Curbing spread of vax false info sought

A panel of science experts could help the country mitigate false information against vaccines, a significant factor contributing to the hesitancy of the public to get inoculated.

Iloilo Rep. Janette Garin, the vice chairperson of the House committee on health, raised the proposal on Monday amid the reported anti-vaccination campaign of the United States military aimed at discrediting China’s Sinovac, one of the vaccines made available to the Philippines during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The Department of Health (DoH) should have a team of doctors and spokespersons who can immediately liaise with the reels specialty society,” said Garin in an interview.

The lawmaker recalled that this had been the longstanding clamor of the “Doctors for the Truth,” composed of academes, scientists, and former health secretaries, to the DoH to intensify efforts to cease anti-vaccine propaganda.

Garin said that the media should be wary of seeking information concerning public health due to the rampant number of fake experts in the medical field.

“The government should put in place accountability, and fake experts should not be given a voice,” she lamented.

Garin herself was once at the center of controversy when the Dengvaxia vaccine, which she spearheaded as Health secretary during the Aquino administration, claimed the lives of over 60 children who received the anti-dengue shot.

She lamented that the dilemma of Dengvaxia, the world’s first vaccine approved for dengue prevention, fanned the public’s dread of vaccination, which hinders eradicating infectious diseases.

Using public health as a front in a non-medical operation, such as what the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) did in 2011, “put a big gap in the vaccination program and resulted in many deaths all over the world,” according to Garin.

CIA, a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the US, organized a fake vaccination drive in cahoots with a senior Pakistani doctor to locate Osama Bin Laden, the founder of the terrorist organization al Qaeda.

Garin said that the fake vaccine campaign in Pakistan resulted in the resurgence of the polio outbreak globally.

“By history, it has been documented several times that when you demonize a certain vaccine, it creates public mistrust in all vaccination and public health programs,” Garin said.

The DoH, over the weekend, sought a probe into the anti-Sinovac campaign executed by the US military.

A total of 48,734,507 doses of Sinovac were administered in the Philippines, based on the records of the DoH as of 2023.