YouTube/Getty Laura Birx is not Dr. Deborah Birx's daughter.
Dr. Deborah Birx has been thrust into the national spotlight after Donald Trump placed her on the elite White House Coronavirus Task Force on February 26. After serving two decades in the Army as an immunology clinician, and working as the former Ambassador-at-Large and US Global AIDS Coordinator from 2014 to 2020, she is highly qualified to speak on the novel coronavirus alongside Dr. Anthony, whom she considers a mentor.
During the daily press briefings, Dr. Birx, 63, who lives in a multigenerational home with her parents, Donald and Adele, who are 91 and 96, has only briefly mentioned her family while speaking to the nation. She’s married to husband Paige Reffe, who previously served as the Deputy Assistant and Director of Advance under President Bill Clinton, and they share two daughters, Davynn and Danielle.
However, while searching the internet for “Dr. Birx daughter,” the name Laura Birx is one of the first to pop up, and it was largelyly assumed that the Deputy Director of Strategy, Planning, and Management for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation was one of Dr. Birx’s daughters.
Laura Birx, who according to her Linkedin profile, lives in Seattle, Washington, is not related to Dr. Deborah Birx. While Laura earned her Master of Public Health at George Washington University, which is located in Washington, D.C., and knowing Dr. Birx lives in the metropolitan area, as well as sharing the same last name, it’s possible to see why the mix-up happened.
A Conspiracy Formed Online Between The Assumed Relation Between Laura Birx & Dr. Birx
Once the seed was planted the Laura Birx was related to Dr. Birx, the right-wing conspiracy group, QAnon, famous for blowing up the Pizzagate campaign against former First lady Hillary Clinton during her presidential campaign, ran with it. One user online tweeted, “They are all dirty and guilty.”
While Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx are largely considered the nation’s most knowledgable leaders on infectious diseases, right-wing media, especially Fox News reporter Laura Ingraham, isn’t a fan. She tweeted, “At some point “the experts” could claim “the models” show that private vehicle ownership kills millions worldwide, that “flattening the curve” on climate change is a global imperative, requiring private travel ONLY for “essential activities.” Then what?”
On April 8, she also tweeted, “At some point, the president is going to have to look at Drs. Fauci and Birx and say, we’re opening on May 1. Give me your best guidance on protocols, but we cannot deny our people their basic freedoms any longer.”
This kind of rhetoric makes Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx the scapegoats of the fallout from the current shutdown due to coronavirus, and falsely tying Laura Birx into the mix only caused for more false information to be shared online.
In late March, a fake “open letter” supposedly written by billionaire Bill Gates and published by the U.K. gossip outlet, The Sun, wrote that coronavirus was not a disaster, but a “great correcter.” The letter circulated in both English and Chinese on numerous social media channels.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation stated on their Weibo account on March 24, that the letter was faked. “Recently an article credited to Bill Gates with the title ‘What we can learn from the novel coronavirus epidemic’ has circulated online after being translated from a report published on the website of British newspaper The Sun. It has been confirmed that the article presents false information and has been removed from The Sun’s website. Please stop sharing the article. Thank you!”
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