Comment: Oh dear lord...
Scientists believe the St. Petersburg troll farm also pumped out anti-vaccination propaganda, contributing to the outbreak that killed 72 people and infected more than 82,000, Radio Free Europe reported.
In a study published by the American Public Health Association in September, researchers examined the trolls' online messages from July 2014 through September 2017 and concluded that their posts were responsible for "eroding public consensus on vaccination."
Vaccination hesitancy is now one of the top 10 threats to global health, according to the World Health Organization.
Measles - which was close to being eradicated in many countries - has seen a 30 percent increase globally.
"The reasons for this rise are complex, and not all of these cases are due to vaccine hesitancy," the WHO noted. "However, some countries that were close to eliminating the disease have seen a resurgence."
Comment: 'Not all of these cases are due to vaccine hesitancy' (Correct. None of them are). 'Now we'll use the word "however" to segue into a complete non-sequitur that makes it seem like the resurgence in measles is because of people refusing to vaccinate'.
The highly contagious viral infection has cropped up in Eastern and Southeastern European countries - including Ukraine, which was the worst hit in 2018.
The country saw dwindling vaccine supplies and services in 2015 and 2016, when the conflict between government forces and pro-Russia separatists was at its peak.
WHO vaccine specialist Katrine Habersaat was dubious about the link between trolls and the measles outbreak.
"We actually don't know enough about the influence of misinformation available online upon vaccination intentions and behaviors," she told Radio Free Europe. "What we do know is that there is an element of echo chambers in this."
Comment: At least someone quoted in the article is at least a little skeptical of this absolutely preposterous connection! The American people should be absolutely disgusted that the press think them so stupid and fickle as to fall for a troll farm campaign rather than do their own research and come to their own conclusions. How insulting can you be than to your readers than to say that they aren't intelligent enough to formulate their own opinions but will just swallow whatever the Kremlin is supposedly telling them to believe? That the only possible reason any American citizen could disagree with the MSM is that they're easily persuaded by a bunch of poorly created memes.
And yet they're not disgusted. In fact, they believe it.
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