covid 19
'Truly Shameful': Pentagon Ran Secret Anti-Vax Campaign Against China at Height of Covid Pandemic
"I don't think it's defensible," an infectious disease specialist at Dartmouth said of the clandestine effort.
A Reutersinvestigation published Friday revealed that the Pentagon ran a "clandestine operation" aimed at discrediting China's coronavirus vaccines and treatments, a campaign that U.S. public health experts and others condemned as a cynical ploy that endangered lives for political purposes.
According to Reuters, the Pentagon's secretive campaign was designed to counter what the U.S. "perceived as China's growing influence in the Philippines," a country that was ravaged by Covid-19. The virus, which killed millions of people globally, was first detected in Wuhan, China in late 2019.
The campaign reportedly began in the spring of 2020 and was terminated in the middle of 2021 after it had expanded beyond Southeast Asia to Central Asia and the Middle East. U.S. officials involved in the effort worked "to sow doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccines and other lifesaving aid that was being supplied by China" using "phony internet accounts meant to impersonate Filipinos," Reuters found.
"Social media posts decried the quality of face masks, test kits, and the first vaccine that would become available in the Philippines—China's Sinovac inoculation," the news agency added. "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—Tagalog for China is the virus."
One tweet that Reuters described as "typical" exclaimed that "COVID came from China and the VACCINE also came from China, don't trust China!"
Daniel Lucey, an infectious disease specialist at Dartmouth's Geisel School of Medicine who previously worked as a military physician, told Reuters that he was "extremely dismayed, disappointed and disillusioned to hear that the U.S. government would" conduct such an operation.
"I don't think it's defensible," Lucey added.
"We were literally ready to let people die to avoid giving China a PR win."
Others expressed outrage on social media. Justin Sandefur, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, called the Pentagon's campaign "truly shameful" and lamented that "we were literally ready to let people die to avoid giving China a PR win."
"That 'pork in the vaccine' nonsense you saw on Facebook was U.S. taxpayer-funded," Sandefur wrote.
Reuters reported that a "key part" of the Pentagon's strategy was to "amplify the disputed contention that, because vaccines sometimes contain pork gelatin, China's shots could be considered forbidden under Islamic law."
"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's vaccines among Muslims at a time when the virus was killing tens of thousands of people each day," the agency noted.
One senior U.S. military officer whom Reuters described as directly involved with the propaganda campaign in Southeast Asia told the outlet that "we didn't do a good job sharing vaccines with partners," so "what was left to us was to throw shade on China's." The U.S. and other rich countries repeatedly obstructed efforts to lift vaccine patents to more widely distribute coronavirus shots.
Pressed by Reuters, the Pentagon acknowledged that the U.S. military launched a propaganda effort attacking the efficacy of China's vaccine.
World Health Organization (WHO) guidance released in June 2022 stated that China's Sinovac vaccine is "safe and effective for all individuals aged 18 and above."
"A large phase 3 trial in Brazil showed that two doses, administered at an interval of 14 days, had an efficacy of 51% against symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection, 100% against severe COVID-19, and 100% against hospitalization starting 14 days after receiving the second dose," the WHO said.
Reuters reported that some within the U.S. State Department objected to the Pentagon's effort to promote skepticism about China's vaccine, arguing that a "health crisis was the wrong time to instill fear or anger through a psychological operation."
"But in 2019, before Covid surfaced in full force, then-Secretary of Defense Mark Esper signed a secret order that later paved the way for the launch of the U.S. military propaganda campaign," Reuters observed. "The order elevated the Pentagon's competition with China and Russia to the priority of active combat, enabling commanders to sidestep the State Department when conducting psyops against those adversaries."
"The Pentagon spending bill passed by Congress that year also explicitly authorized the military to conduct clandestine influence operations against other countries, even 'outside of areas of active hostilities,'" the agency added.
'The Edge of Nature': New Film Connects Crises of Covid, Climate, and Healthcare
A Sanders Institute screening changed how award-winning filmmaker Josh Fox saw his own documentary, which will be paired with musical performances in New York City this month.
Josh Fox's The Edge of Nature is about more than where nature begins or ends. It's a startling documentary that explores long Covid, PTSD, climate, genocide, survival, purpose, and healing during a time when questions of personal, public, and planetary health converged.
After contracting the virus during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, the filmmaker known globally for Gasland—the 2010 Emmy Award-winning documentary that galvanized the movement against hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, for fossil fuels—headed to a one-room cabin in the woods of Pennsylvania, armed with his camera.
Beginning June 14, Fox is set to couple the resulting film with a live musical performance, featuring a 12-person ensemble, for three weeks at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in New York City. He started the month at The Sanders Institute Gathering in Burlington, Vermont, previewing a part of the performance solo, with his banjo—signed by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
The banjo and songs of Pete Seeger—whose influence Fox can trace back to the folk legend visiting his elementary school—are just part of the film's soundtrack. There are also blue jays and coyotes. The rustle of the forest, filled with bears and beavers. The clicks of typewriter keys. Occasional gunshots in the distance. Radio reports about the intertwined public health and economic crises.
