28/02/2022 | Writer: Yunus Emre Demir
And now anti-vaxxers claim that Covid-19 vaccines contain HIV. Well, what does this conspiracy lead to? We talked to HIV activist Tankut Atuk and Nilgün Yılmaz from Teyit.org.
Various groups, in Turkey and across the world, organize smear campaigns around misinformation, against vaccine, the most efficacious preventive recommended against coronavirus, which has spread rapidly all over the world since the end of 2019. Anti-vaxxers, who organized a meeting in İstanbul in the past few months, frequently resort misinformation and manipulation.
The last rhetorical lie used by anti-vaxxers was that Covid-19 vaccines contain HIV. Anti-vaxxers, who has organized anti-vaccine campaign via misinformation previously, were at the top of the agenda with the hashtag #SıvılarlaHIVSoykırımı (HIV Genocide via Injection), in the past few days.
They cite surveillance program of Ministry of Health as evidence
We notice that the evidences of anti-vaxxers about the issue are the five year HIV / AIDS Surveillance Program and the banners directing HIV test, which were prepared by Ministry of Health, when we analyze the hashtag on a deeper level. However all these claims are fanciful.
We asked this claim of anti-vaxxers to Tankut Atuk. Atuk told that the program has been prepared since 2007 and the claim is a conspiracy theory.
“In fact there is a background of 2019-2024 HIV / AIDS Surveillance Program mentioned in Twitter. There are National Strategy Plans prepared for 2007-2011, 2012-2015 and 2017-2021. That is to say, the claim that Ministry of Health has prepared such a program because they know that HIV would go around via Covid-19 vaccines, is completely unfounded and nothing more than a conspiracy theory. The best-known strategy of conspiracy theories is to make sense of unrelated events / issues in a cause-effect relationship. I believe that is exactly how the discussions on Twitter took a turn.
Nilgün Yılmaz, editor of Teyit.org, says that the main motivation of these kind of attempts, which are based upon fear and discrimination, may be to gain some material and moral benefits through hesitation and feeling of insecurity against vaccines.
“Misinformation shared about vaccines may target our fears and prejudices, as well as any issue. It can be said that the main motivation of these kind of attempts, which are based upon fear and discrimination, may be to gain some material and moral benefits through hesitation and feeling of insecurity against vaccines. A study considering these motivations has recently published on Teyit.org.”
“Both HIV and Covid-19 are two raw materials to take advantage of our fears”
Nilgün Yılmaz also adds that the claims about the relationship between HIV and Covid-19 were refuted well in advance:
“The claims about HIV related to Covid-19 have been at the top of the agenda since the very beginning. Although it is proved that these claims are unfounded, they insist on spreading misinformation. Because these issues are raw materials to take advantage of our prejudices. As a consequence it may be told that a predictable misinformation flow is on.”
Tankut Atuk also underlines that HIV is not a hot issue for conspiracy theories. According to Atuk, the fact that HIV is only discussed among the public in a fear and panic atmosphere, is a reflection of its’ use as a tool to bring the society in line, by the state, non-governmental organizations, health professionals and drug companies.
Atuk also remarks that such conspiracy theories affect the people living with HIV directly:
“In fact, such an attack against government agencies and drug companies, which deserve to be criticized due to their HIV policies at many points, is completely the result of a conspiracy theory. HIV is not a hot issue for conspiracy theories: there has been decades-old theories that the virus was originally created in a laboratory environment. Considering that anti-vaccination is fueled by conspiracy theories and it is easy to use HIV as a weapon, it is small wonder that HIV is used as a tool of expression of fear. The most important result of these conspiracy theories, is bringing people living with HIV under suspicion and harm them while nothing happens to government agencies and drug companies. The wall of fear put up around HIV, creates a resistant barrier, with the help of conspiracy theories, against scientific knowledge. And in such a context, it is more difficult to approve critical scientific knowledge, in order to overcome HIV stigma, that is to say negative attitudes and beliefs about people living with HIV like Undetected = Untransmittable.”
“There is a relation between discrimination, hate speech and misinformation.”
Nilgün Yılmaz, underlines that it is necessary to reproduce the legends constantly related to certain sections of the society in order keep the hate and prejudice alive against them.
“There is a relationship between discrimination, hate speech and misinformation. And this is a facilitator factor for those who disseminate misinformation. Forasmuch as it is necessary to reproduce the legends constantly related to certain sections of the society in order keep the hate and prejudice alive against them. And this displays us that discrimination and misinformation feed off each other reciprocally. This is already one the main points that matter of misinformation threats democracy and coexistence. To exemplify refugees and religious minorities are the groups who are always damaged by misinformation and sometimes vice versa. We may portray some cultures or groups, a long way off, as a target by aggrandize them at the risk of letting them out of their reality. For instance Japan and Cuba.”
As for the contributions of Teyit.org to the struggle for human rights, Nilgün Yılmaz says that they are trying to conduct objective, straight and polyphonic broadcasting.
“Struggle for human rights and advocacy is the field of non-governmental actors surely. As broadcasters, we are responsible for transferring objective, straight and polyphonic information within the scope of a certain methodology and leaving readers / followers to their own devices. However we prioritize the issues which are possible to affect democracy, human rights and vulnerable groups. Just because misinformation disseminated related to these issues, may turn into an action in a short time and may affect the life of people or groups directly. We also try to bring readers in critical view by informing them about the probable motives underlying, the date of appearance and background of misinformation while we are preparing our contents. We aim to back up our reads and followers to understand that these kind of claims may be wrong, in fact quite likely to be wrong, when they face with a similar claim, not just on a specific issue.”
Translation: Selma Koçak
Tags: human rights
