ describes a specific area of medicine where treatments for genetic diseases are designed to change a patient’s DNA. Although the mRNA vaccines involve genetic material, messenger RNA, they don’t change your genetic make-up or integrate into your genome.
Although gene therapy is a real thing, mRNA vaccines are not gene therapy.
A post on Facebook has made a shocking and completely false claim, suggesting that "the all male immigrants coming to the UK are UN solidiers [sic] who have signed the official secrets act in France who are from Iraq And Afghanistan to come and kick the doors down off all the unvaccinated in the UK, taking them to camps to be forced. This is why our troops are away in the Ukraine."
While there’s absolutely no evidence this is happening, this is an interesting claim to try and verify. Although we can check with authorities concerned that this isn’t what’s happening, you might expect that to be the case if there was some sort of secret plan.
But there are several parts of this claim that make it extremely unlikely. Namely, that this is not what UN military personnel do, the UN’s chief human rights representative has spoken out about forced vaccinations, and there are no legal vaccine mandates in the UK - so it seems unlikely the government would enlist a foreign force to try and enforce one physically.