"A lot of the film is about these big lessons that we got during that time and that we have decided don't count anymore. We reduced emissions for the very first time in history enough to meet the goals of [the Paris agreement]," Fox said in an interview with Common Dreams.
Scientists have used the term anthropause "to refer specifically to a considerable global slowing of modern human activities," as over a dozen experts wrote in June 2020 in Nature Ecology & Evolution.
Fox said: "That was a moment that we all remember. We healed as a planet. The skies got clearer. The water got better. Bird song increased in complexity."
The detail about bird songs stayed with Dr. Jehan "Gigi" El-Bayoumi, a professor at Georgetown University School of Medicine who was in the Burlington audience, which included academics, advocates, and policymakers fighting for a better world, focused on issues including climate, inequality, healthcare, and housing.
After the conference, El-Bayoumi was walking outdoors with her mother and spotted a bird. She shared what she learned from Fox's performance—which she described as "sheer brilliance," adding that "if there's anything that's going to save humanity, it's the arts."
Filmmaker Josh Fox performs at The Sanders Institute Gathering in Burlington, Vermont in spring 2024. (Photo: © Will Allen 2024 / via the Sanders Institute)
Another member of the audience was Wendell Potter, a former insurance executive now at the Center for Health and Democracy. Watching the performance, he told Common Dreams, "I just was enthralled."
Fox also spoke with Potter about suffering from long Covid and struggling to get the care he needed, especially with intermittent health insurance coverage. The filmmaker recalled that "Wendell came in and was just absolutely astounded I have no health insurance right now."
Potter, who advocates for major healthcare reforms including Medicare for All, said that "what he shared with me is terrifying, but is something that so many people are facing day in and day out."
While alarmed by Fox's experiences battling for medical care, Potter "was inspired" by his performance and said, "I think he can play a big role in waking people up."
Fox said that performing at the Gathering and speaking with people there, including Potter and El-Bayoumi, woke him up—and inspired him to make some additions to the forthcoming performances.
"Every time I do a performance, I learn," he explained. "And I realized that some of the things that are implicit in the film... meaning I want people and audiences to feel and figure out on their own—at times, I think when we're doing a performance of it, it needs to be explicit."
"Getting to the Sanders Institute was this huge wake-up call. I was like, oh my God, I just made a movie about health."
"I made it from the fossil fuel, climate change angle," Fox said of The Edge of Nature. "Getting to the Sanders Institute was this huge wake-up call. I was like, oh my God, I just made a movie about health."
Since the conference, he has been working on some new lines for the performance. In terms of healthcare lessons from the pandemic, he hopes to highlight that "the vaccines came and made the whole thing a helluva lot less fatal and a lot less scary (for those of us who are educated and believe in science that is). And the vaccines were free for every American!"
"Of course, because we don't have Medicare for All in this country, we still have to pay for cancer, and asthma, and heartbreak of psoriasis, and lupus, and Lyme, and diabetes, and glaucoma, and painful corns, and scabies, and rabies, flu, AIDS, and ME/CFS, every other ailment under the sun from Alzheimer's to ADHD," he now wants to say. "Medical debt once again being America's leading cause of bankruptcy, insolvency, and despair."
He also plans to point out that "hurricane season never used to be a thing in PA. It is now. But this deluge is only the beginning. Our climate system is tipping into uncharted territory. Industrial fossil fuel-based civilization's emissions are trapping us in the planet's fever dream."
"So unless you have a ticket to Jeff Bezos' floating Floridian totalitarian salad spinner in the sky, then you are gonna be stuck down here, in their greenhouse gas chamber. And the billionaire colonizers will keep dreaming of Mars," he will warn. "While down here what's worse than genocide will occur. Omnicide. The murder of all."
Fox plans to have climate experts and advocates in New York City this month for post-performance discussions.
Like Gasland, he also plans to take The Edge of Nature—which has already won the Best Environmental Film Award at the 2023 Byron Bay International Film Festival in Australia—and its musical performance on tour, so audiences beyond NYC can experience it.
"We're going to try to have this piece make an impact," Fox told Common Dreams. "This is obviously an election year. This film was entirely made in Pennsylvania, so we're hoping to take it throughout PA, maybe New Hampshire, Vermont, New York."
"Sometimes that's in a huge arts center," he said. "And sometimes that's somebody's Unitarian church set up and we have 50 people, or it's somebody's backyard or somebody's barn—set up the screen outside on a hillside... Those are some of the most fun. So we don't make a distinction between what is a legit theater and what is somebody's barn... it's all just people."
Reflecting on the
Gasland years, Fox noted that "the reason why we succeeded so many places with the anti-fracking campaign... is because we were talking about public health. Fracking was the scary chemicals across your fenceline that was going to harm your children."
