Brazilian corporate media attempts to smear “anti-vaxxer activist”; he hits back by pointing out Big Pharma’s control over corporate media

Filipe Rafaeli, a Brazilian filmmaker, four-time aerobatics champion and human rights activist, has been labelled as an anti-vaxxer in an article published by Nexo Jornal, a major Brazilian media outlet. 

The article was about the admission that hydroxychloroquine is safe and effective in preventing and treating covid.  However, the article attempted to smudge this news with vitriol towards those who had been speaking out about hydroxychloroquine for years, Rafaeli being one of those. Bizarrely Nexo Jounal linked its snide comments to a recent speech Rafaeli gave on vaccine hesitancy.

Rafaeli has responded to Nexo Jornal’s article by pointing out Big Pharma’s influence and control over corporate media and its “specialist journalists.” 

Far from being intimidated by Nexo Jornal, Rafaeli said “I’ll … keep giving these talks. I love leaving all of you speechless, feeling foolish and not knowing where to start your rebuttal. Deal with it!”

An article titled ‘The Silent Revenge of Hydroxychloroquine’, written by a doctor, writer and professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Olavo Amaral, was published by major Brazilian media outlet Nexo Jornal at the end of last month. 

“Revisiting the unlikely saga of the most hated drug of the last decade is an exercise in humility for the scientific establishment,” Amaral wrote.

He continued, “No one expected this to happen in 2024. But on September 12, the largest study ever conducted on pharmacological prophylaxis of covid-19 was published … The results? The group treated with hydroxychloroquine … had a 15% lower prevalence of confirmed infections … Among the secondary outcomes, prophylaxis was associated with more robust decreases of 39% in infections.”

Despite having to finally acknowledge the undeniable effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine against covid-19, Amaral couldn’t resist using the derogatory label “anti-vaccine activist” when referring to Filipe Rafaeli who began speaking out about the effectiveness of HCQ during the pandemic’s peak.

“Until a few years ago, the announcement would have caused astonishment, revolt, euphoria and controversy. In 2024, however, no one seems to care anymore. Apart from the websites of the institutions involved and the irreducible chloroquiners of the Doctors for Life,” Amaral wrote.

When Amaral used the “anti-vaccine activist” label in his article, he linked to a talk Rafaeli gave in September at the Doctors for Life (“MPV”) and Frontline Covid-19 Critical Care (“FLCCC”) Alliance conference.  His talk is in Portuguese but for English speakers much of the data Rafaeli used in his talk was published in an article titled ‘Chronicles of an Unvaccinated Leftist’.

However, in an article published yesterday, Rafaeli focuses on the reason why Amaral labelled him as an “anti-vaccine activist” – it’s due to the power of Big Pharma.

Big Pharma’s Influence and Control

Rafaeli has written extensively about the power of Big Pharma and its influence on governments, academia, scientific journals and research.

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past four years, it’s the absolutely colossal influence this industry wields,” he wrote. He continued:

To give you an idea, here are some facts: Big Pharma boasts the largest lobbying machine in the world. Recently, The BMJ – British Medical Journal – published an article stating, in no uncertain terms, that “evidence-based medicine” is nothing more than an illusion. In the article, the authors explain how the pharmaceutical industry, in pursuit of profit, corrupts governments, much of academia, scientific journals and research while persecuting its critics.

The Vaccine Paradox, Filipe Rafaeli, 25 November 2024

Rafaeli goes on to describe how the European Medicines Agency (“EMA”) receives 89% of its funding directly from the pharmaceutical industry.  The FDA in the United States and the World Health Organisation (“WHO”) are heavily funded by Big Pharma, essentially making them marketing offices for the industry.

Scientific journals are also influenced by Big Pharma. Richard Smith, who served as editor of the BMJ for 25 years, explained that scientific journals are just marketing tools.

