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Vaccine misinformation spawns ‘pure blood’ movement

Photo: Chris Delmas / AFP

January 25 | By AFP | Anuj Chopra and Marisha Goldhamer |

Vaccine skeptics blocking transfusions for life-saving surgeries, Facebook groups inciting violence against doctors and a global search for unvaccinated donors — Covid-19 misinformation has bred a so-called “pure blood” movement.

The movement spins anti-vaccine narratives focused on unfounded claims that receiving blood from people inoculated against the coronavirus “contaminates” the body.

Some have advocated for blood banks that draw from “pure” unvaccinated people, while medics in North America say they have fielded requests from people demanding transfusions from donors who have not received the jab.

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In closed social media groups, vaccine skeptics — who brand themselves as “pure bloods” — promote violence against doctors administering coronavirus jabs alongside false claims of mass deaths of vaccinated people.

Taking the hysteria to the next level was the recent high-profile case of a New Zealand couple, who sought to block life-saving heart surgery of their infant on the grounds that any blood transfused could have come from a vaccinated donor.

Their stance prompted a New Zealand court to take temporary custody of the baby to allow the procedure, but the case became a cause celebre among vaccine skeptics around the world.

“Cases like this spread like wildfire on both fringe and mainstream news sites and then social media, providing attention for anti-vaccine conspiracy theories,” Katrine Wallace, an epidemiologist and assistant professor at the University of Illinois Chicago, told AFP.

“There is absolutely no science behind these conspiracies. If you give blood from a vaccinated donor to an unvaccinated person, the person receiving the transfusion does not become vaccinated.”

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‘Profitable falsehoods’  

George Della Pietra, a Swiss naturopath founded Safe Blood Donation, a global mediation service that falsely labels mRNA coronavirus vaccines a “health threat” and seeks to connect unvaccinated blood donors with recipients.

The Zurich-based nonprofit offers to obtain “fresh or canned” unvaccinated blood for its patrons, according to Safe Blood’s website, which says it has a presence across western Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia, Asia and Africa.

AFP’s email to Pietra requesting comment elicited a reply from Safe Blood’s media director.

“There are a large number of scientists and doctors who not only have great concerns about the Covid vaccines, but are convinced that they also enter the body via the blood through the back door, so to speak, and remain there,” wrote Clinton Ohlers, the media director, quoting from the website.

That directly contradicts scientific assertions.

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“Blood donations from individuals who have received a Covid-19 vaccine are safe for transfusion,” Jessa Merrill, from the American Red Cross, told AFP.

“Similar to other vaccines… the Covid-19 vaccine is designed to generate an immune response to help protect an individual from illness, but vaccine components themselves are not found within the bloodstream.”

Safe Blood’s members are required to pay an initial joining fee of 50 euros ($54), followed by 20 euros each subsequent year, according to its website.

“The ‘safe blood’ movement is absolutely based 100 percent in anti-vaccine misinformation,” said Wallace.

“As with all anti-vaccine misinformation, appealing to people’s fears is sadly profitable.”

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Sperm and breast milk

The demand to remain “pure” reaches beyond blood to social media posts soliciting sperm from unvaccinated men — conspiracy theorists speculate online that the precious commodity will be the “next Bitcoin” — as well as breast milk from unvaccinated mothers. 

These requests appear to stem from belief in the debunked claims that Covid vaccines can cause infertility or alter the human DNA.

Demand for “unvaccinated” blood is unclear, but experts say it would be a challenge to procure it in countries with high vaccination rates.

The Food and Drug Administration in the United States, where more than 80 percent of the population has received at least one Covid jab, says it does not require blood collectors to test for vaccination status.

Hospitals are also not able to inform the status of donated blood to patients. 

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“Is the US blood supply tainted?” screamed a headline from Children’s Health Defense, a nonprofit founded by Robert Kennedy Jr, a known purveyor of vaccine misinformation.

It falsely asserted that the country’s vaccination campaign may have “contaminated the country’s blood supply.”

An AFP reporter who infiltrated one of the closed “pure bloods” Facebook groups found posts vilifying doctors administering vaccines as “an arm of the state.”

Other posts contained a cartoon image of a nurse holding a syringe and standing in a field full of skulls, and another of “victims” tumbling out of a vaccine bottle in crutches and wheelchairs.

Another post contained a video of a shirtless muscular man headbutting and smashing a car window in what was claimed to be a public outburst against vaccines.

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International

Canelo Álvarez after meeting with Claudia Sheinbaum: “I know he’s going to win”

Mexican boxer Saúl Canelo Álvarez anticipated this Thursday the victory in the elections of next June 2 of the candidate for the presidency of the ruling party, Claudia Sheinbaum, in a meeting with her.

“I know he’s going to win,” the boxer told the former head of the Government of Mexico City, between 2018 and 2023, according to a short video of the meeting that Sheinbaum posted on the social network X.

Álvarez, who is one of the best in his sport worldwide, expressed his support for the representative of the Sigamos Haciendo Historia coalition, made up of the ruling National Regeneration Movement (Morena) and its allies, the Labor Parties (PT) and Verde Ecologista de México (PVEM).

In the clip of just over a minute, the owner of 11 world belts throughout his career, advised Sheinbaum to get up in good shape every day, including, meditating on waking up and at night, before going to bed, as well as getting into a tub with ice every morning.

“We’ll see, then, from now on I’m going to get up and get into a tub with ice,” Sheinbaum said laughing.

Canelo, who in his last fight on Saturday, May 4, defeated the also Mexican Jaime Munguía and endorsed his status in world boxing, assured that “sheinbaum will do very well” and offered him his support.

