Press TV Publishes American Radio Host Describing COVID Vaccinations In the West As A “State-Sponsored Conspiracy”

Iran­ian-backed Press TV has pub­lished an arti­cle by Amer­i­can author and radio host Stephen Lend­man. describ­ing the COVID vac­ci­na­tion pro­gram in the West as a “state-spon­sored con­spir­a­cy against human health and well-being — a wide­spread crime against human­i­ty.” Accord­ing to the arti­cle:

What’s going on in the US and West is a state-spon­sored con­spir­a­cy against human health and well-being — a wide­spread crime against human­i­ty. We’re being lied to and deceived by Big Gov­ern­ment and Big Phar­ma in cahoots with Big Media.Experimental unap­proved COVID vac­cines don’t pre­serve and pro­tect health as false­ly pro­mot­ed. They risk seri­ous harm to health or death. They cre­ate cus­tomers for oth­er drugs that in com­bi­na­tion can also be haz­ardous. Time and again, vac­cines cause dis­eases they’re sup­posed to pro­tect against.

Read the rest here.

The arti­cle relies upon mul­ti­ple med­ical “experts” known for ped­dling var­i­ous dis­in­for­ma­tion and con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries about the COVID epi­dem­ic. In June 2020, for exam­ple, Irish media described “mol­e­c­u­lar biologist/immunologist Dolores Cahill” as follows:

A Uni­ver­si­ty Col­lege Dublin (UCD) pro­fes­sor, who chairs the Euroscep­tic Irish Free­dom Par­ty, has been asked to resign from a lead­ing Euro­pean Union sci­en­tif­ic com­mit­tee over online claims she made about the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic. In an hour-long inter­view with a pop­u­lar alt-right activist on May 10th, which has been viewed hun­dreds of thou­sands of times, Prof Dolores Cahill promised to “debunk the nar­ra­tive” of the pan­dem­ic. Lock­down and social dis­tanc­ing is not need­ed to stop the spread of the virus, she said. Peo­ple who recov­er are then “immune for life” after 10 days and deaths and ill­ness­es could have been pre­vent­ed by extra vit­a­mins, she claimed. Peo­ple with under­ly­ing health con­di­tions, such as cys­tic fibro­sis, could freely engage in soci­ety dur­ing the pan­dem­ic after spend­ing a few weeks build­ing up their immu­ni­ty in this man­ner, she went on. Oppos­ing vac­ci­na­tions, Ms Cahill said “politi­cians and the media” are using Covid-19 “as a fear-mon­ger­ing pro­pa­gan­da tool to try and take away rights from peo­ple and to make them more sick and to force vac­ci­na­tions on us.” How­ev­er, the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion said the claims made by Ms Cahill, a pro­fes­sor of trans­la­tion­al med­i­cine in UCD, could cause “sig­nif­i­cant harm”, if tak­en literally.

Dr. Elke De Klerk, anoth­er indi­vid­ual, cit­ed in the arti­cle, head­ed a group that claimed in a video, “We do not have a pan­dem­ic” and called COVID-19 a “nor­mal flu virus.” The video was since removed from YouTube for vio­lat­ing its Terms of Service.

Accord­ing to his bio, Lend­men is a retired busi­ness­man who began writ­ing on major world and nation­al issues in 2005 and is cur­rent­ly host­ing the Pro­gres­sive Radio News Hour on the Pro­gres­sive Radio Net­work. Iran­ian media fre­quent­ly cite his pro-Iran­ian writ­ing, such as a recent inter­view with an Iran­ian news agency in which he described the US-backed killing of Iran­ian Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Guard Gen­er­al Qasem Soleimani as follows:

Gen­er­al Soleimani was key in the fight against region­al ter­ror­ism the US, NATO and Israel sup­port. That’s why he was tar­get­ed for elimination,”

In Octo­ber 2020, the Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) report­ed on the US Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty “Home­land Threat Assess­ment” which described the  Iran­ian role in spread­ing what are called “false nar­ra­tives” con­cern­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. Accord­ing to the DHS report:

Iran­ian online influ­ence actors are employ­ing inau­then­tic social media net­works, proxy news web­sites, and state media out­lets to ampli­fy false nar­ra­tives that seek to shift respon­si­bil­i­ty for the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic to the Unit­ed States and oth­er West­ern nations. Tehran prob­a­bly will con­tin­ue to malign the Unit­ed States for enforc­ing eco­nom­ic sanc­tions, argu­ing these sanc­tions hin­der Iran’s abil­i­ty to put for­ward an appro­pri­ate pub­lic health response to the pan­dem­ic. Iran­ian actors have spread COVID-19 dis­in­for­ma­tion and false nar­ra­tives through videos, car­toons, and news sto­ries from state media out­lets on pop­u­lar social media plat­forms to appeal to U. S. and West­ern audi­ences. Iran­ian oper­a­tives have covert­ly used proxy net­works and sites to advance nar­ra­tives sug­gest­ing that the Unit­ed States cre­at­ed the virus as a bioweapon, that West­ern media is spread­ing lies about COVID-19 in Iran, and that the Iran­ian response to the pan­dem­ic was bet­ter than that of the Unit­ed States.

Press TV is part of the media struc­ture of the Iran­ian influ­ence net­work. It was found­ed in 2007 and is spon­sored by the Islam­ic Repub­lic of Iran Broad­cast­ing, Iran’s state-run tele­vi­sion oper­a­tion. Accord­ing to its web­site, Press TV “takes rev­o­lu­tion­ary steps as the first Eng­lish broad­cast­ing inter­na­tion­al Iran­ian news net­work.” Press TV had its UK broad­cast­ing license revoked in Jan­u­ary 2012 by British communication’s reg­u­la­tor Ofcom, which found that the chan­nel was run­ning its edi­to­r­i­al from Tehran and not from the UK, thus breach­ing the Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Act. In the UK, the chan­nel is direct­ed by film direc­tor and writer Hamid Khairoldin, who is also con­nect­ed to oth­er pro-Iran­ian media out­lets. A 2015 report by the US Anti-Defama­tion League details var­i­ous anti­se­mit­ic themes and con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries pro­mot­ed in its programs.