How Politics Can Endanger Human Health?

Following the revelation of confidential details about a military operation by the U.S. Department of Defense (Pentagon) aimed at influencing public opinion during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic and casting doubt on Chinese vaccines, members of the Philippine Senate have called for an investigation. This request from Filipino lawmakers, including the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, came after Reuters recently uncovered aspects of a covert Pentagon campaign in developing countries. According to the report, the U.S. Department of Defense conducted a secret operation in 2020 and 2021, when the COVID-19 pandemic was rampant and death tolls were soaring, aimed at discrediting the Sinovac vaccine and other Chinese government aid in developing countries. This action by Washington is described as an effort to counter China’s increasing geopolitical influence worldwide, particularly in Southeast Asia. According to Reuters, the Pentagon's propaganda to undermine public trust in China began during Donald Trump's presidency and ended months after Joe Biden took office; this campaign is merely an example of the organized battle of governments against science in favor of politics. Public health, like any other social issue, is not only affected by government policies in domestic and international relations but may also be influenced by the decisions of politicians, facing fluctuations. The COVID-19 disease became a pandemic at a time when the world was unprepared to confront it; however, researchers and futurists had warned years earlier about the risk of a new virus targeting the human respiratory system. Even in scientific literature, this concern was so significant that the idea made its way into the entertainment industry and became popular cinematic productions. The film 'Contagion,' directed by Steven Soderbergh and released in 2011, depicted the conditions of a viral outbreak so accurately that with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, some individuals turned to conspiracy theories, considering the making of this film and similar productions as evidence of the pandemic being planned. However, the global health system was not prepared for such an encounter and thus had no choice but to either make decisions based on scientific knowledge—which was scarce and rapidly changing at the onset of the pandemic—or reduce the issue to a political one. The second scenario occurred in various parts of the world, including the United States, where the then-president downplayed the emergence of the new coronavirus as a simple and insignificant issue and then, in addition to bizarre and unscientific recommendations (like drinking a type of disinfectant to eliminate the virus), sought to portray the Chinese government as the cause of the COVID-19 pandemic, suggesting that its aim was to weaken the U.S. economy. On the other hand, the leader of the Islamic Republic, while hundreds of Iranians were dying daily from the new coronavirus, officially prevented the timely entry of Western vaccines (including American, British, and French products) by announcing a ban on their import. Thus, efforts to import a credible vaccine into Iran—whose developers had previously won the so-called 'Mostafa' award in Iran—faced obstacles due to the statements of Ali Khamenei and his supporters. The most significant crisis during the COVID-19 pandemic was not limited to the unpreparedness of the global health system; the spread of fake news and conspiracy theories, along with organized political campaigns, exacerbated various crises during the pandemic, including sowing doubt and undermining public trust. The investigative report by Reuters, published in mid-June 2024, months after the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, revealed a shocking image of an organized government operation; a covert campaign not led by an authoritarian government that restricts freedom of expression but rather implemented by the U.S. and its military. Reuters identified at least 300 user accounts on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) that all matched the descriptions provided by informed sources to the news agency. These descriptions were previously provided to Reuters by several unnamed former U.S. military officials. Almost all of these accounts were created in the summer of 2020 and shared a single slogan in the form of the hashtag Chinaangvirus; a phrase that means 'China is the virus' in one of the Filipino languages. After Reuters followed up on those accounts, the company owning X deleted those identities; it became clear that those accounts were part of a coordinated campaign based on internal patterns and data. According to Reuters' assessments, the United States began its anti-Chinese vaccine campaign in the spring of 2020 and successfully expanded it beyond Southeast Asian countries before stopping it in mid-2021. The Pentagon, using a combination of fake accounts on various social media platforms, instilled fear about the Chinese vaccine among Muslims in the Philippines. A key part of the American strategy in advancing that campaign was emphasizing the sensitive issue of using pig gelatin in the production of Chinese vaccines, which could be considered prohibited under Islamic law; in other words, strengthening and exacerbating a religious controversy and sowing doubt about the use of vaccines and medical measures from China at a time when tens of thousands were dying daily from COVID-19. According to Reuters, the U.S. military is legally prohibited from targeting American citizens with propaganda campaigns, and the news agency found no evidence that the Pentagon's anti-vaccine operations were conducted in the U.S. However, the reality in the world we live in is revealed regardless of our political efforts. When a viral pandemic like COVID-19 sweeps across the globe, political, ethnic, cultural, and social borders do not create barriers for the virus. The virus does not need a passport to transfer to its next host and does not seek racial or religious selection before choosing its next host. The virus has a goal that many of our politicians have forgotten, which is survival. When disinformation campaigns begin, their consequences extend beyond borders; the Pentagon's efforts and those of other players in such political campaigns—whether involving China and Russia or Iran and the U.S.—do not remain confined to the borders of a single country.