Lakers’ Dwight Howard says he doesn’t believe in vaccines

When Dwight Howard was dazzled by the story that he got into trouble with the NBA for not wearing a mask by saying that people should focus on the fact that Breonna Taylor’s killers have yet to be brought to justice, it was a Little easier to ignore the somewhat selfish context of your time to deliver that message due to the importance of the message itself.

But even during a fun season to this point where Howard seems to have redeemed himself in the eyes of the Lakers, his fans, and the NBA world as a whole and do pretty much everything right, there are a few things we can’t do. defend. He almost managed to get through the season without making a mistake, but that streak ended on Sunday during an Instagram Live appearance during which Howard embraced that he doesn’t believe in vaccines, seemed (again) to question the importance of the masks and called discussion of your “clickbait” error.

Here’s Howard’s clip saying he doesn’t believe in vaccines:

I saw Instagram Live and the quotes above are accurate. You can watch the entire session for yourself here (at least until it’s likely removed later after any seemingly inevitable apology and hike that comes out of this).

Now, to be as fair as possible to Howard, his point about masks seemed to be that he didn’t need a mask if he was alone, something he also said on Saturday and is a fairly fair point as he also talked about why they are important in the outside world and while with other people. The rest of this is dangerous scientific denialism that must be rejected as forcefully as possible.

Vaccines are not dangerous. The move against them is fueled by a discredited study that used manipulated data and word of mouth conspiracy theories.

There is this idea, generally adopted by people who say something that is false, that “an opinion cannot be said to be incorrect.” That is not the case at all. It’s one thing to have an opinion about something somewhat subjective and debatable, like who’s the best basketball player of all time. Sure, maybe that can’t be “wrong”. But if your opinion that you are going to share with your 2.7 million Instagram followers is that you don’t believe in vaccines that are our main defense against diseases from the past, you are simply wrong and needs to be verified. as such.

This is a tremendously disappointing thing for Howard, and hopefully he’ll have a chance to learn from him and learn more about how he clearly has done from past mistakes. That’s all any of us can hope for when we’re wrong, and while it’s particularly damaging for someone within Howard’s reach to embrace, he should also be given the opportunity to learn and walk back, if he’s willing to do so.

For more Lakers talk, subscribe to the Silver Screen and Roll podcast at iTunes, Spotify, Stapler or Google Podcasts. You can follow Harrison on Twitter at @hmfaigen.