{"id":69379,"date":"2024-08-04T14:34:12","date_gmt":"2024-08-04T21:34:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wikidean.com\/?p=69379"},"modified":"2024-08-04T14:51:17","modified_gmt":"2024-08-04T21:51:17","slug":"pentagon-ran-secret-anti-vax-campaign-to-undermine-china-during-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wikidean.com\/?p=69379","title":{"rendered":"Pentagon ran secret anti-vax campaign to undermine China during pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/D-n_k1L-twU?si=f_wTO49HdzfH3MEG\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/center>\n\n\n\n<p>The U.S. military launched a clandestine program amid the COVID crisis to discredit China\u2019s Sinovac inoculation \u2013 payback for Beijing\u2019s efforts to blame Washington for the pandemic. One target: the Filipino public. Health experts say the gambit was indefensible and put innocent lives at risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By&nbsp;<a href=\"mailto:christopher.bing@thomsonreuters.com\">CHRIS BING<\/a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href=\"mailto:joel.schectman@thomsonreuters.com\">JOEL SCHECTMAN<\/a>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Filed&nbsp;June 14, 2024, 9:45 a.m. GMT<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"paragraph-0\">WASHINGTON, DC<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"paragraph-1\">At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. military launched a secret campaign to counter what it perceived as China\u2019s growing influence in the Philippines, a nation hit especially hard by the deadly virus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"paragraph-2\">The clandestine operation has not been previously reported. It aimed to sow doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccines and other life-saving aid that was being supplied by China, a Reuters investigation found. Through phony internet accounts meant to impersonate Filipinos, the military\u2019s propaganda efforts morphed into an anti-vax campaign. Social media posts decried the quality of face masks, test kits and the first vaccine that would become available in the Philippines \u2013 China\u2019s Sinovac inoculation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"paragraph-3\">Reuters identified at least 300 accounts on X, formerly Twitter, that matched descriptions shared by former U.S. military officials familiar with the Philippines operation. Almost all were created in the summer of 2020 and centered on the slogan #Chinaangvirus \u2013&nbsp;Tagalog for China is the virus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"paragraph-11\">(Beneath the message is a picture of then-Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte saying: \u201cChina! Prioritize us first please. I\u2019ll give you more islands, POGO and black sand.\u201d POGO refers to Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators, online gambling&nbsp;companies&nbsp;that boomed during Duterte\u2019s administration. Black sand refers to a type of mining.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"paragraph-15\">\u201cCOVID came from China and the VACCINE also came from China, don\u2019t trust China!\u201d one typical tweet from July 2020 read in Tagalog. The words were next to a photo of a syringe beside a Chinese flag and a soaring chart of infections. Another post read: \u201cFrom China \u2013 PPE, Face Mask, Vaccine: FAKE. But the Coronavirus is real.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"paragraph-23\">After Reuters asked X about the accounts, the social media company removed the profiles, determining they were part of a coordinated bot campaign based on activity patterns and internal data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pim65Kohz-0?si=mB3FHFCajOADtDUm\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/center>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"paragraph-24\">The U.S. military\u2019s anti-vax effort began in the spring of 2020 and expanded beyond Southeast Asia before it was terminated in mid-2021, Reuters determined. Tailoring the propaganda campaign to local audiences across Central Asia and the Middle East, the Pentagon used a combination of fake social media accounts on multiple platforms to spread fear of China\u2019s vaccines among Muslims at a time when the virus was killing tens of thousands of people&nbsp;each day. A key part of the strategy: amplify the disputed contention that, because vaccines sometimes contain pork gelatin, China\u2019s shots&nbsp;could be considered forbidden under Islamic law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"paragraph-25\">The military program started under former President Donald Trump and continued months into Joe Biden\u2019s presidency, Reuters found \u2013 even after alarmed social media executives warned the new administration that the Pentagon had been trafficking in COVID misinformation. The Biden White House issued an edict in spring 2021 banning the anti-vax effort, which also disparaged vaccines produced by other rivals, and the Pentagon initiated an internal review, Reuters found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"paragraph-27\">The U.S. military is prohibited from targeting Americans with propaganda, and Reuters found no evidence the Pentagon\u2019s influence operation did so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"paragraph-28\">Spokespeople for Trump and Biden did not respond to requests for comment about the clandestine program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"paragraph-29\">A senior Defense Department official acknowledged the U.S. military engaged in secret propaganda to disparage China\u2019s vaccine in the developing world, but the official declined to provide details.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"paragraph-30\">A Pentagon spokeswoman said the U.S. military \u201cuses a variety of platforms, including social media, to counter those malign influence attacks aimed at the U.S., allies, and partners.\u201d She also noted that China had started a \u201cdisinformation campaign to falsely blame the United States for the spread of COVID-19.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"paragraph-31\">In an email, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that it has long maintained the U.S. government manipulates social media and spreads misinformation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"paragraph-32\">Manila\u2019s embassy in Washington did not respond to Reuters inquiries, including whether it&nbsp;had been aware of the Pentagon operation. A spokesperson for the Philippines Department of Health, however, said the \u201cfindings by Reuters deserve to be investigated and heard by the appropriate authorities of the involved countries.