Fake doctors have been making vaccination advisories at the Department of Health

How the left is losing me 

Toggling seamlessly between bikini and lab coat, Dr. Risa Hoshino’s Instagram persona embodied the millennial feminist: a pediatrician treating covid patients on the front lines who could still show off her body and build her profile as a lifestyle influencer. A vaccine advocate who collaborates with nationally renowned physicians, yet also finds time to talk about her favorite lipstick stain. A physician who manages to create science-education content for free in her downtime, then complains about being so underpaid and overworked that she asks her followers to contribute $5 each to her personal “coffee fund” (hundreds of her followers obliged).

After Dr. Hoshino unsurprisingly grew her Instagram to 113,000 followers in a year-and-a-half, Medical Marketing + Media  dubbed her one of “The top 12 physician influencers” on that platform.  Beckers HR called her a "top 10 physician influencer" and The Scientist lauded her as "a veteran of using social media to debunk scientific falsehoods.”

The only problem? She crafted her entire “covid health hero” persona on half-truths and exaggerations.

If you’ve been active on social media during the pandemic era, you may have noticed doctors and public health experts rising from obscurity and swiftly developing large followings.  Posting prolifically about masks, vaccines, and other covid-19 mitigation measures, these physicians and scientists flaunt their credentials including the prestigious institutions where they studied, establishing their credibility and, in turn, their respective brands as serious authoritative voices. A posed profile photo in a white lab coat (stethoscope optional) often helps add a final veneer of gravitas.

These doctors, who mark themselves with hashtags such as #medtwitter or #tweetiatrician, almost exclusively push a narrative emphasizing the dangers of Covid-19 infection, even among children who are statistically at very low risk.  At the same time, their social media posts minimize any potential harms or side effects from either non-pharmaceutical interventions – such school closures or masking toddlers –  or vaccines.  

A corporate media invested in promoting a government public health narrative plagued by inconsistent messaging, combined with an ever-growing reliance on smartphones and other devices, created a perfect environment for these social media medical personalities to thrive.

Enter the Instagram Doctor, MD:  Youthful, often conventionally attractive, always prepared to answer your questions. Their social media feeds burst with the concise messaging and advice laypeople craved throughout the pandemic, presented in simple terms with colorful infographics, catchy taglines, and viral hashtags.

Dr. Hoshino is a typical case. Hoshino had been building her brand since mid 2020, focusing primarily on Instagram until March 2022, when Twitter began aggressively promoting her tweets such as the one shown below.  She describes herself in her Twitter bio as a board-certified pediatrician in Public Health and “vaccine expert.” Her posts depict a stylish young physician, exhausted from heroic work treating covid patients on the front lines.