Emory Shooting Highlights Dangers of Anti-Vaccine Conspiracy Theories

Police say the gunman targeted the CDC because of anger towards the COVID vaccine.

Police believe the assailant responsible for a deadly shooting near the campus of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday targeted the institution because he believed he was ill and blamed his condition on the COVID-19 vaccine, according to CNN.

Emory University in Atlanta issued an alert for an active shooter around 5 PM on Friday. Less than two hours later, police confirmed that the shooter was dead, and that there was no longer an active threat in the area.

During the shooting, the gunman killed one police officer as he opened fire and shot multiple rounds through the windows of the CDC’s headquarters. In a post on X, the director of the CDC said at least four of the agency’s buildings had been hit by gunfire. Employees of the agency were kept on lockdown for five hours.

According to CNN, after speaking with the shooter’s family, police believe he specifically targeted the CDC out of anger over the COVID-19 vaccine. CNN reports that the shooter was sick or thought he was sick and “blamed the illness on the COVID-19 vaccine.”

If the shooting was, indeed, motivated by anti-vaccine sentiment, it would add to a long list of anti-vaccine-related violent incidents in the U.S. While the anti-vaccine movement has existed for many decades, it has recently become more organized and increasingly aligned with political extremism. During the pandemic, anti-vaccine protests and activism led to everything from bomb plots and death threats to attacks on vaccination centers, storming of government buildings, and fights on the street.

The pandemic timeframe also saw a dramatic increase in gun violence and mass shootings in the US. Although not all were explicitly linked to anti-vaccine sentiment, the overall atmosphere of heightened social tensions, political polarization, and distrust towards public health measures—including vaccines—has created conditions conducive to violence.

Adding fuel to the fire, gun sales surged in the US during the pandemic, with 22 million guns purchased in 2020, a 64% increase from 2019. This coincided with historic spikes in firearm injuries and homicides in many large cities.

With anti-vaccine conspiracy theories and fear-mongering gaining legitimacy thanks to high profile members of government like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., once-fringe ideas are now becoming mainstream, and an increasing number of Americans believe that vaccines are not just dangerous, but intentionally harmful.

And therein lies the danger of vaccine-related conspiracy theories. One of the major appeals of conspiracy theories is that they provide someone to blame when something bad happens. So, for example, when a person develops a chronic disease or life-altering injury, it may be easier to blame a vaccine rather than having to deal with the burden of uncertainty.

Eventually, though, if you tell enough people that vaccine makers and scientists are responsible for knowingly causing significant harm to innocent people, someone is going to interpret that message as a call for violence in the name of justice for victims of vaccine injuries — or as an excuse to seek vengeance for their own ailment.

The facts are still coming in regarding Friday’s shooting, but if police are correct in their initial assessment, then it appears that the uniquely American combination of unfettered access to guns and an endless appetite for conspiracy theories has once again resulted in entirely preventable fatal violence.