With future performances, Fox said, "what I would love to see—and it's such a no-brainer—is the Medicare for All and climate change/Green New Deal movements coming into the same space."
"And by the way, the Green New Deal is a kind of Medicare for All. Getting rid of the fossil fuel industry is a kind of Medicare for All, because you're simply eliminating all of those illnesses that it causes," he said. "It is a great moment to potentially campaign for both... to break out of our silos."
"We get very siloed in the activist world," he added. "I get siloed in climate and fracking and environmental space. Others are siloed in Medicare for All. So this film is a chance for us to try to work across those two lines."
The Case for Unemployment Insurance for All
Undocumented workers are the backbone of our service and agricultural industries; it’s time to make sure they can access the benefits they pay into.
During the pandemic more than 46.2 million people relied on unemployment insurance to make ends meet. However, not everyone was able to access that support. Undocumented workers, who make up the backbone of industries like construction, care work, agriculture, and many other industries we all rely on, were left behind.
Working people who are undocumented are taxpayers and contribute significantly to state and local taxes, collectively paying an estimated $11.74 billion a year. And yet, they cannot access the benefits their labor contributes to. Unemployment insurance is a particularly poignant example because their employers pay into the state and federal unemployment insurance trust fund for them—and yet, those workers are left in the cold when they face the catastrophe of job loss, unable to access those funds.
Unemployment insurance in the U.S. was established thanks to the organizing of unions and workers, who demanded a safety net for all during the Great Depression. The importance of unemployment insurance was shown again during the Covid-19 pandemic, when unprecedented job loss affected 22.4 million of us—mainly lower income workers, immigrants, and the working class. Direct cash support in the form of stimulus checks and other pandemic supports like the expanded Child Tax Credit was the lifeline for working people and families, but excluded undocumented workers and their families.
Unemployment insurance is a cornerstone of our safety net, just as undocumented workers are the cornerstone of our food and agriculture system, of care work, and of many other industries we all rely on.
Some states stepped up to fill that gap. The largest support fund was New York’s Excluded Workers Fund, a $2.1 billion cash fund for workers who were excluded from unemployment insurance, including undocumented workers and freelancers. This victory was achieved thanks to the hard work and organizing of a broad coalition across labor and immigrant rights organizations. These checks helped families put food on the table, and also helped make sure local economies stayed stable during the pandemic. However, this relief was temporary.
While these successful support funds raised hope that we would see a more inclusive economy post-pandemic, most state efforts to make unemployment benefits permanent for all workers have stalled. Legislation to include undocumented workers in unemployment insurance in California passed the state legislature, but was vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, who called it too expensive. Both Washington and New York’s legislatures have failed to advance bills that would include all workers in unemployment insurance.The one bright spot is Colorado, which last year established the first ever unemployment benefits program for undocumented workers.
The story of Dolores, an activist in Washington state with OneAmerica, an immigrant rights movement building organization, shows just how crucial it is that workers are able to access benefits in the case of job loss, regardless of citizenship status. Her husband, the primary breadwinner for their family, was laid off for six months when the Covid-19 pandemic began. If he had access to unemployment insurance, they wouldn’t have had to live through the fear and insecurity of deciding between paying their rent or feeding their family. Four years later they are still paying off their missed rent payments. Washington could be next to establish an unemployment insurance system for people like Dolores and her husband, using the funds their employer already pays in for them to the state unemployment insurance fund.
The 10.5 million undocumented workers in the U.S. work across all kinds of industries, but they are the backbone that makes sure agriculture, which is a $1.26 trillion economy—works. Farmers already have trouble finding enough workers to fill their labor needs; to harvest cherries in Washington, to pack tomatoes in California’s central valley, and to help raise cattle and pack chicken in Texas, Alabama, and Kentucky. As we look to the future, extreme weather events due to climate change will mean farmers will face difficult choices, food costs will rise, and it will be even more critical to make sure that the workforce that picks and plants our food has a safety net to rely on if they lose their job.
For survivors of sexual violence who are undocumented, the ability to access unemployment insurance would offer greater flexibility and economic security, which is the foundation of seeking and experiencing safety. Having access to cash benefits is one of the key ways that survivors are able to finally leave unsafe situations, providing freedom from harm for themselves and for their families.
Unemployment insurance is a cornerstone of our safety net, just as undocumented workers are the cornerstone of our food and agriculture system, of care work, and of many other industries we all rely on. Including them in unemployment insurance would provide safety and economic security for working people and their families, benefitting all of us.
The next time you sit down to a meal, I urge you to contact your local officials and let them know how important it is that every single working person in the U.S., especially the many undocumented working people who planted, harvested, and packed the food on your table—are able to access benefits in the case of job loss.
Dolores is a pseudonym used in this article to protect the individual’s identity.