(LifeSiteNews) — The director of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) said the American public has been subject to a campaign of misinformation regarding the novel coronavirus, describing information that contradicts the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on the issue as “conspiracies.”
In an interview with The Washington Post, NIH Director Francis Collins said he is concerned that competing theories around COVID-19, such as the dangers associated with the virus and the shots designed to tackle it, are becoming more popularly believed than information on COVID emanating from national bodies like the NIH and CDC.
According to Collins, “Conspiracies are winning here. Truth is losing. That’s a really serious indictment of the way in which our society seems to be traveling.”
The 71-year-old scientist, who has been at the NIH’s helm for over 12 years, called for people who share what he considers “misinformation” online to be “brought to justice.” He did not specify what exactly he meant by “justice.” Within the U.S. Constitution, freedom of speech is a right affording citizens the freedom to promote what they hold to be true.
Collins stated his concern that “somebody’s Facebook post” might carry “as much weight as a statement from the director of the CDC about what is the truth of a public health crisis.”
“Truth is supposed to be truth,” he said, unqualifiedly decrying any information that is not first filtered through the lens of public health authorities. “The fact that your truth would be so heavily modified by your social circle or where you get your news tells you we’re in real trouble,” he added.
Trust in mainstream media, public health leaders, and large medical or research bodies has been undermined during the coronavirus crisis after public figures within such organizations have been shown to knowingly skew the facts on COVID.
For instance, Collins’ colleague Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), was given a nationwide platform to advise on COVID. Yet, he was caught lying about the movement of money from the NIAID to fund dangerous gain-of-function research with coronaviruses using bats at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Public trust in drug manufacturers has likewise suffered. Recent reports have shown that a contractor working with Pfizer on its COVID jab trial last year falsified reports to favor the pharmaceutical giant. Furthermore, in 2009, Pfizer was forced to pay a $2.3 billion settlement “to resolve criminal and civil liability arising from the illegal promotion of certain pharmaceutical products,” marking the largest pharmaceutical settlement in the history of the U.S. Department of Justice at the time.
Collins’ condemnation of those who openly disagree with him on the nature of the virus echoed sentiments aired by Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, who earlier in the month referred to those who allegedly spread “misinformation” about the COVID jabs as “criminals.”
“They’re criminals because they have literally cost millions of lives,” the Pfizer executive claimed in a November 9 interview. “The only thing that stands between the new way of life and the current way of life is, frankly, hesitancy to vaccinations.”
Despite Collins’ and Bourla’s insistence on pushing the COVID shots as the “way out” of the supposed pandemic, coronavirus vaccine trials have never produced evidence that the vaccines stop infection or transmission. They do not even claim to reduce hospitalization, but the measurement of success is in preventing severe symptoms of COVID-19 disease.
With COVID cases surging in heavily vaccinated countries like Israel, the U.K., and the U.S., including among vaccinated individuals, the perception that vaccination would prevent infection or halt transmission has dwindled.