麻豆传媒

At a recent hearing at the California State Assembly, a man stepped in front of the microphone during a public comment period to speak out against .

The bill would make spreading COVID-19 misinformation or disinformation a form of unprofessional conduct among physicians. The man was wearing a shirt that read, "Good luck with your vaccines."

"I oppose this bill," he started, "and anybody who supports this bill will be held accountable under Nuremberg codes. Be warned."

"We are watching very closely," he added, as he was urged away from the microphone.

The word "Nuremberg" has been thrown around by the right wing throughout the pandemic, but gained traction once vaccines came on the scene. The idea is that the COVID-19 vaccines constitute medical experimentation, and anyone who promotes them -- including doctors -- should be held accountable, in the way that members of the Nazi Party were executed following the Nuremberg trials.

These days, it's mostly referred to as "Nuremberg 2.0," to invoke a second coming of the trials.

It's not clear whether physicians are aware of this ideology, which essentially calls for doctors (and others) to be killed for providing COVID shots and other supposed pandemic crimes.

While it's mostly an empty threat, it's caused unease among those who've been targeted directly.

Timothy Caulfield, professor of health law and science policy at the University of Alberta in Canada, told 麻豆传媒 that he's received many threats referencing Nuremberg 2.0.

"It's, 'I'm going to watch you hang,' or 'Justice is coming,'" said Caulfield, whose research focus on misinformation during the COVID pandemic has put him on the movement's radar.

He calls it a "completely misleading application of the concepts of the Nuremberg trials," which involved a "progressive, liberal approach to finding justice." It's also a "bit of a paradox because Nuremberg was used against a far-right regime, and here you have the alt-right rolling out that language."

The speaker at the California State Assembly hearing didn't identify himself, but registered opposition to the bill included a group called Nuremberg 2.0 LTD, , who has been tracking misinformation and political connections and has received Nuremberg threats since she wrote a .

Bret Barker, DNP, lists himself as the CEO of Nuremberg 2.0 LTD on , and his Twitter profile says he's a member of America's Frontline Doctors. He wrote a book about the COVID-19 pandemic that accuses "globalists" of "using this crisis to inflate and keep the pandemic going with fear mongering to fully take control of the world's governments and enslave us."

Caulfield noted that while the terminology is "nothing more than fear mongering," serious threats like those he has received can be silencing.

"We need institutions like the licensing boards, the universities, the hospitals, to step up and make sure that their members who are speaking up and about the scientific truth are being supported," Caulfield said. "They can [speak out] knowing that there are institutions that have got their back. Otherwise, these who are using fallacious arguments like Nuremberg 2.0 are going to win."

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