US operations exploiting foreign vaccine programmes have time and again caused untold damage to the public health of countries targeted.

Speaking at a hearing late last month as head of the foreign relations committee in the Philippines, Senator Imee Marcos was running out of adjectives to describe a clandestine disinformation campaign by the US Department of Defence (DoD) to sow doubts about China’s Covid-19 vaccines in her country and elsewhere at the height of the global pandemic.

The US government-sanctioned propaganda campaign, conducted mostly on social media, was “evil, wicked, dangerous, unethical”, said the sister of the Philippine president, as she asked whether Manila had any legal recourse.

Considering the Marcos family has long been an ally of Washington from the time of their late dictator father, Imee Marcos’ angry words meant something.

Her criticism came shortly after the Pentagon not only did not deny the Reuters expose, but stood by the decision made under former US defence chief Mark Esper.

“[DoD] conducts a wide range of operations, including operations in the information environment (OIE), to counter adversary malign influence”, a department spokeswoman said in a written statement.

“This process is deliberate,........

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