Newsmax anchor Rob Schmitt cavalierly suggested on Friday night that vaccines are “against nature” because some diseases are just “supposed to wipe out a certain amount of people” since that’s just the “way evolution goes.”
In recent weeks, right-wing media has seamlessly shifted from casually pushing vaccine hesitancy on its viewers to outright advocating for vaccine resistance, culminating in a crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Texas this weekend cheering at the fact that the federal government hasn’t met its vaccination goals.
As red-state counties and states with relatively low vaccination rates experience a surge in COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations, Schmitt welcomed on cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough—a frequent Fox News guest who has made inaccurate claims about the vaccines’ safety and recently said no one under the age of 30 should be vaccinated.
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At the top of his Friday night interview with McCullough, Schmitt made sure Newsmax viewers knew he was “not an anti-vaxxer” but also was “not a pro-vaxxer,” instead insisting that he’s “looking at this thing and trying to figure it out.” From there, Schmitt really let loose while seemingly endorsing Social Darwinism.
“Obviously, I’m not a doctor but I’ve always thought about vaccines, and I always think about just nature, and the way everything works, and I feel like a vaccination in a weird way is just generally kind of going against nature,” the Newsmax anchor stated.
“Like, I mean, if there is some disease out there—maybe there’s just an ebb and flow to life where something’s supposed to wipe out a certain amount of people, and that’s just kind of the way evolution goes,” he added. “Vaccines kind of stand in the way of that.”
After McCullough said vaccines should just be “targeted to protect the highest-risk individuals” and Schmitt shouldn’t worry about getting infected with COVID-19 since he’s a “young person” and natural immunity is “superior,” the Newsmax host went on to fearmonger about the safety of vaccines.
“Again, it’s like if you’ve got this big risk, I think it might be worth whatever it is,” he declared. “But if you don’t have a risk, I just, I can’t comprehend why you would take something—they start learning about the heart inflammation and stuff like that. I just don’t understand why it’s being pushed so hard on people that are very young.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have repeatedly vouched for the safety and efficacy of the multiple coronavirus vaccines that have been approved for emergency use authorization. Noting that there have been very rare instances of anaphylaxis and thrombosis that have occurred after vaccination, the CDC has stated that “serious side effects that could cause a long-term health problem are extremely unlikely following any vaccination.”
