UNDER THE MICROSCOPE
A recent Reuters story reported that the United States military launched a secret operation to discredit China-made Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine in spring 2020 and lasting until mid-2021. It was in response to China’s perceived growing influence around the world, particularly in the Philippines, where former president Duterte had shown support for China and its leader, Xi Jin Ping.
The campaign was launched on social media and involved phony internet accounts impersonating Filipinos attacking Sinovac and other China-made medical equipment such as masks, face masks and test kits with the hashtag #Chinaangvirus, meaning “China is the virus.” When Reuters asked X (formerly Twitter) about the accounts, the latter determined from activity patterns and internal data that these were part of a coordinated campaign. Thence the accounts were removed from X.
The report said the campaign also targeted Muslim countries by claiming that Sinovac contained pig-derived gelatin, which is considered haram (forbidden) under Islamic law. The campaign was acknowledged by a senior Defense Department official who declined to provide details.
Coming at a time when millions were dying of Covid-19, this was a direct attack on the public health systems of other countries, particularly the Philippines, where the Muslim-directed claims of pig-derived vaccine ingredients could have persuaded our sizable Muslim population into refusing life-saving vaccinations.
China was also suspected of employing similar methods in discrediting the USA, particularly in claiming that the Covid-19 virus was being spread by the USA.
But no matter who started it, the fact remains that the anti-vaccine messaging has resulted in more vaccine hesitancy in a country already racked by claims that the Dengvaxia dengue vaccine resulted in numerous deaths, although these remain unsubstantiated up to now. The adverse publicity generated by the controversy, which included Senate and Congress hearings and staged demonstrations by parents and families of “Dengvaxia victims,” led to a massive drop in vaccine acceptance from 93 percent in 2015 to 32 percent in 2018.
Predictably, the vaccination rates for childhood infectious diseases such as measles rubella, pertussis and others dropped. For measles, from an 88 percent measles vaccination rate in 2014, it dropped to a devastatingly low 55 percent. It thus disrupted the herd immunity effect and led to an almost 2,000 percent increase in measles cases from 2017 to 2019. Almost 900 measles-related deaths alone were reported following many outbreaks in different regions of the country in the succeeding years.
Even the Philippines’ vaccine czar, retired General Carlito Galvez had lamented how the Dengvaxia controversy complicated negotiations with pharmaceutical companies supplying Covid-19 vaccines. Wary of being drawn into a similar scenario that Sanofi had encountered with the Dengvaxia vaccine, these companies insisted on indemnity agreements before agreeing to supply the Philippines with their Covid-19 vaccines.
Former DOH secretary and currently Iloilo 1st district representative Janette Garin likewise has cautioned against demonizing a vaccine, saying it will lead to public distrust in the government’s immunization programs.
The collateral damage on vaccines against other infectious diseases will also prove to be consequential and may have similarly led to more deaths caused by vaccine-preventable diseases. Many studies describe the effects of the Dengvaxia hysteria as having caused measles, rubella and pertussis outbreaks and epidemics in the Philippines.
If the many cases of “homicides” attributed to the Dengvaxia vaccine are debunked and dismissed by the courts, those responsible for fanning the flames of mass hysteria and vaccine hesitancy should be made to account for the hundreds of deaths and thousands of morbidity caused by vaccine-preventable diseases.
Such weaponization against proven public health measures as vaccinations should never be condoned, whichever friend or foe may have done it. We have no firm figures on how the clandestine psy-ops affected Covid-19 vaccination rates around the world. But if it can be proven to be the cause of thousands or millions of Covid-19 deaths, it should be considered a crime against humanity, just like the fallout from the Dengvaxia controversy should be.