Sherri Tenpenny

Sherri J. Tenpenny is an American anti-vaccination activist and conspiracy theorist. An osteopathic physician by training, she is the author of four books opposing vaccination. In 2023 the State Medical Board of Ohio indefinitely suspended Tenpenny's medical license for failure to participate in its investigations. Her license was restored in 2024 and expired in 2025.

In an April 2021 BitChute video, Tenpenny reiterated false claims that COVID-19 vaccines lacked testing and led to long-term health effects. Neither statement contained scientific merit or accuracy. On May 17, 2021, Reuters refuted Tenpenny's claim that COVID-19 vaccines affect sperm and fertility. The news organization reiterated that there is no scientific evidence to back such false claims.

Called by Republicans as an expert witness before a June 2021 hearing of the Ohio House Health Committee, Tenpenny promoted the false claim that COVID-19 vaccines cause people to become magnetized such that metal objects stick to their bodies, adding "There’s been people who have long suspected that there’s been some sort of an interface, yet-to-be-defined interface, between what’s being injected in these shots and all of the 5G towers". The video of her testimony was widely circulated, and in early July 2021 Twitter permanently suspended Tenpenny's account for "violating its COVID-19 misinformation policy". Her YouTube account was removed in September 2021 for breaking the company's policies on COVID-19 misinformation.

As Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Tenpenny claimed in posts laden with anti-semitic references that this event was manufactured as a distraction to mask new pandemic restrictions. In 2022 she claimed that COVID-19 vaccines will turn people into "transhumanist cyborgs" and predicted that "by the end of 2022, every fully vaccinated person over the age of 30 may have the equivalent of full-blown vaccine-induced immune suppressed AIDS".

A December 2021 de Beaumont Foundation report cited Tenpenny as one of two extreme examples of a "small subset of [...] physicians" making "disproven claims" about COVID vaccines.

Tenpenny participated in an online fundraising event to support the presidential campaign of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The round table, held June 27, 2023, brought together several prominent anti-vaccination activists, such as Mikki Willis, Sayer Ji, Charles Eisenstein, Del Bigtree and Joe Mercola.

Medical license suspension

On August 9, 2023, the State Medical Board of Ohio indefinitely suspended Tenpenny's medical license and imposed a $3,000 fine after two years of refusal to respond to questions or participate in her board hearings. Her license was restored in 2024 and expired in 2025.

Published works