Russian intelligence services have shared false and misleading information to undermine confidence in Pfizer’s and other drug makers’ COVID-19 vaccines, a report said on Sunday.
Four online publications spreading vaccine disinformation have been linked to Russian intelligence agencies, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The report, quoting an unnamed U.S. official at the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, said the sites do not have a large audience, but their false stories could be picked up by other international media outlets.
The sites – identified as New Eastern Outlook, Oriental Review, News Front and Rebel Inside – highlight the risk of side effects from vaccines, question their efficacy, and claim that the process was speeded up to approve Pfizer’s vaccine, the paper reported.
“We can say that these outlets are directly linked to Russian intelligence services,” the Global Engagement Center official said in the newspaper. “They are all foreign owned, located outside of the United States. They vary greatly in their reach, their tone, their audience, but they are all part of Russia’s propaganda and disinformation ecosystem. “
In addition to the campaign to undermine Western vaccines, Russian state media and government Twitter accounts have heightened concerns about the cost and safety of the Pfizer vaccine, the paper reported.
Experts said the effort could be an attempt to promote sales of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine, the outlet reported.
A Kremlin spokesman denied the allegations.
“It’s nonsense. Russian special services have nothing to do with vaccine criticism,” Dmitry Peskov told the Journal.
“When we deal with every negative release against the Sputnik V vaccine as a result of US special services efforts, we go crazy seeing it every day, every hour, and in all the Anglo-Saxon media.”