Meat

Is "lab grown" chicken that was approved by U.S. regulators "grown from human cells"? No, that's not true: Neither of the companies that received regulatory approval to sell cell-cultivated meat in the U.S. use human cells in their products. Additionally, Lead Stories did not find evidence that human cells were used to test the safety of the cell-cultivated chicken products.…

Did The Washington Post report that Bill Gates was "being held under armed watch at Guantanamo Bay" after having been "charged with war crimes against humanity"? No, that's not true: A search through the newspaper's digital database returned no such results, and no credible news publication or official government statement describing such an event was publicly available as of July…

Did the U.S. government approve the sale of "lab-grown" meat "without any labeling"? No, that's not true: The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced on June 14, 2023, that it gave label approval to GOOD Meat and UPSIDE Foods; companies that produce chicken in a laboratory "grown directly from real animal cells." Their labels will say "cell-cultivated chicken." The claim…

Did former first lady, Secretary of State and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton go on MSNBC to express her support for Florida Governor and Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis? No, that's not true: The video uses a combination of authentic footage and a deepfake audio track. As of July 7, 2023, no evidence shows that Clinton endorsed DeSantis elsewhere.…

Did a viral photo capture the bodies of Russian soldiers mashed together into a rectangular piece of flesh "for easy transportation"? No, that's not true: The image showed previously frozen but then thawed pet food left in the streets of a Russian village near the border with Ukraine. The claim appeared in a tweet posted on July 4, 2023. It…

Is lab-grown meat cultivated using cancerous or pre-cancerous animal cells? No, that's not true: Cell-cultured meat is cultivated using animal cells that have been modified to replicate indefinitely. Cell-cultured or lab-grown meat is regulated in the U.S. under the same stipulations as conventionally grown and slaughtered meat, poultry, and seafood. Furthermore, regulatory agencies do not allow for cancerous animal meat…

Does a video on social media show an extremely long protein string from a vaccine being removed from a person's body? No, that's not true: The video shows a tapeworm being pulled out through a person's nostril. Vaccines work by triggering an immune response to a particular pathogen, like a virus, rather than by producing long protein strings in the…

Did Florida governor and 2024 presidential candidate Ron DeSantis post a picture at an event showing George Soros, a billionaire philanthropist who is often the subject of conspiracy theories, in the background? No, that's not true: The original image, posted in a tweet by media personality John Cardillo, was altered to include a person resembling Soros. The claim appeared in…

Does consuming folic acid or folate cause depression, particularly postpartum? No, that's not true: There is no substantiated evidence to suggest that folic acid causes depression, postpartum or otherwise. A medical expert who focuses on the genetic links between folate and postpartum depression told Lead Stories that such claims are "absolutely unfounded" and "potentially harmful misinformation." Rather, research suggests that…

Did the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ban COVID-19 vaccines in April 2023? No, that's not true: On April 18, 2023, the agency amended its previous emergency use authorizations (EUAs) to remove authorization for monovalent vaccines made by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech, and, instead, authorized bivalent vaccines for all doses given to those 6 months old and older. In a…