Did the British journalist Piers Morgan reveal that he has developed Vaccine Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (VAIDS) and blamed it on the anti-vaccination community? No, that's not true: Morgan never said that he has VAIDS, which is not a real medical condition. This claim was made without supporting evidence by a prolific publisher of fake news.
The article (archived here) making the claim was published by The People's Voice on December 10, 2023, and titled "Vaccinated Piers Morgan Reveals He Has VAIDS -- Blames Non-Vaxxed." It began:
UK talk show host Piers Morgan has developed Vaccine Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (VAIDS) as a result of repeated mRNA shots and boosters.
This is how the article looked on The People's Voice at the time of writing:
(Source: thepeoplesvoice.tv screenshot taken on Tue Dec 12 20:14:10 2023 UTC)
The People's Voice article doesn't provide any proof that Morgan said he has VAIDS. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has previously told Lead Stories that "Vaccine Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome is not a known medical condition."
The scope of this fact check is not VAIDS, only the question of whether Morgan revealed that he had VAIDS. He hasn't. An advanced search on X (formerly known as Twitter, pictured below) shows that at the time of writing, the account @piersmorgan has never posted about VAIDS. Lead Stories reached out by email to Morgan's agent for comment on December 13, 2023, and will update this article if we receive a reply.
(Source: X screenshot taken on Thu Dec 14 00:34:25 2023 UTC)
Within The People's Voice article, the article references, credits and links to Infowars reporting. It is not clear exactly how much of The People's Voice article is credited to Infowars. The Infowars article (archived here) was published first, on December 9, 2023, and is titled, "Vaccinated Piers Morgan Catches Covid -- Blames Anti-Vaxxers!" Embedded in both articles and in the same order, are four of Piers Morgan's posts that he published on X. Three were published in the first week of December 2023 when Morgan tested positive for COVID a second time, and one from September 21, 2021, when Morgan was dealing with symptoms of long COVID after his first bout with the virus.
Lead Stories copied the text of both articles into the text comparison tool Diffchecker (pictured below) The Infowars article (on the left) has 218 words and The People's Voice article (on the right) has 290. The words highlighted by the tool in red have been removed, and the words highlighted in green have been added. The unhighlighted words appear in both articles. The People's Voice article is almost a complete copy of the Infowars article, with the exception of a few additional sentences that present unsupported claims about Morgan and VAIDS and an altered headline mentioning VAIDS. The Infowars article did not mention VAIDS.
(Source: diffchecker.com screenshot taken on Tue Dec 12 20:45:23 2023 UTC)
The People's Voice has a lengthy record of publishing false stories in the past. It describes itself as a resource "comprised of various web pages operated by Fact Checked Limited," but it has nothing to do with fact-checking.
As of this writing, its website contained a liability disclaimer, saying:
FACT CHECKED LIMITED AND/OR ITS SUPPLIERS MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS ABOUT THE SUITABILITY, RELIABILITY, AVAILABILITY, TIMELINESS, AND ACCURACY OF THE INFORMATION, SOFTWARE, PRODUCTS, SERVICES AND RELATED GRAPHICS CONTAINED ON THE SITE FOR ANY PURPOSE. TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, ALL SUCH INFORMATION, SOFTWARE, PRODUCTS, SERVICES AND RELATED GRAPHICS ARE PROVIDED 'AS IS' WITHOUT WARRANTY OR CONDITION OF ANY KIND.
Lead Stories has published several fact checks (here) on various claims associated with VAIDS in the past. One article quotes Dr. Federico Martinón-Torres, the head of the World Health Organization's Collaborating Center for Vaccine Safety from a video released on April 11, 2022:
There is no evidence from clinical trials or from the field following worldwide use of currently available COVID-19 vaccines that COVID-19 vaccination causes any type of immunosuppression in any population group.
It is not possible for COVID-19 vaccines to cause AIDS, which is caused by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). Suggestions that COVID-19 vaccination can cause a similar immunosuppressed outcome, which some have dubbed 'VAIDS,' are not based on any observed or reported evidence.
