Free Republic

A woman spent years posing as a bisexual Native American scientist and university professor, claiming in recent months to be suffering persistent, months-long symptoms of COVID-19 until finally announcing that the fictitious persona she created had died from the disease. The woman, BethAnn McLaughlin, a former assistant professor of neurology at Vanderbilt University, operated the Twitter account with the handle @Sciencing_Bi. She claimed to have contracted the coronavirus in April, according to a BuzzFeed News investigation, and said she suffered persistent symptoms that included a "loss of language fluency." On Tuesday, BethAnn McLaughlin confirmed in a statement to The New...

An Arizona State University professor who posted on Twitter for years about social justice issues and recently detailed her fight with COVID-19 was said to have died last week — but she actually never existed. BethAnn McLaughlin — who announced the made-up professor’s death on July 31 — admitted to The New York Times on Tuesday that she was behind the hoax. “I take full responsibility for my involvement in creating the @sciencing_bi Twitter account,” she said in a statement through her lawyer. “My actions are inexcusable. I apologize without reservation to all the people I hurt.” Since 2016, the...