In 2021, AFLDS pivoted to anti-vaccine activism, making consistenly false claims about the efficacy and safety of COVID-19 vaccines, including falsely referring to the vaccines as “experimental biological agents”, falsely claiming that they were “not effective in treating or preventing” COVID-19, and falsely claiming that the vaccines were responsible for 45,000 deaths based on utterly incompetent and dishonest dumpster diving in the VAERS database – the latter claim was even used for a lawsuit seeking a temporary ban on vaccinations (so much for “health freedom”) in a case so incompetent and dumb that it was most likely motivated by its potential for fundraising (i.e. grifting) rather than by any genuine hope that it would achieve anything in the courts.
On the other hand, they also promoted paid telehealth consultations with “AFLDS-trained” physicians that would prescribe fake medications they claimed were COVID-19 treatments – the grift was so obvious and in your face that it never even registered with many of their fans. The service in question was provided by SpeakWithAnMD, a telehealth website run by legendary conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi for the purpose of distributing various drugs that had been claimed by right-wing figures to be therapeutic for COVID-19. The Intercept estimated that AFLDS and its partners had made $6.7 million in revenue from these consultations between July 16 and September 12, 2021. You can read more about the grift here (it’s even shabbier than it sounds).
It’s worth emphasizing that the self-proclaimed frontline doctors have never been at the actual frontline of anything; the group’s members are notable for never having been close neither to doing serious research on nor to treating patients suffering from Covid, despite prominent member Stella Immanuel claiming that she herself had treated and cured 350 COVID-19 patients using a cocktail of hydroxychloroquine, Zithromax, and zinc (and also that sexual visitations by demons and alien DNA are at the root of Americans’ common health concerns).
AFLDS was founded by Simone Gold and Tea Party Patriots-cofounder Jenny Beth Martin, though Gold’s relationship with the group has become somewhat chaotic over the years: In early November 2022, AFLDS sued Gold for using – entirely predictably given the kind of person we’re talking about – the group’s charitable funds to buy multi-million-dollar mansions and cars for her and her boyfriend’s (that would be ALFDS’s former Communications Director John Strand) personal use (more here); apparently AFLDS hired a “forensic auditor” to do a thorough exploration of the organization’s financials while Gold was in prison.
Because of course she was in prison. On January 5, 2021, Gold spoke in D.C. to people gathering to participate in the “Stop the Steal” rally, in which she said that COVID-19 was non-fatal and spread misinformation and insane conspiracy theories about COVID-19 vaccines, e.g. saying that “if you don’t want to take an experimental biological agent deceptively named a vaccine, you must not allow yourself to be coerced!” Then, on January 6, Gold joined the insurrectionists and illegally entered the Capitol building, pushing law enforcement officials to get inside, along with John Strand, where she gave another speech. She later said that she “regret being there” because she was obviously concerned that ‘controversies’ about her actions could detract from her work with AFLDS, and in February 2022, she pleaded guilty to and was sentenced to 90 days in jail for a Class A misdemeanor. Always a grifter, Gold used the trial to fundraise $430 000 for her legal defense, which even her lawyer more or less admitted was pure grifting.
The claims she made on January 5, 2021, were in line with the claims she has tended to make elsewhere. Gold is most famous for her promotion of hydroxychloroquine as a “safe” alternative to COVID vaccines, in direct conflict with reality. Equally out of touch with reality, of course, is her persistent promotion of ivermectin. She is also opposed to face masks, of course. And Gold has been willing to use all available means to market her conspiracy theories, such as claiming that the US government experimented on Black people to test the general safety of vaccines in a desperate attempt to gain traction with Black communities. And like with so many of the conspiracy theorists associated with AFLDS, Gold’s background in research or patient care, despite being an MD, is … at best unclear – in 2020, for instance, she made a video trying to convince people she was affiliated with Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in LA, which she was certainly not.
She has been quite successful among wingnut groups, however. Her “White Coat Summit” press conference was co-sponsored by the Tea Party Patriots and was broadcast by Breitbart, and she was a speaker at the 2020 AMPFest, as well as at an event for donors to the Council for National Policy in November the same year (both Gold and AFLDS colleague James Todaro are part of that group); in December, she was part of a summit hosted by Turning Point USA. In 2021, she was part of the “Health and Freedom Conference” at Rhema Bible Church in Oklahoma with regular allies like Jim Caviezel, Mike Lindell, and Lin Wood (evangelicals have consistently been an important demographic for AFLDS’s disinformation efforts). In May, 2021, she arranged an RV tour across the US named the “Uncensored Truth Tour”. And so on.
She currently (or at least relatively recently) runs GoldCare, a telemedicine service that charges $1,000 per year for individual memberships, and – needless to say – does not accept insurance.
Diagnosis: One of the most brazen grifters alive in the US (and the competition is fierce). Yes, she probably honestly believes at least some of the claims and conspiracy theories she and her group have been producing, but successful grifters tend to do just that (when you tell a lie often enough you start to believe it yourself and so on). That she is still perceived as an authority by anyone at this point, is flabbergasting, but she is. A piece of utter garbage masquerading as a human.
Hat-tip: Rationalwiki
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