Vaccine misinformation
In May 2021, Kirsch posted an article online claiming that
COVID-19 vaccines affect fertility, while also underplaying the vaccines' ability to prevent illness and death, both statements criticized by fact checkers as being inaccurate and misleading.
[14] In September 2021, speaking at an
FDA meeting and identifying himself as CETF's executive director, Kirsch claimed that the vaccines "kill twice as many as they save"; the FDA responded that Kirsch had misinterpreted data and that there was no evidence his statement was true.
[11][15]Reutersassessed the claim as false.
[15]In October 2021, Kirsch founded the anti-vaccine group Vaccine Safety Research Foundation (VSRF),
[16] which created ads depicting deaths the group attributed to vaccines.
[17][18] Foundation advisors include
Robert Malone,
Peter McCullough, and
Stephanie Seneff. Soon after, Kirsch appeared with Malone on the
Bret Weinstein and
Heather Heying podcast, which according to MIT Technical Review "introduced Kirsch to followers of the '
intellectual dark web'" and allowed him to access a "large and receptive audience to his claims about a fluvoxamine conspiracy".
[11]