A COVID-19 Disinformation Email Was Sent By A Cobb County School Board Member

COBB COUNTY, GA — A Cobb County school board member recently sent an email with conspiracy-laden misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines. David Banks shared discredited numbers of deaths allegedly caused by the vaccines; the U.S. Centers for Disease Control says less than a dozen deaths are tied to coronavirus shots.

"Please read." That's what Banks, vice chair of the Cobb County School District Board of Education, said in an email to some parents and members of the Cobb Schools community last week, followed by conspiracy-laden information regarding COVID-19 vaccines and accusations that the U.S. government is "intentionally killing its citizens," according to multiple news outlets.

The body of the email following Banks' one line of text appears to be from Macht Im Wissen Inc. of Georgia, as well as an attached Microsoft Word document, the Marietta Daily Journal and East Cobb News reported. Macht Im Wissen is German for "Knowledge is Power," though the company's CEO, Emery Leonard, is an Atlanta resident and retired benefits professional.

Here's the body of the email, as reported by ECN:

“It just gets worse and worse. The CDC has now published the Adverse effects of Covid Shots through September 24, 2021. (see item 8 of the attached.) The number of deaths resulting directly from Covid shots in the US alone are at a minimum of 122,592 based on the CDC September 24 report. Serious permanent injury from the shots has happened to more than 100,000 people. That is unacceptable. The government is intentionally killing its citizens. The Governments at all levels in America continue to take actions to force people to take the shots. There is no medical reason supporting those actions. Covid shots were proven NOT TO WORK almost two years ago in the governments own mandated trials performed by Pfizer, Moderna, and J&J. See item 2 of the attachment. My advice. Do not take the shots if you have not already done so. Contact your state and federal legislators and share the attachment with them.”

The attachments referred to in the above email can be viewed here.

Banks is in his fourth term representing Post 5, which covers the Pope and Lassiter areas. He has previously said he doesn't wear a mask because he believes they do not work, and came under fire last August by some constituents for referencing COVID-19 as the "China Virus" in a newsletter, WSB-TV reported.

A district spokesperson sent the following statement to the MDJ about Banks' email:

“Like any Cobb citizen, the comments of any individual board member should not be understood as official Board policy or positions of the Board as a whole. The District encourages the community to continue referring to official district communication channels.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's website shows that more than 390 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines were administered across the U.S. from Dec. 14, 2020 to Sept. 27, 2021. During that time, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) received 8,164 reports of death among people who received a COVID-19 vaccine, or 0.0021 percent of vaccinated people.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration requires health care providers to report any death after COVID-19 vaccination to the VAERS tool, even if it's not clear whether the vaccine was the cause.