News/Commentary

Health experts reveal Neil Young’s history of ‘misinformation’, suggest he’s part of the ‘problem’

February 3, 2022 | | Print Article

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Reports have emerged that musician Neil Young has a history of spreading “misinformation,” suggesting therefore that he should worry about cleaning his own house, figuratively speaking, instead of complaining about podcaster Joe Rogan.

Published in Bloomberg, one report notes that he’s “spread scientific misinformation about GMO foods” for years.

“While experts have consistently judged GMO foods to be both safe and useful, Young in one song referred to them as poison. As a guest on the ‘Late Show With Stephen Colbert’ in 2016, Young suggested that GMO foods caused ‘terrible diseases,'” the report reads.

The author, columnist Tyler Cohen, wonders in the piece whether “anti-biotech sentiments like these, ironically, might have fed the current skepticism of Covid vaccines.”

COVID vaccines are relevant because Young has been ranting and raving about the alleged coronavirus vaccine “misinformation” being spread by Rogan, a podcaster famous for his uncensored, unfiltered discussions with anybody and everybody, including leading scientists and virologists.

The rants and raves eventually led him to threaten to remove his music from Spotify, the streaming platform that hosts Rogan’s show. But the platform ultimately chose to side with Rogan and his monster-sized show.

Meanwhile at The Daily Beast, a left-wing site, Louis Anslow straight-up accuses Young of having “helped create this” alleged “problem.”

“This is the same Neil Young who in 2015 released an entire album, The Monsanto Years, that’s wall-to-wall songs from an anti-biotechnology point of view. Young’s anti-GMO rhetoric helped fuel a narrative that made it easy to spread fear and distrust about COVID vaccines, most of which used novel biotechnology methods and some of which use genetic engineering,” Anslow writes.

“A collective amnesia has set in amongst progressives regarding the left’s past pandering to the anti-biotechnology movement. Reactionary Luddism—especially around biotechnology—was both politically correct and convenient for progressive celebrity activists. But that was in the ‘before times.'”

The same “collective amnesia” appears to be prevalent throughout the entire left. Take for instance the left’s embrace of Dick Cheney and Liz Cheney, two “neocon” Republicans whom they’d hated only years earlier:

Dovetailing back to Young, he reportedly also has a history of staunch homophobia.

In an interview with Melody Maker magazine during the height of the AIDS crisis in 1985, he blamed homosexuals for the spread of the disease, invoking an anti-gay slur while remarking, “You go to a supermarket and you see a f—ot behind the f—in’ cash register, you don’t want him to handle your potatoes.”

It seems hating musician Neil Young has some amends to make. And indeed, many of his critics argue that he (and other musicians going after Rogan) needs to look in the mirror and clean his own house. Critics also say he’s an “unprincipled, outdated hypocrite.” His prior support for free speech suggests they’re right.

Look:

Fox News contributor Dr. Marc Siegel for his part isn’t surprised by Young’s behavior.

“Neil Young is a social-political songwriter, and he’s often wrong,” Siegel said.

On vaccines, however, Siegel claimed Young is right, though he nevertheless defended Rogan’s “right to dissent.”

Back in the day, Young also believed in dissent. But not anymore …

Vivek Saxena
Latest posts by Vivek Saxena (see all)

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