U.S. denounces Russian 'disinformation' over COVID vaccines
09 March, 2021
The United States on Mon denounced what it called a Russian disinformation campaign against U.S.-built COVID-19 vaccines, saying Moscow was putting lives at risk.
The Global Engagement Centre, a great arm of the STATE DEPT. whose activities include monitoring foreign propaganda, explained that Russian intelligence was behind four online systems involved in a campaign.
The websites have "included disinformation about two of the vaccines that have now been authorized by the FDA in this nation," State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters, discussing the U.S. Foodstuff and Drug Administration.
"It is very apparent that Russia is up to its aged tricks, and in doing this is potentially putting people at risk by spreading disinformation about vaccines that we know to be keeping lives each day," Price said.
The Wall structure Street Journal first reported on the Global Engagement Center's findings, which said that the websites played up risks of the U.S.-made Pfizer vaccine in an apparent bid to boost Russia's homegrown Sputnik V.
Within an assessment provided last year to AFP, the Global Engagement Center said that a large number of Russian-linked sociable media accounts have work a coordinated campaign to undermine official narratives on COVID-19 including by spreading allegations of U.S. involvement.
The center discovered that China briefly made an identical effort but ultimately made a decision it made more traction by highlighting Beijing's own efforts.
U.S. intelligence has prolonged suspected Russia in disinformation promotions on health, incorporating spreading the myth in the 1980s that U.S. scientists designed the HIV virus that causes AIDS.
Source: japantoday.com