Full text: https://www.thinkglobalhealth.org/article/us-disinformation-plan-put-geo...
Introduction and comment from me below.
Covert U.S. information operations during COVID-19 expose the dangers that global health faces when rival powers compete
'In June, Reuters reported on a previously undisclosed U.S. information campaign against China during the COVID-19 pandemic. From the spring of 2020 until the spring of 2021, the U.S. Department of Defense conducted covert operations through social media to sow mistrust about Chinese vaccines and other forms of health assistance among populations in Central Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. Reuters stated that the Defense Department acknowledged the operations.
'Reuters included criticism of the U.S. clandestine use of disinformation to hurt a rival country during a killer pandemic. Aid and health-care workers in the Philippines expressed anger about the campaign. Daniel Lucey, an American infectious disease specialist, shared his dismay about the U.S. anti-China propaganda. New York Times columnist David Wallace-Wells argued that the justification for the campaign was "flimsy" and "pretty sick." Government officials and lawmakers in the Philippines have questioned the campaign, one Filipino senator condemning it as "evil, wicked, dangerous, unethical."
'The U.S. information operation shines a harsh light on the ways in which today's international politics affect foreign policy thinking about global health. Reuters' reporting underscores how the competition for power, influence, and ideological advantage among nations drags health into the zero-sum vortex of geopolitics. That dynamic batters rhetoric about solidarity and equity as guiding principles in global health and raises hard questions about how countries can mitigate the damage that realpolitik inflicts on collective action against health threats.'
COMMENT (NPW): HIFA has previously demonstrated that governments have an obligation under international human rights law to ensure that everyone has access to reliable healthcare information. Unfortunately, HIFA is the only organisation to highlight this point, which means that governments are ignorant of their obligation, leading not only to failure of governments to progress towards universal access but also egregious examples such as the above, whereby governments actively seek to spread disinformation.
Our recent HIFA survey found that 93% of respondents worldwide agreed or strongly agreed that more should be done to press governments to meet their obligations to ensure universal access.
The survey also found that WHO should itself explicitly champion the goal of universal access. Specifically, WHO should be strongly encouraging and supporting governments to meet their obligations under international human rights law. More broadly, WHO should be convening all stakeholders to develop a global strategy. WHO's leadership is needed to accelerate progress towards reliable healthcare information for all. Until WHO takes on this role, which it alone is uniquely positioned for, countless people will continue to die every day due to failure to access and apply reliable healthcare information.
Report:
https://www.hifa.org/sites/default/files/articles/HIFA-WHO_report_final.pdf
Infographic:
https://www.hifa.org/sites/default/files/other_publications_uploads/HIFA...
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org