Last month popular commentator Leana Wen, MD cancelled her appearance at the American Public Health Association because of credible death threats. Hundreds signed a petition challenging her suggestion that COVID-19 restrictions can be loosened. Ironically, only a year earlier she received death threats for promoting stricter restrictions and vaccine mandates. Wen bases her public commentary on her best interpretation of the latest scientific evidence. As a physician and public health scientist, that’s how she was trained. Yet Wen’s accommodation to emerging research provoked both the extreme political right and left. How did a respected physician/scientist’s best interpretation of scientific data degenerate into the potential for physical violence? The causes of this overwhelming antagonism are certainly multifactorial. But, surprisingly, fact checkers may be major contributors. Their sometimes-capriciously assigned misinformation labels can result in social media censorship and threaten academic freedom.