Vlad the Despoiler

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[edited for emphasis] Putin’s Long War Against American Science: A decade of health DISinformation promoted by President Vladimir Putin of Russia has sown wide confusion, hurt major institutions and encouraged the spread of deadly illnesses.

"On Feb. 3, soon after the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus to be a global health emergency, an obscure Twitter account in Moscow began retweeting an American blog. It said the pathogen was a germ weapon designed to incapacitate and kill. The headline called the evidence “irrefutable” even though top scientists had already debunked that claim and declared the novel virus to be natural.

As the pandemic has swept the globe, it has been accompanied by a dangerous surge of false information — an “infodemic,” according to the World Health Organization. Analysts say that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has played a principal role in the spread of false information as part of his wider effort to discredit the West and destroy his enemies from within. [DISinformation trolls are running rampant on a recent Washington Post video about hydroxychloroquine and COVID-19. Hell only know how many poorly-educated, anti-authority authoritarian [sic] Americans are credulous enough to believe the LIES.]

The House, the Senate and the nation’s intelligence agencies have typically focused on election meddling in their examinations of Putin’s long campaign. But the repercussions are wider. ... Putin has spread DISinformation on issues of personal health for more than a decade.

His agents have repeatedly planted and spread the idea conspiracy theory that viral epidemics — including flu outbreaks, Ebola and now the coronavirus — were sown by American scientists. The DISinformers have also sought to undermine faith in the safety of vaccines [resulting in the deaths of children], a triumph of public health [destruction] that Putin himself promotes at home.

Moscow’s aim, experts say, is to portray American officials as downplaying the health alarms and thus posing serious threats to public safety."

...

"The Russian president has waged his long campaign by means of open media, secretive trolls and shadowy blogs that regularly cast American health officials as patronizing frauds. Of late, new stealth and sophistication have made his handiwork harder to see, track and fight.

Even so, the State Department recently accused Russia of using thousands of social media accounts to spread coronavirus DISinformation — including a conspiracy theory that the United States engineered the deadly pandemic."

...

"Because public interest in wellness and longevity runs high, health DISinformation can have a disproportionally large social impact. Experts fear that it will foster public cynicism that erodes Washington’s influence as well as the core democratic value of relying on demonstrable facts as a basis for decision-making."

Article's other links 

"Seeding lack of trust in government institutions,” Peter Pomerantsev, author of “Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible,” a 2014 book on Kremlin disinformation.

Sandra C. Quinn, a professor of public health at the University of Maryland has followed Mr. Putin’s vaccine scares for more than a half-decade.