The National Institutes of Health has not recommended and the Food and Drug Administration has not approved ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment. But a Facebook post misleadingly implies that an article published on the NIH website is an endorsement of the drug to treat COVID-19. The NIH and FDA have said more clinical studies are needed.
In remarks at a Feb. 3 gun violence prevention task force meeting, President Joe Biden repeated claims about gun rights and gun manufacturing that fact-checkers have previously found to be false.
A COVID-19 booster dose increases protection against the coronavirus. But in an interview, comedian Bill Maher incorrectly said COVID-19 booster shots were “useless” and could cause “immune system fatigue.” Online, others have made similar claims. There is no basis for the notion that the immune system would tire out, even after repeated boosters.
Three stimulus payments have been sent to Americans to help them weather the economic impact of the pandemic. Social media posts are using a video clip of a White House official to falsely claim a fourth payment will arrive soon. But the video is from March 2021, and a fourth payment isn’t forthcoming.
Sen. Tom Cotton falsely equated the nearly 2 million apprehensions of immigrants attempting to illegally cross the southern border during Joe Biden’s presidency to “adding the entire population of Nebraska to this country.” He’s wrong for several reasons, including that most of those apprehended were immediately turned around.
A Japanese company found that the antiparasitic drug ivermectin showed an “antiviral effect” against the omicron variant in a lab setting. Reuters has corrected a story in which it “misstated” that the drug was effective in a phase 3 clinical trial with human subjects. Some social media users have repeated Reuters’ reporting error but have not repeated the correction.
At a 1980 campaign event, Ronald Reagan promised to appoint a woman to the Supreme Court if elected. President Trump, while running for reelection, announced at a campaign rally that he would appoint a woman. Sen. Susan Collins said President Biden’s campaign promise to appoint a Black woman to the court “isn’t exactly the same.” We review the facts.
The approved and authorized COVID-19 vaccines in the U.S. are effective at preventing severe disease, and experts say the benefits of vaccination for children outweigh any known or potential risk. But social media users have shared video of Dr. Robert Malone misleadingly asserting that the COVID-19 vaccines are “not working” and claiming without evidence that many children “will be hospitalized” and may experience brain damage and infertility due to the vaccines.
Neither primary vaccination nor natural immunity is generally stopping infections with the omicron variant, but research shows booster doses substantially increase protection. Yet, Republican Sen. Rand Paul claimed that a case of COVID-19 provides “an immunity better than the vaccine.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has been working for nearly two years to help end the COVID-19 pandemic — even treating patients with the disease. But Dr. Mehmet Oz, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, falsely claimed that “Fauci’s never taken care of patients.”