Media Misinformation in the Age of Covid

Corporatist Media & Big Pharma Propaganda

Media Misinformation in the Age of Covid

Corporatist Media & Big Pharma Propaganda

Rav Arora

On September 15th, the award-winning progressive outlet Mother Jones published a remarkable hit piece targeting two of the most rational, sober-minded scientists throughout the pandemic: Dr. Vinay Prasad and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya.

The piece lambastes the two medical professionals for being vocally skeptical of the new mice-tested Omicron booster shot that the White House officially recommends to all Americans 12 and over.

Journalist Kiera Butler writes, “Prasad argues that the new boosters should have been tested on humans rather than mice, and that because they did not go through the clinical trial process, experts can’t say for sure that they’re safe.”

However, she adds, “This idea has been robustly refuted.”

Robustly refuted? How so?

One of her sources is a Wall Street Journal infographic that says human “trials aren’t necessary to be confident the vaccines will work safely, many experts have said, because the changes simply update proven shots.” This is quite the selective reading.

There are other articles in the Journal alone that express rational concern for the safety and efficacy of the new booster shot. A viral quote from a leading U.S. vaccine expert, Dr. Paul Offit, comes from a Journal article:

“I’m uncomfortable that we would move forward—that we would give millions or tens of millions of doses to people—based on mouse data.”

Moreover, the Journal infographic cited by Butler is hardly persuasive, quoting expert uncertainty about the efficacy of the new booster:

The safety of the new booster isn’t a fringe concern. In fact, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention itself has conceded their own uncertainty on the matter:

“We know that the myocarditis risk is unknown but anticipate a similar risk to that seen after the monovalent vaccines,” a member of the agency’s independent committee on vaccines said.

If indeed the myocarditis risk of the new booster shot is “similar” to the primary series (approximately 1/3,000 second doses in young men) that would be a complete disaster. As I have closely documented, the myocarditis rates from the primary series alone are deeply alarming, and the heart condition has victimised many young males. Such a high rate for an additional booster shot is unacceptable even if young, healthy, double-vaccinated people had a tremendous potential benefit. Not even a kernel of evidence suggests that is the case.

But by focusing just on Prasad’s claims about vaccine safety, the article misses a fundamental point: just because a medicine is safe (or in this case, widely presumed to be safe) doesn’t mean you recommend all adults and children 12 and over to take it.

At the very least, there is vigorous debate among credible scientists on the new booster shot. However, the most credible, honest scientists appear to near-unanimously view the authorisation and mass recommendation of this pre-experimental intervention as a colossal mistake, given the absence of clinical evidence.

What’s perhaps most strange about this hit-piece is the extreme scrutiny and speculation of the motives of Prasad and Bhattacharya, but the converse, blind deference to the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) vaccine advisory committee that approved the shot. There are most certainly legitimate questions to ask in that direction, such as conflicts of interest and perverse financial incentives. Yet the author is set on using anything to undermine so-called “contrarian” doctors’ views on the matter.

This has become a common pattern in modern media: a bizarre acquiescence to elite institutions and corporations that favour their tribe’s political aims. Kowtowing to the holy FDA, taking directives from the White House, and abusing one’s pen to fuel the culture wars continues to corrupt prominent newspapers.

Mother Jones printed another piece laden with misinformation earlier in the pandemic, entitled “Anti-Vaxxers Have a Dangerous Theory Called ‘Natural Immunity.’ Now It’s Going Mainstream.” Among other demonstrable falsehoods, it claims using various foods and supplements to boost one’s immune system as “patently false.”

A number of articles over the past two years have vindicated those who were targeted for perpetuating seeming conspiracy theories. Consider the viral article in Vice, “Anti-Vaxxers Are Terrified the Government Will ‘Enforce’ a Vaccine for Coronavirus.” Fast-forward two years, supposedly free countries such as Canada, Australia, the U.S, New Zealand, and Austria introduced a variety of draconian measures such as barring unvaccinated citizens from travelling on planes, playing school sports, attending college classes, keeping their jobs etc.

None of this is to even mention the thunder-storm of misinformation-propagating articles across the media ecosystem deriding Joe Rogan as the king of Covid conspiracy theories. Joe Rogan wades into the anti-vaccination narrative on his Spotify podcast reads one headline in CNN targeting his following egregious statements on air:

"People say, do you think it's safe to get vaccinated? I've said, yeah, I think for the most part it's safe to get vaccinated. I do. I do…But if you're like 21 years old, and you say to me, should I get vaccinated? I'll go no. Are you healthy? Are you a healthy person?"

What was once considered misinformation is now widely accepted reality (the CDC has now admitted to the alarming risk of vaccine myocarditis in young males). The bizarre trend in media throughout the pandemic has been to follow public health decrees at surface-value without a shred of skepticism.

The FDA and CDC’s statements surrounding masks, vaccine efficacy, adverse events, natural immunity, and the rest have been repeatedly found to be false. And not one article in a mainstream media outlet will recognise all the disinformation it spread to millions of people in retrospect.

Stories such as the new hit-piece in Mother Jones explain the rapid rise of independent writers on platforms such as this one. There is a real hunger to understand the unfiltered reality on matters of public health, political conflict, and foreign policy. If major news outlets continue on this path, they will continue to haemorrhage readers and help drive the rise of alternate media channels.