Dr. Nicole Baldwin is a US based paediatrician who published a video on Tik Tok in support of vaccination.

As ZDogg MD has confirmed in his own video, Stop Being Afraid of Antivaxxers and Speak Up! (below) Dr. Baldwin’s effort drew a quite predictable response from the anti-vaccine movement. Driven by belief in conspiracy theories, an obscene sense of self-entitlement and complete disregard for the safety and lifestyle of those who support immunisation, their response was reported in MedPage Today;

Members of the “anti-vax” community discovered it and launched a “global, coordinated attack,” posting negative comments across Baldwin’s social media pages including her Facebook and Twitter.

They also went for the jugular: knowing that a physician’s online presence is critical, they barraged her online review sites, including Yelp and Google Reviews, with one-star reviews to sabotage her practice.

Some even called her practice, Northeast Cincinnati Pediatric Associates, and harassed the staff. One woman — whom Baldwin described as “very angry” — threatened to “come and shut down our practice,” prompting Baldwin to call the police.

But most intimidating was a post from an anti-vax Facebook group that said, “dead doctors don’t lie.”

“Ultimately what the anti-vax community wants is to scare us into silence,” she told MedPage Today.

The hypocrisy of these attacks is breathtaking. Certainly for Aussies who must endure the absolutely manufactured fear mongering designed to defame members of Australian Skeptics Inc. and Stop The AVN. This takes the form of ongoing bogus claims by AVN founder Meryl Dorey that members of either group pose a risk of violence and/or disruption at anti-vaccine events that the group holds.

Tickets are advertised on say, Eventbrite, with a qualifying message such as this one;

The exact venue within Logan City, QLD, will be sent to the email address you used to purchase your tickets, at 4:30pm the day of the screening, Tuesday 6th December, 2016.

Or this rubbish that accompanied Vaxxed II ticket sales to screenings at “Secret Venues” in December 2019;

Due to the well-orchestrated threats of violence and abuse that come from the pro-censorship community, the exact venue will not be announced until the day of the screening.

Oh yes. That’s “pro-censorship community” to you, you evidence retentive, violent, abusive so and so.

Apart from these attacks the AVN uses social media and frequently membership emails to push harassment of grieving parents who promote vaccines, journalists, newspapers, media watchdogs and media authorities. For example note the update at the base of last months post.

Back to Dr. Baldwin. In response to the attacks on her online review sites she got in touch with Shots Heard Round The World. Founded by paediatrician Todd Wolynn, MD, it’s described as;

…a network of vaccination advocates who describe themselves as a “rapid-response digital cavalry.”

You can check out Todd’s interview with ZDogg MD, How to fight back when antivaxxers attack. Or if it suits you better head over to Soundcloud and grab the audio there.

According to MedPage Today;

Baldwin said that since she allowed Shots Heard to take over her Facebook account, they’ve been posting positive comments and blocking commenters from her page; a total of 5,000 accounts have been banned as of Monday night, she said.

Shots Heard is also helping to get the fake online reviews taken down, which is never easy, particularly with Google, Wolynn said. But ongoing media coverage likely pressed the tech giant into taking down the reviews, Baldwin said.

So that’s a promising outcome. But more needs to be done to ensure health professionals and others aren’t constant pawns in the games of vaccine conspiracy theorists. On March 5th, as ZDogg makes clear at the end of his video, is an opportunity to get online in numbers and say something positive about vaccines. Use the tag #DoctorsSpeakUp and see if you can offer some material that educates about vaccines, or indeed exposes antivax material for what it is.

We have calculated ongoing lies about the perceived “pro-censorship” enemies of antivaccinationists, the commanding of “flying monkeys” to attack grieving parents and organised en masse attacks on a professional’s online identity along with death threats. To be sure however, whatever fashion it comes in those of us who support vaccination have witnessed the anti-vaccine lobby target individuals in shocking and cruel detail.

Keep an eye on #DoctorsSpeakUp and remember March 5th.

Stop Being Afraid of Antivaxxers & Speak Up!

——————————-