Modus operandi of the marginalised: Conspiracy theory and slander

The invisible truth.

The winds of anti-science ideology are now strong on both sides of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The rise of populist movements and the dawn of the post-truth era are a threat to the values we cherish as scientists and to scientific competence. The populist movements generate oversimplified solutions to complex problems, and the post-truth era contributes to this framework by giving more value to sensationalism and opinions than to facts. The combination of these effects is destructive and should be of great concern to all, as it has the power of undermining basic scientific tenets, such as the efficacy of vaccination.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: CONSPIRACY THEORY AND SLANDER

I was elected to the House of Representatives of the Italian Parliament and then selected as Vice Chair of the Science, Culture and Education Commission of the Chamber. I was motivated to make a difference. I was the speaker for the nation's research budget (Fondo Ordinario per il finanziamento degli Enti e istituzioni di ricerca; FOE), and I achieved a unanimous vote on my proposed modification of part of the nation's €1.7 billion research funding scheme. It was a complicated and challenging task and I was respected and appreciated for how I was managing the process.

One year after my election, an Italian weekly magazine, l'Espresso, published a cover article entitled “Virus traffickers: scientists have agreements with 'Big Pharma' to sell their vaccines and create epidemics” . The magazine cover was bright yellow and pictured a scientist in a biosafety level 4 (BSL4) lab suit with subheadlines screaming “Commercial agreements between scientists and pharmaceutical companies to manufacture and sell vaccines for their own profit,” alleging that bird flu strains were being “smuggled through the mail,” and referring to epidemics as “big business” (the publisher declined a request to reproduce the image here). The article summarized a secret investigation led by the Rome Deputy District Attorney into a purported criminal organization that was selling influenza field viruses to pharmaceutical companies to enable them to produce vaccines for contemporary strains. The investigation also clearly alleged that there was evidence of deliberate spread of pathogenic viruses into the environment, with the criminal intention of establishing avian influenza epidemics in poultry and in humans in Italy between 1999 and 2008. The magazine cited me as the criminal mastermind behind an organization of approximately 40 people.

I learned about the accusations with horror and dismay by reading the 6-page article, which also included distasteful pictures from layer poultry farms and infected sites during culling operations. The story was based on an absurd distortion of real events occurring between 1999 and 2007 that had been extensively reported in the scientific literature by myself, my collaborators, and external observers in review articles. To exemplify the level of inaccuracy of the investigation, investigators and prosecutors had confused outbreaks occurring in different years and caused by different viruses in different countries. As an example, they stated or believed that highly pathogenic (HP) A/H7N3/Pakistan/1995 (A/H7N3/PAK/95) was the causative agent of outbreaks caused by low-pathogenic viruses, such as A/H7N3/Italy/2003. These two viruses were addressed generically as H7N3 and then were additionally confused with an A/Italy/H7N1/HP/2000 virus. The “subtle” genetic, pathogenetic, and antigenic differences between H7 viruses were not taken into account in the narrative, and relevant scientific literature was completely ignored by the investigators. According to their reconstruction of events, I had taken personal advantage of the avian influenza vaccination campaign for my own profit, through royalties and contracts with pharmaceutical companies. A simple fact-checking exercise would have clearly shown that all intellectual property rights related to the DIVA (Differentiating Infected from Vaccinated Animals) test had been transferred to my home institution. Another accusation was that I had actually promoted sharing of influenza virus sequence data globally so that I could create “killer” viruses in the lab. Further, conversations with colleagues, captured through phone tapping, in which I discussed my commitment to provide strains held in our repository to other scientists worldwide, were used against me as proof of misconduct. My words were repositioned in space and time and misrepresented to support a conspiracy theory between scientists and Big Pharma. I was accused of a dozen crimes, one of which was punishable with life imprisonment.

From
Gem: Discovering Invisible Truths, In Journal of Virology
Ilaria Capua
KEYWORDS credibility influenza populism slander vaccination