In her speech in the Parliament of the Republic of Serbia on April 29, 2020, Nada Kostic, MP, internist and professor on the Medical Faculty in Belgrade, presented numerous conspiracy theories on coronavirus, its emergence, situation development but also on the world in future. In the beginning of her address, Kostic emphasized that she will „use the pieces of evidence in her speech and not her own ideas“. However, she did not present a single credible piece of evidence confirming her theories; therefore, they remained in the conspiracy domain.
Coronavirus origin
She began her speech stating that the virus does not have natural but artificial origin. However, there is no proof for this claim. Scientists claim that the virus has natural origin, or, that it was transmitted from animals to humans, which is the opinion of the World Health Organization as the most relevant institution in this situation.
However, she did not stop here but continued with this statement: „If we look back then years, all coronaviruses are artificial, no matter if we call them swine, bird, rabbit, these or those, and no matter if there are 19, 20 or 50 of them, all of them are artificial in fact.“ Besides claiming that large world pandemics caused by swine flu or COVID-19 are laboratory made, which is denied, she presented a piece of disinformation that the swine and bird flu also belong to the family of coronaviruses. However, swine and bird flu belong to the family of Orthomyxovirus while coronavirus belongs to the family Coronaviridae.
5G theory still trending
She also reflected on the alleged censoring of a certain content, adding that when uttering the terms 5G network or vaccination, YouTube and social media automatically shut down. It is true that YouTube is limiting videos which make a connection between 5G and coronavirus, but no case of banning the access to this platform has been noticed due to uttering or writing certain terms.
In her address, Dr. Kostic refers to Canadian scientist David Like, but in fact, she is referring to famous British conspiracy theorist David Icke and his theory that „5G has a very strong electromagnetic field, up to 60mhz and if it focuses on one place, that place is going to be burnt.“ When it comes to David Icke, YouTube recently deleted his channel on that platform and Facebook removed his profile due to a negative impact that his coronavirus conspiracy theories have on the population.
Kostic presented another claim – that 5G masts were installed on the Belgrade Fair. That theory comes from one of the photos posted on Facebook in the beginning of April this year when it was claimed that 5G mast was installed there. In fact, it is a 4G mast, which has been there for some time.
In June 2019 in Serbia, only one 5G mast has been installed in the Science and Technology Park in Belgrade, and the plan is to continue with the installation of the network during this year.
Kostic also states that the 5G network is sucking the oxygen, which results in people frequent perspiring and yawning. The similar theory was spreading on social media and news portals, but in this theory it is claimed that the 5G network caused the novel coronavirus, because it sucked the oxygen out of lungs. The DFC has already addressed the conspiracy theories about the 5G network, and the WHO denied the link between the novel coronavirus and the technology.
Dead scientists, Satanism and indispensable Gates
Further in her statement, the doctor said that a Japanese Nobel prize winner stated that all of the scientists who had been allegedly engineering the novel coronavirus are dead. It is fake news which has been spreading for a long period of time on social media and news portals, and which was denied already by many foreign and domestic fact-check websites.
Besides the well-known conspiracy theories, she referred to the theory on Satanists and cannibalism, particularly child cannibalism. She mentioned the „adeno drugs“ (as she called them) that Satanists allegedly use for rejuvenation. Dr Kostic probably thought about adrenochrome, a hemostatic agent that promotes clotting, preventing blood loss from open wounds. It is true that there is a constant debate about adrenochrome’s psychedelic effects, but it was never determined whether it has an impact on rejuvenation, as considered by conspiracy theorists.
Kostic also spoke about alleged Bill Gates’s plan to reduce the population number from seven billions to one golden billion. The theory has been debunked many times before by fact-check portals, such as Faktograf and Snopes.
The conspiracy theorists refer to Gates speech at the TEDtalk TV show in 2010. Gates stated then that the population on the planet affects increase in CO2 emission, which must be reduced.
His words that „if we really make a good job with the new vaccines, health services, and reproduction, we could reduce it (the population number) by 10-15 percent“ were used by conspiracy theorists to claim that the world elite seeks to reduce the population number using vaccines.
However, Gates does not suggest the reduction of the population number on the planet through health services and the development of new vaccines, but he hopes that the technological advancement in these fields will result in the slower global population growth, which Gates was talking about in the interviews for CNN and Forbes.
Kostic added that the next step is a vaccine with a chip to be inserted in people, which would result in people losing control over their bodies. It is the most spread theory, and almost every credible world media or fact-check organization has debunked it.
Dr Nada Kostic has been elected in the Parliament of Serbia from the list of the Dosta je bilo movement, and later she joined the Democratic political party. Kostic was even appointed for a short period of time a Minister of Health of Serbia, during the provisional government after the fall of Slobodan Milosevic from 2000 to 2001.