Marcus Lamb, a Christian media mogul who gave a platform to anti-vaxxers and other conspiracy theorists, died of COVID-19 on Tuesday.
Lamb, 64-years-old, was the president and founder of Daystar Television Network, the second-largest Christian broadcaster in the world, trailing just CBN News.
“It’s with a heavy heart we announce that Marcus Lamb, president and founder of Daystar Television Network, went home to be with the Lord this morning,” the network tweeted on Tuesday. “The family asks that their privacy be respected as they grieve this difficult loss.”
“During the pandemic,” The Washington Post reports, “Lamb and his network went in big with anti-vaccine conspiracies, hosting daily interviews with skeptics who talked about dangerous, hidden forces pushing vaccines and stealing Christians’ freedoms.”
Daystar’s programming included interviews with anti-vaccine advocates like Robert Kennedy Jr. One article on its website, “A Hidden Crisis,” asks “What if the most dangerous thing your child could face in life is the very thing you’re told by your doctor is safe?”
Lamb previously touted ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine – two unproven treatments – as COVID-19 cures.
The Post provides key context:
White evangelical Christians resist coronavirus vaccines at higher rates than other religious groups in the United States, a phenomenon experts say is bound up in politics, skepticism about government and in their consumption of alternative media and unfounded conspiracy theories about vaccine dangers.
Lamb’s son, Johnathan, called his father’s illness a “spiritual attack from the enemy.”
“As much as my parents have gone on here to kind of inform everyone about everything going on in the pandemic and some of the ways to treat COVID, there’s no doubt that the enemy is not happy about that and he’s doing everything he can to take down my dad,” he said.
Daystar Television Network received a $3.9 million Paycheck Protection Program loan in 2020 and reportedly used it to buy a private jet. After an outcry, the company returned the money.
A 2014 NPR investigation found that Daystar also grossly exaggerated its charitable givings.