Did the head of a German hospital who committed suicide describe the COVID-19 vaccine as genocide and a crime against humanity? No, that's not true: Online publications reported unsubstantiated claims of a suicide note from the physician
Publication: coronavirus
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: Moderna CEO Was NOT Arrested By FBI On November 22, 2021
Was Stéphane Bancel, CEO of Moderna, arrested by the FBI on November 22, 2021? No, that's not true: There is no evidence to suggest that Bancel was arrested and the website where the claim originally appeared is a known fake news website
Poynter→ A guide to commonly misunderstood vaccine terms, and how to talk about them
In 2020, words like lockdown, quarantine and herd immunity entered the world lexicon. The massive rollout of COVID-19 vaccines in 2021 ushered in a new set of buzzwords that are often misunderstood or willfully misinterpreted. As families convene for t
Health Feedback→ Claim that previously infected people don’t transmit COVID-19 is unsupported, originates from misinterpretation of CDC’s FOIA response
REVIEW On 11 November 2021, Gateway Pundit published an article titled “CDC Admits It Has No Record of an Unvaccinated Person Spreading Covid After Recovering From Covid”. The article claimed that “natural immunity provides better protection a
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: Vaccines Are NOT The Reason Vaccinated English Under 60 Are ‘Dying At Twice The Rate of Unvaccinated People The Same Age’
Are COVID-19 vaccines the reason vaccinated people ages 10 to 59 in England are dying at twice the rate of the unvaccinated? No, that's not true: Age 10-59 is, statistically, a huge age group, so the claim uses a misleading "same age" com
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: Humanity Is NOT Being Held Hostage By New World Order Using COVID-19 Vaccines — Video Is Long List of Disproven Claims
Is humanity being held hostage by a new world order pushing COVID-19 vaccines? No, that's not true: The video in this Facebook post recycles previously debunked claims about COVID and plays into the rhetoric of an elaborate QAnon story of
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: The ‘Emergency Broadcast System’ Has NOT Been Activated
Has the "Emergency Broadcast System" been activated? No, that's not true: The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) confirmed to Lead Stories that the Emergency Alert System (EAS) has not been activated. If it had been, the protocol
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: Video Does NOT Show Priest Dying Suddenly After Receiving COVID-19 Vaccination — He Fainted
Does a viral video show a priest dying suddenly during a livestream after receiving a COVID-19 vaccination? No, that's not true: The priest fainted during Mass and appeared at the church at a later date. The claim appeared in a video post
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: European Medicines Agency Data DOES Show More Than 1.1 Million Adverse Drug Reactions And More Than 30,000 Fatalities By COVID-19 Vaccinations — But All Are Unverified
Does European Medicines Agency data show more than 1.1 million adverse drug reactions and more than 30,000 deaths by COVID-19 vaccinations? Yes, that's true: Those numbers are found in EudraVigilance, the European Union's database of susp
Health Feedback→ Contrary to claim in Becker News article, not all cases of infection lead to immunity; falsely claims that most COVID-19 deaths weren’t caused by COVID-19 but by comorbidities
REVIEW An article published by Becker News in mid-November 2021, written by former Fox News writer Kyle Becker, claimed in its headline that “The CDC Finally Admits a Massive Number of Americans Have ‘Natural Immunity’: 146.6 Million People”
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: OSHA Suspension Of Vaccine Mandate Was NOT Ignored By ‘The Media’
Did "the media" ignore the announcement by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) that it was suspending the government's COVID-19 vaccine mandate for some businesses? No, that's not true: National news organizations inc
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: Pfizer Vaccine Will NOT Kill 117 Kids To Save 1 Child From Dying Of COVID In 5 To 11 Age Group