“There in what we can help and we are also available,” said the boxer.

Álvarez praised the ideas of the ruling candidate, especially what is related to investing in Mexico.

Both characters concluded the brief meeting with a kiss and a hug, to finally raise the candidate’s arms as a sign of victory.

Sheinbaum leads the electoral preferences in the June 2 elections, the largest in the country’s history, where 20,375 positions will be renewed in Mexico, including the presidency, the 500 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and the 128 of the Senate, as well as nine state governments, including that of Mexico City.

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International

Trump’s defense doubts Cohen’s honesty on his second day of cross-examination

The defense of former President Donald Trump (2017-2021) attacked on Thursday the credibility of Michael Cohen, who was a lawyer and right-hand man of the former president, during his second day of cross-examination in the criminal trial against the Republican politician.

During the examination of the star witness of the prosecutor’s office on Thursday morning, Trump’s chief lawyer, Todd Blanche, focused on exposing Cohen’s honesty before the jury and not so much on discussing specific issues of the case.

This week, Cohen testified that Trump ordered him to pay $130,000 to silence Stormy Daniels, a porn star who claims to have had relations with Trump in 2006, and detailed how he later reimbursed him for his expenses.

According to The New York Times on Thursday, the tycoon has asked his lawyer to be especially incisive in his interrogation, something that was seen in his questions today.

One of his tactics to call Cohen’s credibility into question before the jury was to tell Trump’s former lawyer to tell the lies he told the 2017 House Intelligence Committee, where Cohen lied under oath, which cost him to be accused of perjury in 2018.

Blanche relied on the fact that Cohen acknowledged under oath in Trump’s civil fraud trial that he had lied at the time.

“And he lied again when he met with the special prosecutor on August 7 (2018), right?” Blanche asked him, to which Cohen responded with a: “Correct.”

Cohen, who was extremely serene during the first three hours of the cross-examination, said he accepted the responsibility for lying under oath.

However, he pointed out that he did it because it was what Trump wanted, and also because “whis at stake (him) personally affected.”

Cohen served a prison sentence after pleading guilty in 2018 to federal campaign funding charges related to the plan to silence the extramarital scandal during Trump’s 2016 election campaign.

Blanche unsuccessfully sought Cohen to admit to having lied about the reason for the calls at the end of 2016 to Keith Schiller, Trump’s bodyguard, indicating that it was not to negotiate Daniels’ payment, as he has testified, but to talk about a series of harassment calls from a 14-year-old prankster.

Another way that Blanche used this Thursday was to emphasize Cohen’s hatred of Trump – whose loyalty disintegrated in 2018 – and asked the former lawyer if he believed that his podcast ‘Mea Culpa’ and interviews he has given to the media helped Donald Trump be accused.

“I gave myself some credit, yes,” Cohen said with a calm tone.

The defense, in addition, today showed several clips of Cohen’s program using rude language to refer to Trump.

In one of the excerpts that were shown this Thursday, the one who was the right-hand man of the Republican politician called Trump “fool Donald.”

Trump’s legal team also hinted at the jury at a possible vendetta by the lawyer part of Trump’s close circle for not having climbed further on the White House’s work scale.

As well as his lack of professionalism in general when pointing out that he had been disabled and that he used an artificial intelligence (AI) program to generate legal summons to his lawyers, a response that turned out to be a hallucination – with a correct structure, but false information – of the software.

Trump, accused in this trial of 34 serious crimes of falsification of commercial records, attended the court today with an entourage of Republicans, something that is not unusual.

His son Eric and more than ten Republican lawmakers sat behind Trump this Thursday, showing that, despite having to spend four days every week in the Manhattan Criminal Court, the boss is in the middle of his campaign for this year’s presidential election.

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International

The United States keeps Cuba as a sponsor of terrorism despite collaborating with the island

The United States confirmed on Thursday that it keeps Cuba on the list of sponsoring states of terrorism despite the fact that on Wednesday it admitted that it cooperates with the island in some activities to combat terrorism.

“You can cooperate in the fight against terrorism, but we still believe that there are actions being taken that support terrorist activities,” said the deputy spokesman of the State Department, Vedant Patel, at a press conference.

Patel did not answer the question about the specific actions that Cuba must take to remove it from the list of countries that promote terrorism, which was included in 2021 and which generates a series of economic sanctions for the island.

Joe Biden’s Administration keeps Cuba on that list despite the fact that yesterday it removed it from another list, that of countries that “do not fully cooperate with anti-terrorist efforts” (NFCC).

Washington and Havana resumed police cooperation in 2023, including in matters against terrorism, so the State Department decided that continuing with the certification of Cuba as a country that does not fully cooperate “is no longer appropriate.”

The Cuban government said on Wednesday that this decision does not consider it sufficient and demanded that the United States go a step further and definitively remove the island from the list of sponsors of terrorism.

The inclusion of Cuba on the U.S. list in January 2021 was one of the last decisions made by the Donald Trump Administration, between 2017 and 2021, before leaving power.

The United States then justified the measure by saying that the presence on the island of members of the Colombian guerrillas of the National Liberation Army (ELN), who were in Havana to hold peace negotiations with the Government of Colombia.

In August 2022 and after an order from the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, the Attorney General’s Office of Colombia suspended the arrest warrants against 17 ELN commanders, among which were those who had asked Cuba to extradite.

To determine a country as a sponsor of terrorism, US law requires the Secretary of State to determine that the Government of that nation has repeatedly provided support to terrorist groups.

Cuba had been part of the list since 1982 but came out in 2015, during the rapprochement stage of the then US President Barack Obama, between 2009 and 2017, which was later stopped by Trump.

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