Anti-vaxx scientist claims ‘mass formation psychosis’ caused people to follow COVID-19 restrictions

The scientist talked with fellow Anti-vaxx spokesperson Joe Rogan

A scientist who also shockingly promotes anti-vaxx conspiracies has dubbed people following Covid-19 restrictions as "mass formation psychosis". Appearing on Joe Rogan's podcast on December 31, Dr Robert Malone said mass psychosis has caused a "third of the population basically being hypnotized". https://twitter.com/MythinformedMKE/status/1476992015556620291 While the segment has been removed from YouTube, Twitter has also banned Malone's account for breaking its misinformation policies. However, GOP Representative Troy Nehls has entered a full transcript of the podcast into the congressional record. Malone believes that said "psychosis" is why people take advice from experts and get vaccinated. He said: "When you have a society that has become decoupled from each other and has free-floating anxiety in a sense that things don't make sense, we can't understand it, and then their attention gets focused by a leader or a series of events on one small point, just like hypnosis, they literally become hypnotized and can be led anywhere." https://twitter.com/MythinformedMKE/status/1477091670424526852 Predictably, Malone also made the comparison between the handling of the pandemic and Nazi Germany. But here's the kicker. Psychology Experts have said there is no actual support for the doctor's claims. They added that "mass formation psychosis" is not even in the American Psychological Association's Dictionary of Psychology. "To my knowledge, there's no evidence whatsoever for this concept," Jay Van Bavel of New York University told the AP. Numerous other psychology experts agreed with Van Bavel, with the UK's John Drury stating that: "No respectable psychologist agrees with these ideas now". PolitiFact acknowledges that politicians have been pumping out ant-vaxx rhetoric but stated they are more concerned with Malone. "He's a legitimate scientist, or at least was until he started to make these false claims," Dr. Paul Offit, chair of vaccinology at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine, told PolitiFact.

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