You're listening to shortwave from NPR.

Hey shortwave, Emily Quang here.

I am joined by Jeff from Feel and Pierre Science correspondent.

Hi there, good to see you.

Good morning.

Okay, Jeff, you're usually on to talk about the nitty gritty of science or space or something,

but today you're going to be doing something a little different.

You're going to be reporting on kind of the opposite of science, which is misinformation

about COVID and the vaccines and the people who are being affected by that.

Yeah, I mean, for the past few months, I've sort of dropped down this rabbit hole of internet

and social media and alternative reality almost where, you know, the vaccines are evil

and dangerous and there's a lot of really, frankly, incorrect views on what the vaccines

are doing.

I've been talking to anti-vaccine activists and in October, I actually went out to Nashville,

Tennessee to a conference where there were a bunch of anti-vaccine speakers.

Who was there?

Well, it was organized by a couple named Ty and Charlene Bollinger.

They have been active in sort of the medical misinformation business for many years now.

And it's an annual event that sort of attracts this motley crew of homeopathic doctors,

people who are promoting alternative cancer therapies and a lot of anti-vaccine folks.

But what was really interesting this year was Eric Trump was there.

And Eric Trump wasn't the only person from the political world.

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