The U.S. military launched a clandestine operation to undermine trust in China's COVID-19 vaccines, a Reuters investigation has revealed. Amid the global health crisis, the Pentagon used fake social media accounts to prey on vulnerable populations, sowing doubt about the safety and efficacy of life-saving inoculations.
The Pentagon's secret anti-vax propaganda campaign continued for months into the Biden administration before finally being shut down in 2021.
According to the Reuters report, "The effort to stoke fear about Chinese inoculations risked undermining overall public trust in government health initiatives, including U.S.-made vaccines that became available later."
One senior officer admitting, "We weren't looking at this from a public health perspective," said a senior military officer involved in the program. "We were looking at how we could drag China through the mud." Not suprising. It's not the military's job to protect lives, especially when corporate profits are at stake!
Infectious disease specialist Daniel Lucey of Dartmouth called it indefensible, saying he was "extremely dismayed, disappointed and disillusioned" that the U.S. government would engage in such tactics. Public health experts warned that stoking skepticism of one vaccine can lead to broader distrust of all inoculations.
The next time the Pentagon wants to fight foreign influence campaigns, maybe they should look in the mirror before weaponizing a global health emergency.
Previously:
• Gripping oral history of the Pentagon Papers from the New York Times
