Hillsborough GOP: COVID vaccines a ‘biological weapon’

The Hillsborough County Republican Party has become the seventh local party in the state to pass a resolution calling COVID-19 and the COVID vaccine “biological and technological weapons” and the vaccine, and the vaccines’ use a “denial of informed consent” and “crimes against humanity.”

The resolution asks Gov. Ron DeSantis to ban the vaccines in Florida and seize all supplies of the vaccine in the state.

The resolution originated with Joseph Sansone, a Lee County psychotherapist who specializes in hypnosis, according to his website.

He said six previous county-level Republican executive committees — the organizations of precinct representatives that govern the local party chapters — have passed it: Collier, Lake, Lee, St. Johns, Santa Rosa and Seminole counties.

The Hillsborough executive committee passed it on a 70-44 vote Thursday night, said party chairperson Dana Galen. Among those voting no was Jim Davison, a doctor who just filed to run for a county commissioner seat.

The resolution asserts — falsely, according to an Associated Press factcheck — that the vaccine alters human DNA. In an interview, Sansone said, also falsely according to AP factchecking, that the vaccine caused numerous miscarriages in clinical trials. It says “an enormous number of humans have died or have been permanently disabled” by the vaccine, which is part of “an enormous fraud” by “government agencies, media and tech companies, and other corporations.”

The resolution talks about blood clotting, which has been studied as a rare side effect of some COVID vaccines, but doesn’t mention that COVID itself is far more likely to cause clotting.

Sansone said he hasn’t heard of any response from DeSantis to the resolution; the governor’s office didn’t respond to a query about the resolution by deadline for this column.