Coronavirus

Did Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates suggest on the social media platform X that people who resist a coming "mRNA tsunami" will be punished by exclusion from society? No, that's not true: There's no record the billionaire ever wrote it on his account. The expression "mRNA tsunami" was taken from a different person's public talk, and it was said in a…

Is mRNA being integrated into "every childhood vaccine" without regulatory reapproval? No, that's not true: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) calls the claim "completely false." There are rigorous regulatory processes in place to evaluate and approve any changes to vaccines, including the incorporation of new technologies like mRNA. Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine was the first mRNA product to achieve…

Did Anthony Fauci state in August 2023 that "all unvaccinated citizens must be locked down this winter"? No, that's not true: Lead Stories watched the entire interview where this quote supposedly originated and found no such statement. Furthermore, no credible evidence or news reports exist that attribute the purported quote to the former director of the National Institute of Allergy…

Does the German government have study figures that show people given the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine (Comirnaty) "have overall suffered from fewer medically undesirable events as subjects who received the placebo"? No, that's not true: As of August 4, 2023, Germany's Federal Ministry of Health said it did not have "such figures." But not having such study figures proves nothing in…

Does an image show a single man in China breaking up couples' seating arrangements in a movie theater on Valentine's Day? No, there's no evidence of that: The image actually shows the reopening of a movie theater in Beijing amid the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on Facebook on August 16, 2023. The…

Does a study conducted by researchers at the Cleveland Clinic provide an "absolute direct linear correlation" that the more COVID-19 vaccines a person receives, the higher likelihood that person has of contracting the disease, thus proving that the bivalent vaccine was a "complete failure"? No, that's not true: Dr. Nabin Shrestha, an infectious disease expert and one of the cited…

Does a "secret CDC report" show hundreds of thousands of children "died suddenly" in the United States following the COVID-19 vaccine rollout? No, that's not true: The author or authors of the article making the claims did not find any such report; instead, they created their own document using publicly available Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data they found…

Are COVID-19 vaccine-related "turbo cancers" real? Are they also "contagious" and "behaving like a bioweapon"? No, that's not true: There is no serious evidence for the claim that COVID vaccines cause "turbo cancers." Cancer is complex and has many causes. Additionally, the thought that cancers could be contagious or act like bioweapons lacks support from credible science. Vaccines help the…

Was ivermectin approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a treatment for COVID-19 in August 2023? No, that's not true: The FDA has not granted approval of the anti-parasitic drug for treating the virus. Clinical studies and scientific evidence have not established the safety or efficacy of ivermectin for this purpose. The claim appeared in a post…

Is nattokinase an effective treatment for "spike protein detox" associated with COVID-19 vaccines? No, that's not true: COVID vaccines are not shown to be toxic, so it is not necessary to "detox" from them. Nattokinase is a soybean supplement that is not monitored in the U.S. and as of August 2023, experts recommend avoiding it. Furthermore, the study cited as…

Does data collected from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) prove that COVID-19 vaccines are "killing an estimated 1 person per 1,000 doses," resulting in "676,000 dead Americans"? No, that's not true: The claim originated in a blog post by a known COVID misinformation spreader who used VAERS data in ways that medical experts have explicitly advised against. As…

Did Pfizer employees in Australia receive a special batch of imported COVID-19 vaccines that were different from what the public was given? No, that's not true: Pfizer global media relations told Lead Stories that the pharmaceutical and biotechnology company imported "additional doses" for its staff that were evaluated and authorized by Australia's Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) but all the COVID…

Did the family of 10-year-old Kelsey Morand, who died in Princeton, New Jersey, in July 2023, confirm that her death happened after vaccination? No, that's not true: Publicly available reliable sources do not mention any vaccination records and do not describe vaccination as a contributing factor in the girl's demise. The family said that the cause of death was a…

Does a study by University of Colorado medical researchers show that the "vast majority of humanity has gotten the COVID-19 vaccine via "shedding," meaning the vaccine spread from person to person? No, that's not true: The study's lead author told Lead Stories that the social media post making this assertion "does not properly reflect the findings of our study." Also,…

Did Dr. Meryl Nass represent the World Health Organization (WHO) at a press conference, boldly outlining plans to ignore existing human rights laws? No, that's not true: Nass does not speak for the WHO. She is an internal medicine doctor from Ellsworth, Maine, whose license is temporarily suspended while under review. This symposium was not a World Health Organization press…

Does a social media post listing "1,884 Athlete Cardiac Arrests" and 1,310 deaths between January 2021 and July 2023 prove a connection between these mishaps and the COVID-19 vaccine? No, that's not true: While the ultimate source of the information cited in the post lists hundreds of "athletes" who have died or collapsed for various reasons (some of them clearly…

Did one in every 35 people who received a Moderna COVID-19 mRNA-1273 booster vaccination suffer myocardial injury? No, that's not true: There is no reliable evidence or data to support this claim. Such a high rate of adverse reactions would be highly unusual and would likely have resulted in widespread concern and investigation. The authors of the study cited to…

Does a patent prove that Moderna's mRNA COVID-19 vaccines contain nanotechnology that interacts with 5G? No, that's not true: There is no evidence that mRNA vaccines or their contents interact with 5G technology, a molecular biologist told Lead Stories. A chemical engineer confirmed this, saying there is "absolutely no evidence at all" that such claims are true and that "there…

Did public health experts discredit the anti-parasitic drug ivermectin to ensure that COVID-19 vaccines by Pfizer and other pharmaceutical companies got emergency authorization from the Food & Drug Administration (FDA)? No, that's not true: While the new vaccines were being developed, ivermectin was also being studied as a potential treatment for COVID. Field trials did not find conclusive evidence that…

Was a Pfizer manufacturing site in North Carolina that was damaged by a tornado "stocked with" COVID-19 vaccines? No, that's not true: A Pfizer spokesperson told Lead Stories that COVID-19 vaccines are not made or stocked at the facility. The claim appeared in a post published to Instagram on July 19, 2023. It included a video that contained text reading…