In Toulouse, the town hall helpless in the face of the “antivax” signs displayed in the city
Accelerated billboards of antivax messages have multiplied in recent weeks in Toulouse. The last one appeared in the Trois Cocus district on Tuesday August 16, raising the controversy. Overcoming the image of a large syringe, the message warned of the supposed dangers of vaccination against Covid-19. “Covid vaccines. 1 cardiovascular accident for 100 injections. The health of our children is worth more than experimental vaccines”can we read on one of them.
According to the town hall of Toulouse, a dozen similar panels have been seen on private property since the display of the first, at the beginning of July near the Canal du Midi.
The sequel after the ad
At the bottom of the light blue poster, a link forwarded to the “European Database of Reports of Adverse Reactions Suspectedly Related to the Use of Medicines” of the European Medicines Agency. From the first page, however, the site claims that “the information disseminated on this website does not undergo any confirmation of a potential link between the drug and the observed effect(s)”.
“I delay everything, then I screen and I share”: this is how antivax get information
Also displayed on the panel are the names of the self-proclaimed “independent scientific council”, made up of health professionals opposed to vaccination against Covid, and of the “Réinfo Covid” and “Réinfo Libertés” collectives. According “Liberation”it is these groups that are at the origin of the poster campaign.
The president of “Réinfo Liberté”, Vincent Pavant, explains to “CheckNews” that the campaign was not “decided and financed today only in the Toulouse conurbation” and is “the fruit of a meeting and reflection with the supporters of Reinfo Covid 31, who wanted to get involved in the very important debate on vaccination for the youngest and to inform about the figures that we can point out when it comes to adverse effects”.
“False Information”
These messages have been condemned by several health professionals, who have called for their removal. The president of the union of the French Union for Free Medicine (UFML-syndicat), Jérôme Marty, sentenced on social networks “a misleading and manipulative communication produced by a conspiratorial organization with sectarian excesses”.
The sequel after the ad
The prefect of Haute-Garonne, the director general of the Occitanie regional health agency and the president of the departmental council of the order of doctors condemned the campaign on Wednesday in a joint press release, considering that it “aims to disseminate false information on a crucial public health subject”. They announced their intention to“Examiner the legal avenues likely to be successful against the authors of these posters and those who allowed them to be affixed”.
Censor antivax? “It will only radicalize them in their positions”
The town hall of Toulouse, it has already been confirmed with France 3 in July cannot intervene, since the panels are located in the private domain.
The posters are exhibited on panels belonging to the company PS Luchetta Display, attached to the Publimat advertising agency in Meurthe-et-Moselle, which, for its part, provides at the “Figaro” ” check things out “which she displays and esteems” not violate any legal restrictions “. It specifies that, in particular, it is prohibited “pornographic themes or pure politics”.