Public health icon calls for military action against ‘anti-vaccine aggression’

Public health figure Dr. Peter Hotez this month called for military force against people who refuse vaccines.

Hotez was one of the architects of the COVID-19 pandemic, having been a “medical expert” frequently cited by media outlets to advance pandemic narratives such as masks, lockdowns, and vaccinations. He is also a professor of pediatrics and molecular virology & microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine, and director of the Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development. He has been credited with co-inventing a COVID-19 recombinant protein vaccine technology owned by Baylor College of Medicine (BCM).

‘We're going to have to bring in Homeland Security’

Earlier this month, Hotez was invited to speak at the Colombian Pediatric Society in Cartegena. In an interview, he called on federal law enforcement and NATO to solve vaccine hesitancy.

"What I've said to the Biden administration is: ‘The health sector can't solve this on its own, we're going to have to bring in Homeland Security, Commerce Department, Justice Department to help us understand how to do this,’” he said. 

Hotez added that he had similar advice for World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, a former "ethno-Marxist terror group" leader "who has no medical degree."

“I met with Dr. Tedros last month in Geneva . . . to say: ‘I don't know that the World Health Organization can solve this on our own. We need the other United Nations agencies, NATO.’”

The public health icon claimed that “anti-vaccine aggression” is a “lethal force” that is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths, suggesting that it requires a military response. 

“This is a security problem because it's no longer a theoretical construct or some arcane academic exercise,” said Hotez. “Two hundred thousand Americans died because of anti-vaccine aggression, anti-science aggression. And so this is now a lethal force. And now I feel as a pediatric vaccine scientist . . . just as it's important for me to make new vaccines to save lives, the other side of saving lives is countering this anti-vaccine aggression."

Hotez: Refusing vaccines is antisemitic

Hotez has frequently spread harsh rhetoric against anyone who refuses vaccines, last year even declaring them antisemitic. He railed against “anti-vaxxers” for making Holocaust comparisons between forced COVID-19 vaccinations and forced vaccinations by the Nazis. Doing so is antisemitic, he said, despite his own claim that Trump and his supporters are aligned with Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Joseph Stalin, Marxists and Leninists.

These claims accompanied alarming conspiracy theories by Hotez in which “antivaccine groups and political extremists” are joining forces to form an “evil empire” bent on destroying healthcare. He also claimed that scientists are under attack by the “America First” movement which is trying to bring about a “modern day authoritarian regime.”

To protect scientists against Trump and his supporters, therefore, Hotez suggested that “US government scientists,” like former National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Dr. Anthony Fauci, be extended federal hate crime protections so that “far-right antiscience aggression” would be considered a hate crime.

Hotez, who has been funded by Fauci's NIAID, was awarded last year with the Anthony Fauci Courage in Leadership Award by the Infectious Diseases Society of America “for his efforts to uphold and speak to scientific truths.” 

‘My global health friends are dying’

In October, Hotez lamented on X that his “global health” friends are dying and he is unsure of the cause, suggesting possible causes but not entertaining vaccines as one:

“In just the last 3 years, I’ve lost close colleagues and friends, each a champion of global health, each between the ages of 58-71 and still active when they passed: Drs. Paul Farmer, Mwele Malacela, Don McManus, and now Rodrigo. Overwork? Exhaustion? Please take care my friends,” Hotez tweeted.

Trump vaccines bad, Biden vaccines good

Hotez is also known for backing politically driven policy reversals which became characteristic of the pandemic.

While President Donald Trump was in office, for example, Hotez came out strongly against granting any vaccine emergency use authorization (EUA).

“We don’t do EUAs for vaccines,” Hotez said in late 2020. “It’s a lesser review, it’s a lower-quality review, and when you’re talking about vaccinating a large chunk of the American population, that’s not acceptable.”

After Joe Biden was installed, however, Hotez backed the COVID-19 vaccine and supported its mandate.

Refusal to debate

In June 2023, Hotez was offered to debate Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr and podcast host Joe Rogan on the subject of vaccines. He refused. Despite his claims of “countering vaccine activism,” Hotez declined to even consider a discussion, even after he was offered millions of dollars in donations to the charity of his choice.