How Anti-Vaxxers Collided With QAnon
In the pandemic era, misinformation is one of the nation’s biggest public-health threats
WHEN TIM DICKINSON began reporting on how the vaccine-resistance movement came to intersect with the far-right conspiracy group QAnon, he realized why both have attracted so many: They’re appealing. “What we all underestimate is the seductive nature of this kind of thinking,” says Dickinson. “The ways that conspiracy theories create order out of chaos is actually quite calming, even as they push adherents into dangerous beliefs and behaviors.” As the movements threaten to prevent the U.S. from achieving herd immunity, Dickinson spoke to academics who have spent their careers attempting to understand conspiratorial thinking: “Their unheralded field of study is suddenly critical and urgent.”