JonTron Draws The Ire Of Social Media After Tweeting Critically About Animal Testing In Vaccine Development

October 26th, 2021 - 11:33 AM EDT by Adam Downer

10 comments | Contact Newsroom

An image depicting YouTuber JonTron.

Controversial YouTuber JonTron, best known for never finishing Sonic '06 on Game Grumps, releasing a half-dozen videos a year and once asserting that "wealthy blacks commit more crime than poor whites," has returned to social media's crosshairs after posting a series of tweets that appeared to criticize alleged animal testing done under Dr. Fauci.


As head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Fauci has come under scrutiny for allegedly funding studies done on beagles in Tunisia that saw the dogs' vocal cords removed and their heads force-fed to flies. There is some debate on if the allegations are true and confusion on whether the NIAID actually funded the study in question, which was testing vaccines for the disease Leishmania infantum, of which flies are a vector and dogs are a reservoir.

While Republicans and Democrats have called on Fauci to answer questions regarding the claims, right-leaning news organizations and politicians have been more vocal in trying to use the allegations to discredit Fauci, who has long drawn the ire of the American right for his expertise and guidelines during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This made JonTron's sarcastic "just trust the science, bro!" quip read like a potentially anti-COVID-vaccine statement, as even though the allegations against the NIAID have nothing to do with the development of COVID vaccines, JonTron's focus on Fauci resembles conservative anti-vax talking points. The most charitable reads on social media agreed with JonTron that the allegations are disturbing but have no bearing on whether or not vaccines are effective.


Many others were disappointed but not shocked that JonTron re-entered public consciousness with what appeared to be anti-vax tweets.


After several hours of trending on Twitter, JonTron attempted to back away from the anti-vax implications of his tweets and cast himself as a citizen "concerned" that public discourse has reached a "dangerous level" of "conformity."



Top Comments

LordofD:
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LordofD:

Personally i too hate Animal Testing in general, but i can understand that such a thing has lead to some of the greatest medical advancements in recent history, stuff like Insulin, Anaesthesia and Penicillin may not exist now adays whitow Animal Testing, so until we find a more viable and "caring" alternative, i guess it is a necesary evil.

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HardcoreHunter
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HardcoreHunter

"Controversial YouTuber JonTron, best known for never finishing Sonic '06 on Game Grumps, releasing a half-dozen videos a year".
Gee I wonder if Adam doesn't like JonTron.

What Jon is saying here is right though. He's talking about conformity and ethics. The knee jerk reaction he received over this kind shows his point. People reacted to this as if they were self-righteous zealots condemning a heretic.

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