\u201d&nbsp;Some aid workers in the Philippines, when told of the U.S. military propaganda effort by Reuters, expressed outrage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"paragraph-33\">Briefed on the Pentagon\u2019s secret anti-vax campaign by Reuters, some American public health experts also condemned the program, saying it put civilians in jeopardy for potential geopolitical gain. An operation meant to win hearts and minds endangered lives, they said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"paragraph-34\">\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s defensible,\u201d said Daniel Lucey, an infectious disease specialist at Dartmouth\u2019s Geisel School of Medicine.&nbsp;\u201cI\u2019m extremely dismayed, disappointed and disillusioned to hear that the U.S. government would do&nbsp;that,\u201d said Lucey, a former military physician who assisted in the response to the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/idUSTRE61J0A2\/\">2001 anthrax attacks<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/kW4EaZhlk6c?si=nt2B6nkdroxv4_9k\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/center>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"paragraph-35\">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, Lucey and others said. Although the Chinese vaccines were found to be less effective than the American-led shots by Pfizer and Moderna, all were approved by the World Health Organization. Sinovac did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"paragraph-37\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC10057947\/#B24-vaccines-11-00516\">Academic research published recently<\/a>&nbsp;has shown that, when individuals develop skepticism toward a single vaccine, those doubts often lead to uncertainty about other inoculations. Lucey and other health experts say they saw such a scenario play out in Pakistan, where the Central Intelligence Agency&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-obama-cia\/white-house-vows-cia-will-not-use-vaccine-programs-for-covert-ops-idUSBREA4J02E20140520\/\">used a fake hepatitis vaccination program<\/a>&nbsp;in Abbottabad as cover to hunt for Osama bin Laden, the terrorist mastermind behind the attacks of September 11, 2001. Discovery of the ruse led to a backlash against an unrelated polio vaccination campaign, including attacks on healthcare workers, contributing to the reemergence of the deadly disease in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"paragraph-38\">\u201cIt should have been in our interest to get as much vaccine in people\u2019s arms as possible,\u201d said Greg Treverton, former chairman of the U.S. National Intelligence Council, which coordinates the analysis and strategy of Washington\u2019s many spy agencies. What the Pentagon did, Treverton said, \u201ccrosses a line.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"paragraph-39\">\u2018We were desperate\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"paragraph-40\">Together, the phony accounts used by the military had tens of thousands of followers&nbsp;during the program.&nbsp;Reuters could not determine how widely the anti-vax material and other Pentagon-planted disinformation was viewed, or to what extent the posts may have caused COVID deaths by dissuading people from getting vaccinated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"paragraph-41\">In the wake of the U.S. propaganda efforts, however, then-Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte had grown so dismayed by how few Filipinos were willing to be inoculated that he threatened to arrest people who refused vaccinations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"paragraph-42\">\u201cYou choose, vaccine or I will have you jailed,\u201d a masked Duterte said in&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/asia-pacific\/philippines-duterte-threatens-those-who-refuse-covid-19-vaccine-with-jail-2021-06-21\/\">a televised address<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/asia-pacific\/philippines-duterte-threatens-those-who-refuse-covid-19-vaccine-with-jail-2021-06-21\/\"><\/a>&nbsp;in June 2021. \u201cThere is a crisis in this country \u2026 I\u2019m just exasperated by Filipinos not heeding the government.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"paragraph-44\">When he addressed the vaccination issue,&nbsp;the Philippines had among the worst inoculation rates in Southeast Asia. Only 2.1 million of its 114 million citizens were fully vaccinated \u2013 far short of the government\u2019s target of 70 million. By the time Duterte spoke, COVID cases exceeded 1.3 million, and&nbsp;almost 24,000&nbsp;Filipinos had died from the virus. The difficulty in vaccinating the population contributed to the worst death rate in the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-L1RyFySY9M?si=4Je7rqNiQ2OGOOhH\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/center>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The U.S. military launched a clandestine program amid the COVID crisis to discredit China\u2019s Sinovac inoculation \u2013 payback for Beijing\u2019s efforts to blame Washington for&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":69383,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidean.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidean.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidean.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidean.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidean.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=69379"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/wikidean.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69379\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69389,"href":"https:\/\/wikidean.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69379\/revisions\/69389"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidean.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/69383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidean.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=69379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidean.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=69379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidean.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=69379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}