Twitter Revokes Diamond And Silk's Immunology Degrees

All they did was suggest people go get infected with Rona for good health. Is that wrong?

Fox News hangers-on Lynnette Hardaway and Rochelle Richardson, who have Dunning-Kruegered their way into the rightwing punditocracy as "Diamond and Silk," briefly had their Twitter account locked Wednesday after they tweeted a call for COVID-19 quarantines to end so that everyone can get healthier. It was, as you'd expect, a supremely bad take, salvaged somewhat by the elegant framing of this person who got a screenshot before the tweet went bye-bye:

Imagine a whole world that consists of stupid takes. Now imagine that in that world is a fortress containing the s… https: //t.co/eB5MVaORGl

— Bill Prady (@Bill Prady) 1586370200.0 

So yeah, that's Dr. Diamond and Dr. Silk explaining how the human immune system works:

The only way we can become immune to the environment; we must be out in the environment. Quarantining people inside of their houses for extended periods will make people sick!

That ... is not how immunity to diseases develops . You could look it up, or just click the linky there. Twitter locked the account and said the tweet was "in in violation of our COVID-19 misinformation policy" and would have to be removed for the account to be reactivated. So now the tweet's gone.

Oh, but it all gets stupider, because the two dipwads also explained where they got their misinformation, and again, thank goodness for screen captures. In a reply to their wrongness, the two cited the New York Times, which means even liberals have to respect their extensive research.

So hey, we looked, and heck of a surprise, the Times article they refer to does indeed cite Dr. Meg Lemon talking about the immune system. Only, no, it's not about building up immunity to a deadly virus that causes respiratory illness. It's about allergies, and Dr. Lemon, a dermatologist, simply said — a year ago, in a pre-COVID-19 context — that we don't need to worry too much about dust and dirt, so go ahead and pick your nose if you want to, and if you want to eat something you dropped on the floor, go for it. Hell, in the Before Times, touching your face was generally OK, though not a great idea if you wanted to avoid flu.

And no, there's nothing in the story that suggests people staying in their homes for a couple months to prevent the spread of a disease would actually make people sick, or "disrupt our immune system." But then, Hardaway and Richardson probably think of the "immune system" as a magical life force that can be boosted with Alex Jones's Trucker Speed, not an actual physiological system.

Mind you, Dr. Lemon also advises people get vaccinated against the real nasties, because vaccines work. We guess the great medical thinkers may have skipped over that part of the article, because no, they do not trust vaccines, which are probably a plot to kill black people:

Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx have made it clear that COVID-19 severely impacts African Americans. If they think they are… https: //t.co/nFPb1GdHwb

— Diamond and Silk® (@Diamond and Silk®) 1586369869.0 

Point taken on Tuskegee, honestly. So that's something to scratch our heads over this morning, as we ponder "Diamond and Silk said something resembling something true, and that we can understand." What really puzzles us, however, is that just one day before their tweet insisting that ending the quarantine is necessary if Americans are to grow strong and healthy, the duo tweeted this call for people to — can you possibly guess? — stay home for safety:

To all of my brothers and sisters especially my black brother's and sisters, please make sure you are washing your… https: //t.co/UZme1EPPrp

— Diamond and Silk® (@Diamond and Silk®) 1586302088.0 

Then again, 24 hours is an awfully long time to expect these grifters to stick to one idea. Or maybe an intern posted that one.

[ Politico / Mediaite / NYT / Photo:  Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons license 3.0 ]

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