Biggest bombshells about Pentagon’s anti-vax campaign from new report

The United States military purportedly pushed an anti-vaccine disinformation campaign in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic to counter Chinese narratives, according to a new report by Reuters published Friday.

At least 300 fake social media accounts were created on platforms X, formerly Twitter, meant to propagate theories that China’s Sinovac vaccine was not successful in countering the effects of coronavirus, according to the investigation. Efforts were reportedly made in cohesion with China’s growing presence in the Philippines, a nation it provided with inoculation against the virus.

Reuters reports that it found no evidence of the Pentagon propagandizing Americans, which is prohibited.

Sowing doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccines, as well as the quality of face masks and test kits, was accomplished through social media accounts spreading posts with certain language and hashtags 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 – Tagalog for China is the virus,” Reuters reported.

X reportedly removed the profiles in question after an inquiry by Reuters, saying they were part of a coordinated bot campaign based on activity patterns and internal data.

One post, accompanied by a photo of a syringe next to a Chinese flag and a chart showing increased infections, said the following: “COVID came from China and the VACCINE also came from China, don’t trust China!”

Another post read: “From China – PPE, Face Mask, Vaccine: FAKE. But the Coronavirus is real.”

The disinformation campaign reportedly began during Donald Trump‘s presidency and continued once President Joe Biden took office, the latter administration of which attempted to separate itself from the campaign.

“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.

Efforts were also discouraged by at least six senior State Department officials, some of whom reportedly argued over Zoom calls to voice opposition to a campaign predicated on fear or resentment and conducted through psychological operation (psyops).

“We’re stooping lower than the Chinese and we should not be doing that,” said a former senior State Department official for the region who fought against the military operation.

A senior Defense Department official told Reuters that the U.S. military engaged in secret propaganda to disparage China’s vaccine.

A Pentagon spokeswoman told Reuters the U.S. military “uses a variety of platforms, including social media, to counter those malign influence attacks aimed at the U.S., allies, and partners.” She also noted that China had started a “disinformation campaign to falsely blame the United States for the spread of COVID-19.”

Newsweek reached out to the Pentagon via email for comment.

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs told Reuters that it “has long maintained the U.S. government manipulates social media and spreads misinformation.”

Newsweek reached out to the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs via email for comment.

‘It’s Not Good Policy’

John Moore, a virologist at Cornell University’s Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, told Newsweek via phone on Friday that all of the leading nations (U.S., China, Russia) that were making vaccines in 2020 and 2021 were engaged in vaccine diplomacy and all trying to use the vaccine programs “as diplomatic tools to potentially win favor in client nations,” such as China in southeast Asia and Russia in Eastern Europe.

Actions aimed to dissuade people in certain countries to not get inoculated were “inappropriate,” he said. Even though the U.S. wasn’t the only country doing it, “two wrongs or three wrongs don’t make a right.”

“Going forward, it probably doesn’t have any further implications,” Moore said. “This is what happened in the past; it’s not what’s happening now. The basic message is, there shouldn’t be any trashing of all the COVID vaccines because all were made available to preserve life.

“Any one [vaccine] approved in any country is valuable. [Disinformation campaigns don’t] pay, it’s not good policy, it’s just not wise.”

He added that he can’t think of a single academic or others in the public health sphere who would not be “horrified” by reports such as these.

Moore added that the findings from three and four years ago are now a “moot point” and the bigger challenge and more pervasive concern is a broader anti-vax sentiment.