Important Context dug into a new “academy” of public health complete with its own new medical journal. Behind the new publication are a number of COVID-19 contrarians, including two of Donald Trump’s public health picks, and a major right-wing dark money group funded by big money. The new venture promises to manufacture legitimacy for discredited pandemic policies and medical notions while limiting submissions to insiders.

Important Context reveals how right-wing dark money groups are manufacturing prestige for friendly academics. This investigation dives into a new group called the American Academy of Sciences and Letters, which has been giving out awards to prominent scholars alongside fringe figures from the right. The goal appears to be boosting the latter through association with the former.

A controversial health policy summit at Stanford University organized by a prominent COVID-19 contrarian and stacked with fringe speakers, was funded by a mysterious UK charity. Important Context dug into Collateral Global, exposing its links to anti-vaccine other conspiratorial groups as well as its efforts to shape the global pandemic discourse.

Emory University hosted a panel discussion about the lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic with Dr. Vinay Prasad, a well-known social media contrarian doctor who has expressed questionable views about the COVID vaccines and praised anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert Kennedy Jr. Experts questioned why someone like him would be invited to such a panel.

A Stanford University health policy summit organized by COVID contrarian Dr. Jay Bhattacharya has added more extreme voices, including vaccine skeptic Alex Berenson and Epoch Times editor Jan Jekielek. Important Context covered the new additions to the speaker lineup already stacked with extreme voices.

Important Context dug into an up-and-coming parents’ rights group from New York that is dedicated to ‘protecting’ children from gender-affirming care and trans inclusivity in schools but unconcerned with exposing them to COVID-19. The group, Restore Childhood, is allied with Moms for Liberty, another right-wing dark money parents’ rights group.

Important Context covered a controversial forum at Johns Hopkins University that featured a number of well known medical contrarians and representatives of right-wing dark money groups that worked to politicize COVID-19. A number of the groups represented had ties to billionaire industrialist and conservative powerbroker Charles Koch, a major donor to Hopkins.

Important Context covered a health policy conference hosted by Stanford University organized by health economist Jay Bhattacharya, a favorite science voice for right-wing dark money groups. The event was controversial not only because it was stacked with anti-vaxxers, right-wing political operatives, and medical contrarians, but because the university’s president delivered the opening remarks.

Important Context took a look at the funding behind another major parents’ rights group that formed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Parents Defending Education was founded by a veteran political operative and has backing from major right-wing sources.

Moms for Liberty, a right-wing dark money parents’ rights group, purports to be a grassroots organization formed out of opposition to COVID-19 mitigations and liberal agendas in public schools. But is it really? Important Context took a look at the group’s tax returns to answer the question.