Another radio host who urged listeners to boycott COVID-19 vaccines dies from COVID-19
"Last month,
four conservative radio talk show hosts who had promoted anti-vaccine and anti-mask views succumbed to the virus:
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Marc Bernier, a longtime Daytona Beach, Fla., talk show host who once called himself "Mr. Anti-Vax,” died after he was hospitalized for complications of COVID-19. He was 65. In July, in what would be his final tweet, Bernier compared the U.S. government to Nazis in its push to get people vaccinated.
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Phil Valentine, a syndicated Nashville talk show host who recorded a parody song, “
Vaxman,” mocking the vaccine, died following a monthlong battle with COVID-19. He was 61.
While Valentine was in the hospital,
his family released a statement saying he “regrets not being more vehemently ‘Pro-Vaccine’ and looks forward to being able to more vigorously advocate that position as soon as he is back on the air, which we all hope will be soon. PLEASE GO GET VACCINATED!”
•
Jimmy DeYoung, a nationally syndicated Chattanooga, Tenn.-based Christian preacher who said world governments were using vaccines to control people, died in mid-August after
contracting COVID-19 earlier in the month. He was 81.
On his "Prophecy Today" radio show, DeYoung
promoted the baseless conspiracy theory that the Pfizer vaccine would make women sterile and directed his listeners to misinformation about COVID-19 on Facebook.
•
Dick Farrel, a South Florida talk show host who called the U.S. government's coronavirus mitigation efforts a “scam-demic,”
died from complications of COVID-19 in early August. He was 65.
According to friends, Farrel's views on vaccines changed after he contracted the virus. "RIP Dick Farrel," his close friend Amy Leigh Hair wrote in a Facebook post. "He is the reason I took the shot. He texted me and told me to 'Get it!' He told me this virus is no joke and he said, 'I wish I had gotten it!'"
According to Johns Hopkins University, there have been more than 41 million coronavirus cases in the United States since the pandemic began. More than 662,000 Americans have died.
The overwhelming majority of recent cases, hospitalizations and deaths have been among unvaccinated people."