Will the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine kill 117 children ages 5 to 11 to save one child from dying of the virus? No, that's not true: There is no evidence to support that claim, which was made using data reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Re
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: Nurse Tiffany Dover Did NOT Die When She Was Vaccinated
Did a nurse named Tiffany Dover die at a Chattanooga, Tennessee, hospital on December 17, 2020, the day she received a COVID-19 vaccine and subsequently fainted while live on camera speaking with a local TV station? And is an Ancestry.com
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: mRNA COVID-19 Vaccines Do NOT Stunt Development Of Children’s Immune Systems
Do messenger RNA (mRNA) COVID-19 vaccines instruct cells to produce "non-human" proteins -- spike proteins -- that would stunt the development of children's immune systems? No, that's not true: On the contrary, the purpose of spike protei
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: NO Evidence Vaccine Passports Are ‘Part Of A Financial Transaction Control Grid’
Are vaccine passports "part of a financial transaction control grid"? No, that's not true: There is no evidence that so-called "vaccine passports" -- proof that a person has received a COVID-19 vaccine -- are part of a sinister global pla
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: COVID Vaccine Spike Proteins Are NOT Shedding From Vaccinated To Unvaccinated School Children
Are spike proteins from COVID-19 vaccines being shed from vaccinated children and infecting unvaccinated ones? No, that's not true: There is no publicly available evidence the Pfizer mRNA COVID-19 vaccine causes vaccinated persons to cast
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: There Is NO Evidence These Pictures Document ‘Horrific’ COVID Vaccine Damage To Patients’ Blood
Do these photos document "horrific" damage to the blood of patients who have been given the COVID-19 vaccines? No, that's not true: There's no corroborative evidence provided in the video to prove the authenticity or contents of the pictu
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: Health Care Workers Do NOT Need To Quarantine After Testing A COVID-19 Positive Person
Do health care workers giving COVID-19 tests need to quarantine after coming into contact with those who test positive? No, that's not true: Those workers are wearing personal protective equipment and are only in close contact for the sec
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: Myocarditis Is NOT Necessarily ‘Irreversible’ — Recovery Is Possible
Is myocarditis, a rare disease that causes the swelling of the heart muscle, "irreversible"? Not exactly: Many patients fully recover from myocarditis, although the damage done by the disease varies based on its severity. The claim appear
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: COVID Spike Protein Created in Vaccines Are NOT Proven To Be ‘Hijacking’ Human Body DNA Repair
Has a Swedish university proved that the COVID-19 vaccine creates spike proteins that are "hijacking" the human body's DNA repair and adaptive immune mechanisms? No, that's not true: The claim was based on a preliminary research report, n
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: Hydroxychloroquine Does NOT Work As A Vaccine For COVID-19
Does hydroxychloroquine work as a vaccine against COVID-19? No, that's not true: The Food & Drug Administration and the World Health Organization don't recommend the drug, which is used to treat malaria, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: Taking A Bath In Borax Does NOT ‘Detox’ Vaccine From Your Body
Is bathing in a mixture of borax, baking soda, "Indian healing clay" and Epsom salt a good way to "detox" the COVID-19 vaccine from your body? No, that's not true: There is no scientific evidence that bathing in a borax mixture will remov
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: Deaths Reported To VAERS Associated With COVID-19 Vaccinations Do NOT All Come From Five Percent Of Vaccine Batches
Do deaths reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) associated with COVID-19 vaccinations all stem from 5% of vaccine batches? No, that's not true: There is no evidence of widespread issues with specific vaccine lots.