A study by the JAMA revealed that the pharmaceutical industry paid over $1 billion to reviewers of influential scientific journals between 2020 and 2022, highlighting the industry’s influence on the peer-review process.  Dr. Adriane Fugh-Berman of Georgetown University noted that this influence affects what gets published, promoting patented products and suppressing non-lucrative alternatives.

It’s not only what is published in scientific journals that Big Pharma determines. The industry also dominates the press; 70% of US broadcast television advertising revenue comes from pharmaceutical companies.  And Big Pharma has a history of controlling specialised journalists, burying scandals, and sponsoring medical societies, fact-checkers and science journalism courses.

Big Pharma has a history of burying effective treatments that are not profitable, including AIDS treatments, Alzheimer’s drugs and opioid crisis solutions.

The industry has also been involved in scandals, including the sale of products contaminated with the AIDS virus, and has paid significant fines, such as Pfizer’s $2.3 billion fine for fraudulent marketing.  Despite these scandals, Big Pharma has consistently avoided severe consequences, with no executives being jailed for their actions.

But that’s not all.  The US government, via the White House, has censored critics of Big Pharma, a move that undermines the country’s core democratic value of freedom of speech. And the industry’s influence extends to social media platforms, with Big Tech companies like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram complying with the US government’s censorship of critics of major pharmaceutical corporations.

Media Influence and Public Perception

The average person is influenced by the dominant narrative, with experts, public officials and corporate media outlets promoting the vaccines as safe and effective, and any critical information being censored.

With complete control over absolutely every institution and narrative, it’s unsurprising that there was a discriminatory attitude among the general population against the unvaccinated during the pandemic years.

A study published in Nature titled ‘Discriminatory attitudes against unvaccinated people during the pandemic’ found that the general population viewed unvaccinated people as “unintelligent and incompetent,” fuelling prejudice against them that surpasses the stigma faced by people who have served time in prison.

Rafaeli argued that this perception has been engineered by experts, such as Brazil’s Dr. Drauzio Varella, who dismisses those who refused vaccines as “ignorant.” In other words an idiot.

Rafael’s MPV talk included data from the vaccines’ official studies published in The New England Journal of Medicine and facts reported by Reuters and major newspapers, numbers from the FDA website, major newspapers and studies like the one from Cleveland Clinic.  The Cleveland Clinic study found that covid-19 vaccines do not prevent infection or reduce transmission, and may even increase the risk of catching and spreading the disease.

Despite being presented with this data, pro-vaxxers can’t muster arguments to convince Rafaeli that the risk-benefit ratio makes the vaccines worthwhile and instead, he is labelled an “anti-vaccine activist” by the likes of Amaral.

“Big Pharma’s power is so immense that it has managed to paint its critics as lunatics,” Rafaeli said.

To demonstrate how ludicrous the accusations against those who question the safety and efficacy of vaccines are, Rafaeli makes a comparison with pesticides.

“Can you imagine a term like ‘anti-pesticide’ existing, where someone presenting poor data on these products is universally dismissed as crazy, not even worth listening to or responding to?” he asked.

What’s the difference between bad pesticides and bad vaccines? While one poison is sprayed on crops, then harvested, transported by truck to the supermarket, brought home, seasoned with olive oil and salt, placed on your table, eaten with a fork, and finally lands in your stomach, the other skips all that: it goes straight into your body via a needle.

The Vaccine Paradox, Filipe Rafaeli, 25 November 2024

Although Rafaeli wasn’t fired for not getting vaccinated, he wasn’t banned from restaurants or prevented from travelling as has happened to some, Rafaeli won’t be silenced and will continue to stand up for those who have been oppressed by the Big Pharma machine.

Sending a message to Big Pharma puppets Rafaeli said, “I’m here defending the oppressed … I’ll keep doing something I love: giving these talks. I love leaving all of you speechless, feeling foolish and not knowing where to start your rebuttal. Deal with it!”

You can read Filipe Rafaeli’s full article published by Brownstone Institute HERE.