Does a graph show that the COVID-19 vaccine increases stillbirths? No, that is missing context: The graph was published on the U.S. government's Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) website. As VAERS itself repeatedly explains, its purpose is to collect a wide-open, likely repetitive, messy and incomplete list of anecdotal, amateur, professional and even malicious reports of post-vaccination problems.The graph…

Did the U.K. Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) admit in a series of email exchanges that COVID-19 is man-made and that COVID vaccines were created with computer-generated DNA? No, that's not true: The MHRA told Lead Stories that the correspondence cited in a claim did take place, but the assertions made from those emails aren't correct. The claim…

Did U.S. Special Forces arrest Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel to charge him "on many counts of murder" for deaths caused by Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine? No, that's not true: This claim is made on a website that publishes false claims and identifies itself as a satirical website. No official news sources support this claim. U.S. Special Forces also do not have…

Were influenza deaths mislabeled as COVID-19 deaths in 2020 to inflate the toll of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic? No, that's not true: Registered deaths attributed to COVID were categorized separately from influenza and pneumonia by national and international surveillance programs. The claim originated in a tweet posted in April 2, 2022, that suggested deaths attributed to COVID were actually caused by…

Did a Finnish report expose "massive pandemic data fraud" and show that 40 percent of COVID-19 deaths were fabricated? No, that's not true: The article cited in the social media post provides no data to support its claim. In addition, the Finnish health official quoted extensively in the article told Lead Stories that the conclusions drawn were false. "There is…

Was a COVID-19 vaccination the cause of the August 2021 death of 22-year-old Florida resident Gabrielle Petito, who disappeared while traveling through Wyoming? No, that's not true: The official coroner's report confirms that Petito's cause of death was "manual strangulation/throttling," categorized as homicide. The Federal Bureau of Investigation reported in December 2021 that a notebook was found in which Petito's…

Are Phoebe and Jennifer Gates, the daughters of Bill and Melinda French Gates, unvaccinated? No, that's not true: In a 2019 Facebook post, Melinda Gates wrote that all three of her children were fully vaccinated. There are multiple instances where Phoebe and Jennifer Gates proved themselves vaccinated: Phoebe was at Jennifer's wedding where it was a requirement to be vaccinated,…

Does the "Died Suddenly" movie trailer demonstrate that COVID-19 vaccinations cause widespread sudden death or severe medical events? No, that's not true: The trailer recycles previously debunked claims that the vaccine is lethal. To support its implications, the trailer stitches together footage and screenshots of acute medical events unrelated to COVID vaccination. Public health experts, relying on clinical safety trials…

Do Comirnaty (Pfizer) COVID-19 vaccines contain parasites? No, that's not true: Claims made on social media that COVID vaccines contain parasites provided no laboratory or independent evidence to support the allegations, and a medical examiner told Lead Stories she has never seen any "parasites with tentacles" during autopsies she's conducted on people who had received the vaccine. In a statement…

Were COVID-vaccinated young adults 92 percent more likely to die than their unvaccinated counterparts in England during the first full year that the vaccines were available? No, that's not true: While U.K. health agencies report that the figures are generally correct, the numbers were stripped of crucial context about vaccine breakthrough infection and the demographics of those prioritized for vaccination.…

Are snake and starfish venom found in COVID-19 vaccines? No, that's not true: The claim is based on the false belief that one component of venom is the same as venom, not just a component in the whole. In fact, this component can be naturally produced by other organisms, such as the human body. There is no evidence that COVID…

Does a New Zealand funeral director's statement that 95 percent of the corpses he sees had been vaccinated against COVID-19 prove that vaccines are causing mass death? No, that's not true. This claim was drawn from anecdotal observations that did not account for consequential variables, nor were these observations independently confirmed or corroborated by published or official data. With more…

Does a social media video show a "transhuman" baby from parents who received the COVID-19 vaccine? No, that's not true: The mother of the baby shown in the video post told Lead Stories that her daughter was born in August 2020, before the COVID vaccines were available. The Pfizer shot was first approved under emergency use authorization on December 11,…

Did the U.S. government file a patent to use an enzyme called luciferase to track the vaccination status of individuals? No, that's not true: While the patent is authentic it was filed on September 16, 2019, predating the COVID-19 pandemic, and was accepted in November 2020. Separately, the claim is not supported with credible public documentation that the U.S. government…

Is the Pfizer COVID vaccine responsible for hospitalizing 1 out of 500 small children under the age of 5? No, that's not true: There's no evidence to support that claim. The study used to back it says 10 children out of its 7,806 juvenile participants were hospitalized. But only the kids who received doses of the Pfizer shot (BNT162b2) above…

Does a Boston University (BU) study of a COVID-19 strain with an "80% lethality" have implications for humans? No, that's not true: The kill rate refers to mice used in the lab tests, and BU's manipulated virus was less lethal than existing wild viruses, which showed a kill rate of 100 percent. The experiment conducted at BU manipulated the SARS-CoV-2…

Are Australian farmers being forced to inject livestock with mRNA vaccines that are killing cows? No, that's not true: Some biotechnology firms and governments have announced plans to research and eventually roll out less expensive and more efficient mRNA vaccines made for livestock, but no such "mandate" has been announced, and thus no mass die-off of vaccine-receiving animals has been…

Do Pfizer documents reveal that 90 percent of pregnant women vaccinated against COVID lost their babies, and that COVID vaccination is going to lead to "mass depopulation"? No, that's not true: There's no evidence to support that claim. Extrapolations from a small data subset don't warrant application of non-professional assumptions about effects of vaccines in the absence of data. The…

Did the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) mandate that students get COVID-19 shots? No, that's not true: While an independent CDC advisory committee did vote on October 20, 2022, to add the COVID vaccine to its list of recommended childhood shots, each state sets its own vaccine requirements. The CDC already recommends COVID shots to everyone 6 months…

Did U.S. Special Forces destroy a "Boston University Covid-19 research lab"? No, that's not true: This claim was made on a website known for publishing fabricated content. The claim appeared in an article published by Real Raw News on October 18, 2022, titled "Military Destroys Covid Research Lab" (archived here). It opened: US Special Forces and Army Chemical, Biological, Radiological,…