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: The CDC Did NOT Admit ‘Crushing Rights of Naturally Immune Without Proof’ In Response To Blogger’s Document Request
Did the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention "admit" it has no proof that a re-infected naturally immune individual can spread the virus that causes COVID-19? No, that's not true: This is a recycled gambit by anti-vaccine and COVID-
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: Fauci Does NOT Admit ‘Vaccines Did Not Work As Advertised And That Vaccinated Are In Great Danger Today’
Did Dr. Anthony Fauci admit that COVID vaccines did not work as advertised and that the vaccinated are in great danger? No, that's not true. The director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the Biden admi
Health Feedback→ Pfizer CEO’s wife didn’t die from vaccine complications; Myriam Bourla is alive and well
REVIEW On 10 November 2021, the Conservative Beaver, an anonymously run Canadian website that routinely publishes “false information and actual fake news”, published a piece claiming that “Myriam Bourla—the wife of Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla
Poynter→ Dennis Prager’s claim that it was ‘inconceivable’ that gay men were seen as ‘pariahs’ in the 1980s is extraordinarily inaccurate
The coronavirus pandemic has brought back discussion of an earlier pandemic: The AIDS crisis of the 1980s. Dennis Prager, a conservative commentator, said in a Nov. 8 interview with Newsmax that it was “inconceivable” that gay men would h
Health Feedback→ Claim that French study showed long COVID doesn’t exist misinterprets the study and fails to account for its limitations
REVIEW An article published on Substack in early November 2021, a platform that supports subscription newsletters, claimed that a French study[1] demonstrated that long COVID is “mostly a mental disease”. Long COVID is a condition in which COVID
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: Children Are NOT 50 Times More Likely To Be Killed By COVID Vaccines Than By Virus Itself
Are children 50 times more likely to be killed by the COVID-19 vaccines than by the virus itself? No, that's not true: The person who made the claim offered no proof for the claimed numbers of deaths from the COVID vaccine. As of November
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: Doctor Does NOT Show Marburg, Ebola In Vaccines To Induce AIDS
Does an 11-minute video featuring a Finnish naturopathic doctor talking about Johnson & Johnson vaccines show people are being intentionally infected with the Ebola and Marburg viruses to induce AIDS? No, that's not true: The video in
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: COVID-19 Vaccinations Are NOT Mandatory For German Children Or Adults
Did the death of a German 12-year-old shortly after receiving a vaccine cause German officials to reconsider a policy of mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations for children? No, that's not true: COVID vaccinations are not mandatory in Germany fo
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: The COVID-19 Pandemic Is NOT Over
Is the COVID-19 pandemic over? No, that's not true: The World Health Organization (WHO), which declared COVID-19 a pandemic in March 2020, said in late October 2021 that the global pandemic is still "far from finished." An opinion article
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: Wife of Pfizer CEO Is NOT Dead
Did Myriam Bourla, the wife of Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, die November 10, 2021 after complications from Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine? No, that's not true: She was photographed with her husband at an awards ceremony on November 11, 2021. Cons
Health Feedback→ Tromethamine in the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for children acts to improve the stability of the vaccine; it isn’t in the vaccine as a heart medication
REVIEW On 29 October 2021, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized the emergency use of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in children aged 5 to 11. This vaccine for children has a slightly different formulation from the one approve
Poynter→ Schools aren’t giving kids the COVID-19 vaccine without parental consent
Now that the U.S. has authorized Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine for kids ages 5-11, children across the country are getting vaccinated. But some people are claiming that schools can vaccinate kids without their parents’ consent. In a video by Infowar
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: Mayo Clinic-Trained Pathologist Does NOT Explain How COVID Vax ‘Spike Proteins’ Are ‘Killing You’
Does a Mayo Clinic-trained pathologist explain how COVID-19 vaccine "spike proteins" are "killing you"? No, that's not true: mRNA COVID vaccines teach the body to make the distinctive spike proteins, which the immune system quickly identi
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: Kamala Harris Did NOT Say ‘Virtually Every Person Who Has Recently Died From COVID-19 Was Vaccinated’ — It’s An Altered Video
Did Vice President Kamala Harris say "virtually every person who has recently died from COVID-19 was vaccinated"? No, that's not true: An edited excerpt from a video of a Harris speech replaces the word "unvaccinated" with the word "vacci
Lead Stories→ Fact Check: This Video Of Argument Over Vaccination Status On A Plane Is NOT Real — It’s An Ad-Eligible Skit Film With Actors
Did a scene between a passenger, flight attendant and airline captain erupt on a plane about the passenger not wanting to sit next to someone who had not been vaccinated? No, that's not true: The scene was staged and filmed, and listed on
Health Feedback→ Italy didn’t change its definition of COVID-19 deaths, the disease killed more than 130,000 Italians
REVIEW In early 2020, during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Italy became one of the hardest hit countries in the world. As of 9 November 2021, the country totalized more than 130,000 deaths from COVID-19. In November 2021, several websit
Poynter→ Merriam-Webster didn’t remove the immunity portion to its vaccine definition. It changed the wording.
First, people claimed that Merriam-Webster sneakily changed the definition of the word “anti-vaxxer” to include people who oppose laws that mandate vaccination. (It didn’t. It has always had the same definition.) Now, social media posts