PBS Scrubs Noted Anti-Vaxxer Dr. Christiane Northrup from their YouTube Channel

They need to own their role in her infamy

Last month I took you on a deep dive into the anti science, misogynistic, patient blaming, anti-Semitic teachings of Dr. Christiane Northrup. You can find that post here. I was shocked that Oprah and PBS had seen fit to make her a household name given what she has always promoted. I wondered if anyone in the media who had elevated her, and there were many who did, had actually read any of her work? 

I specifically called out PBS, because support from PBS bestows the veneer of respectability. Being featured on PBS, eight PBS specials no less, makes people feel that an expert has been vetted. Despite Northrup being a long time anti-vaxxer and spreader of medical disinformation, so much so that she was declared a super spreader of vaccine disinformation by the Center for Countering Digital Hate, she was still easy to find on the PBS YouTube Channel. You could still find her on PBS despite her promoting Holocaust denier, David Icke.

Oprah’s team seems to have silently scrubbed Northrup sometime after August 24, 2020, but on September 8, 2021, during the 4th COVID-19 wave, PBS still hadn’t removed her. 

Imagine you are vaccine hesitant. You see information that claims the COVID-19 vaccines causes miscarriages and damage fertility. You get scared. So you look up the source and find it comes from Dr Northrup and also learn that she is featured heavily on PBS. Eight specials! Well, she must be right about the vaccine! PBS even called her “a visionary in the field of women’s health.” 

This week Northrup was bellyaching at an event in New York about being cancelled by PBS. So I took a look, and wouldn’t you know, she is no longer on the PBS YouTube channel. When you do a search “Northrup PBS” the top videos all now link to Northrup’s own website, or the page exists on a PBS affiliate, but the video has been removed. 

I am not sure if my calling PBS out here had an impact, but the post I wrote on Northrup was viewed over 44,000 times and I tagged PBS on Twitter and Instagram, including the current President of PBS. Paula Kerger. 

Over on Facebook, Northrup is keeping a low profile promoting various ridiculous supplements and repeatedly posting the same short video clip about where you can find her “in case you can’t find me here.” Wonder how many warnings she’s received from Facebook? She’s already banned by Instagram. 

I did take a quick look on Northrup’s Telegram site. That’s about all I could stomach, because as expected she is posting racist, conspiracy theory, scientifically illiterate garbage. 

Then again, those were always her true colors. 

I’m glad PBS has taken her videos down. That was the right thing to do and I applaud the effort, while still noting that it was very slow in coming. Northrup’s generic posts on Facebook are not getting anywhere near the same play as her inflammatory ones filled with lies about the vaccine, so maybe getting her wings clipped there has helped a little.

Unfortunately, this damage control is a little too late and PBS really should be doing an internal investigation about why they broadly promoted a dangerous quack for years. A doctor who wrote that if a woman has “sex with someone who she doesn’t respect or love, she is participating in an energy pattern that is associated with chronic vaginal, cervical or vulvar problems, that are documented prostitute diseases” and who believes that women who have repeat abortions lack self esteem and self respect, and who thinks a person learning they are HIV positive is what damages the immune system, not the virus. 

Yeah PBS, you still have some public explaining to do because Northrup wrote that garbage before you decided she was worthy of being featured on PBS. And then you invited her back seven more times.