[SpaceRaccoon]

A reminder that "U.S. officials pushed Brazil to reject Russia’s coronavirus vaccine" [0] for political reasons.

> Under a section titled “Combating malign influences in the Americas,” the HHS report states that countries including Russia “are working to increase their influence in the region to the detriment of US safety and security.” The global affairs office coordinated with other U.S. government agencies “to dissuade countries in the region from accepting aid from these ill-intentioned states,” it says.

The concerted effort to smear the Russian vaccine is clearly the Western version of the anti-vaccine misinformation Russia has been accused of spreading. Textbook projection.

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/03/16/hhs-brazil-s...

[irae]

Brazilian here, but just a regular guy, I didn't dug deep into this. Anvisa (our health regulatory agency) is well stablished before current president, supposedly independant and more often considered in opposition to current government. I find it unlikely that they are fabricating a rejection and more likely they are being cientific about it.

[major505]

Same here. If what they say is true, that there was viral reproduction in the vacine, theres no way is gonna pass. They schedule a session in congress with Anvisa to defend their position, and decided to not show up to the meeting. The resistance in allowing European heath agencies entering and inspecting it's labs is also a bad sign.

[major505]

I talked with a friend with ties in Anvisa. After all the bullshit the current president make they go through, with all the hydroxychloroquine thing, they kind of done a no interference pact over there among the staff, to not allow political pressure to dictate the result of their work. That say, nothing is immune to politics. But I don't think this was the case.

[marcosdumay]

It's not only that, but the manufacturer refusal to present all kinds of evidence was very public and undeniable.

[coliveira]

It is not that Anvisa is taking a political stance, but they operate under requirements of the government. The government is making it difficult for Anvisa to gather the data they need to make a decision.

[doliveira]

How did the government interfere?

[b0sk]

Here's a follow-up post on the behavior by the Sputnik V Twitter account https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2021/04/28/ru...

Greg Lowe is a very respected commentator on all things vaccines.

[js2]

Derek Lowe.

[randomsquared]

This is not mutually exclusive with the findings of the Brazilian investigators. More than likely this will spur other investigations which should find the same thing if the Brazilian investigators were correct.

[doliveira]

Making sense in your head and fitting a narrative is not enough to make a claim correspond to reality.

[is_true]

Brazil is using the Chinese vaccine. Don't think they would if those claims were true