Did the United Kingdom admit the COVID-19 vaccine damages the natural immune system? No, that's not true: The claim in the National Daily Newspaper misconstrues information in the COVID-19 vaccine surveillance report - Week 42 by the UK Health Security Agency published on October 21, 2021. The report doesn't suggest the immune system is compromised by the COVID vaccine and…

Is the purpose of COVID-19 vaccines to "kill off a large proportion of the population"? No, there's no evidence that's true: The idea stems from a sprawling conspiracy theory that alternately posits COVID, the vaccines or both as being manufactured with the goal of depopulating Earth. The claim was made by "Dr. Shankara Chetty" during a video interview (archived here)…

Have genetic engineers genetically modified food that intentionally will cause black people to become infertile? No, that's not true: According to an FDA spokesperson, "there is no scientific data" backing up this claim. The spokesperson also told Lead Stories that if the Food and Drug Administration had found someone doing this, it would be in violation of the Federal Food,…

Do the number of fully vaccinated people who are hospitalized outnumber unvaccinated hospitalized in the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW)? Yes, that's true: But simple ratios don't tell the full story. The figures are found in the COVID-19 weekly surveillance report by NSW Health published on January 20, 2022. The proportion of unvaccinated people who end up hospitalized…

Do COVID-19 vaccines contain 81 strands of bacteria and HIV? No, that's not true: A video showing a masked woman making false claims about COVID vaccines is an altered audio-and-video package from a real interview done by VICE Media with a medical professional, then dubbed over with audio from a Canadian organization that published an interview with a "natural doctor."…

Did scientists find blood from vegans is eight times more protective against cancer? No, that statement is misleading because it is missing context. This meme caption refers to a study done in 2005. The meme overstates the findings without identifying the almost 17-year-old study or clarifying that it focused on prostate cancer and did not look at all cancers. A…

Is a 1927 news article saying that America was sold to five billionaires real? No, that's not true: This is a photo of a fake headline from a book published by The Onion, a website whose disclaimer says their content is "satirized." The claim appeared in a Facebook post (archived here) on January 13, 2022. Above the image of an…

Was Benji Stacy born in 1975 with dark blue skin that shocked his nurses? Yes, but this is not a picture of him. According to ABC News, infant Stacy did frighten maternity doctors and they quickly transferred him to the University of Kansas Medical Center. But this is a photo of Paul Karason, not Benji Stacy, and Karason's skin turned…

Have just 50,000 people in the United States died from "COVID-ONLY" during the pandemic? No, that's not true: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) counts COVID deaths as cases where COVID-19 was the immediate cause of death. As of the week ending January 15, 2022, that total was 848,403, according to the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics.…

Do some mouthwashes "disrupt" COVID-19 in the lab? Yes, that's true in a lab, but it's not a field-tested cure and researchers say it needs more study. The report by Rutgers University scientists, published March 1, 2021, shows two types of mouthwash "reduce virus infectivity" in the laboratory -- Listerine and the prescription Chlorhexidine (CHG). Neither the World Health Organization…

Did researchers discover "various foreign objects" -- like worms hatching from eggs -- in the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine? No, that's not true: None of the listed ingredients in the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID vaccine are intentionally harmful. The claim, which originated in this article published January 8, 2022, by the RAIR Foundation, reappeared in an article (archived here) published by Liberty Planet…

Do respirator masks prescribed to reduce viral spread contain nano-robot parasites called Morgellons? No, that's not true: "Nano" describes structures one billionth of a meter across, which makes the video images impossible, since it shows a fingertip alongside the purported nano-bot. Scientists have been unable to verify the existence of any parasite that could be causing "Morgellons Disease," which the…

Did the Washington State Board of Health adopt a rule that would involuntarily place unvaccinated residents, including children, into COVID-19 quarantine camps? No, that's not true: The board made an administrative rule change to the law that governs the state's handling of HIV and some other communicable diseases. The rules do not apply to COVID. The claim began circulating on…

Did an MIT scientist prove that the COVID-19 vaccines have possible long-term side effects? No, that's not true: The "scientist" at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a computer scientist who offered no proof that the COVID-19 vaccines have possible side effects when she appeared on Laura Ingraham's FOX News show but instead repeated multiple false claims about spike proteins…

Is a post listing more than a dozen duties, selection requirements and obligations for honor guards at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery entirely accurate? No, that's not true: While some of the claims in this post, which has circulated online since at least 2004, describe authentic practices of the honor guard, others are either false,…

Did author and self-proclaimed naturopathic practitioner Robert O. Young present legitimate testimony that admits that governments are using medicine to "exterminate" Black people? No, that's not true: The International Tribunal for Natural Justice (ITNJ) is not a real court of law and the statements made by Young in his "testimony" are not based in fact. The claim, which has made…

Is Vivek Murthy, the Biden administration's surgeon general, computer-generated imagery (CGI)? No, that's not true: The duty officer in the Pentagon press office told Lead Stories that Murthy "is 100% a real person." The claim came from a website that features a disclaimer warning readers not to take its content at face value. The claim originated in an article published…

Did an orange and a lemon test positive for COVID-19? Does using a test improperly, with fruit juice rather than a nasal swab, show that home tests are unreliable and will return false positives for anything? No, that's not true: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) to many makers of home antigen diagnostic tests…

Did the Make-A-Wish Foundation refuse to grant a 4-year-old cancer patient a wish because he is not vaccinated? That's not true: The charity's medical team had ruled out air travel and large group settings for unvaccinated and critically ill children, which is why the charity's staff asked the boy to make a wish other than flying his family to Disney…

Are COVID-19 boosters weakening the immune system? No, that's not true: Articles and social media reports saying that Marco Cavaleri, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) vaccine strategy chief, fears repeated booster shots would weaken the immune system are incorrect. The EMA press office said, "It seems a journalist misunderstood the comments made by Dr. Cavaleri at the EMA's press briefing…