Covid vaccine, no vax attacks and threats: this is how anger against science is unleashed

Virologists, infectious diseases, immunologists: experts continue to be in the crosshairs of the no vax. “For months I have continued to report, through my lawyer, to the Prosecutor’s Office and to the Digos all the attacks and threats that come to me,” Matteo Bassetti, director of the Infectious Diseases Clinic of the San Martino hospital in Genoa, told Adnkronos Health. recounting these months of violent attacks received on social media, with death threats to him and his family. “It is important to know that all those who have offended or threatened me have been denounced and sooner or later a public security officer will come knocking on their door. I do not back down an inch, they do not intimidate me at all.” “My wife and children have suffered – he adds – in recent months I have followed 2,500 people with the work of my team. I have spent myself on vaccines and for the treatment of Covid. We have received attacks on the front line because someone who should put us face, basically the Minister of Health, did not. And these people end up attacking experts like me. The attacks that I, Vaia or Burioni received come to us because the ministry is not seen as a credible interlocutor “. The solidarity of colleagues and institutions? “I expected something more from the latter – he underlines – The president of Liguria Toti was close to me, I very much appreciated Burioni who called me first. The others were absent, perhaps if they condemned the episodes they would do well. But the politicians – he concludes – they look more to the votes and not to the good of the people “. “I express all my solidarity with my colleague Bassetti and all those who have had threats due to the positions on the vaccine as an indispensable tool for the fight against coronavirus – says Francesco Vaia, director of the Inmi Spallanzani of Rome to Adnkronos Salute – I myself am been threatened in the recent past, I do not want to emphasize, I am calm and I move forward on the front line. I consider the anti Covid vaccines and monoclonals the fundamental tools that will allow us to get out of the pandemic “. The no vax attack on Spallanzani was concentrated above all on the occasion of the ‘V-Day’ of December 27, when the nurse of the Claudia Alivernini Institute, the first vaccinated against Covid in Italy, suffered heavy threats on social networks. Solidarity with Bassetti also from Maria Rita Gismondo, director of the Laboratory of clinical microbiology, virology and bio-emergency diagnostics at the Sacco hospital in Milan. “Unfortunately, when you become a public figure as we virologists have now become” at the time of Covid-19, “there is also this risk,” he told Adnkronos Salute. The expert’s invitation is to go on: “The word always and only goes to science”. Gismondo has also received attacks in the past: it happened “some time ago – remember – when I supported the HPV vaccination campaign for girls” against human Papillomavirus infection. “But just a message.” “Years ago, apparently, I was in the crosshairs of the animal rights activists of the time – says Silvio Garattini, founder and president of the Mario Negri Institute of Pharmacological Research – They found a photo of me with a cross on it, I had received several threats and therefore I too had been subjected to a police escort. It didn’t last very long, fortunately, because then I had to go to the USA at that time and when I returned to Italy there was no longer the need to protection. I remember that then they woke me up at 2 am, saying aggressive phrases. Doing research also leads to this. And today at the infectious disease specialist Matteo Bassetti “, under ‘active surveillance’ by the police because of the no vax threats,” I hope that your situation will be resolved very soon and that we can return to a state of greater serenity, tranquility and dialogue “. What can we say to the no vaxes who raise their heads in times of the Covid vaccine? “With the doubters you can talk, with the fanatics it is more difficult, they will remain of their opinion – admits Garattini – We must however think that the diehards are relatively few, even if very noisy and vocal. We must aim to dialogue and convince the hesitant, that unfortunately there are many from what we see on the vaccination trend. Unfortunately there are also fanatical people who exceed “.” In recent months I have received messages and e-mails of threats from those who are against Covid vaccines and from whom, especially during the first and second wave, he was against lockdowns – underlines to Adnkronos Salute Massimo Andreoni, scientific director of the Italian Society of Infectious and Tropical Diseases (Simit) and head of Infectious Diseases at the Tor Vergata Polyclinic in Rome – At first I really do not comment, perhaps my appearances on TV they made me the target of these people, while on the latter I can understand that for many they have been difficult months with commercial activities closed them. So I understand the exasperation “. The virologist Fabrizio Pregliasco, professor at the State University of Milan, is also in the sights.” If I go to see my social networks, in fact, I use them little, under everything I publish, even regarding my commitment to volunteering for Ampas, I find comments from people who really say everything and go beyond the insult, go towards the threat. It is an unpleasant situation “says Pregliasco to Adnkronos Salute.” There are people, and it is understandable, anguished, upset, in difficulty and many of these noisy people – he adds – have lost faith in institutions and identify us as guilty of a plot that wants to control them and that is all a lie. It’s terrible. I filed a complaint with Digos a while ago with a sequence of messages. They have not yet given me feedback but they were fake profiles and therefore not easy to identify, we hope they will identify them “. According to Pregliasco,” but unfortunately this is part of what is the difficulty of communication in emergency situations, and it is sadness ” . And with Covid the threat messages have increased, “I always had them before because I dealt with vaccinations and it is a delicate issue, vaccination – recalls the virologist – has a very, very difficult approach to the population”. the reaction of people outside social networks. “In person, I have also been around in Rome for institutional commitments – the virologist reports – and from the people who recognize me I have always received positive approaches. I have not yet, but I fear it, met a no vax who maybe gives me a sganassone, like this, cold “, he concludes.” There is an irrefutable and even unforgivable fact that emerged during the last year and a half: the doctor who ends in the crosshairs of more or less organized groups of frantic. We passed in a short time from the celebratory commercials of the hero doctors, to the constant mockery of equally authoritative men of science. Let’s also say that the use and abuse of scientific opinions released daily in the press, sometimes contradictory, has ended up weakening the figure of the doctor who from hero has become a target of protest and discharge of social anger, often leveling towards the low that authority consolidated over time by many. I myself find myself continually exposed to criticism that lead to offense, insults, threats, and outright attempts at defamation, “Mauro Minelli, head of the Italian Foundation for Personalized Medicine for the South, tells Adnkronos Salute.” responsibilities to be placed on the shoulders of the media or social networks, but it is a problem that must be taken on by the political leadership that perhaps did not take steps to protect the professionalism of doctors, researchers, scientists, used too often in time as extras taken daily and not as resources for the community. At this point, perhaps, a regenerating communication on a large scale should be put in place “, concludes the immunologist.