FactCheck.org’s SciCheck feature focuses exclusively on false and misleading scientific claims that are made by partisans to influence public policy. It was launched in January 2015 with a grant from the Stanton Foundation. The foundation was founded by the late Frank Stanton, president of CBS for 25 years, from 1946 to 1971.
Sudden Arrhythmic Death Syndrome, or SADS, has been studied for decades and is caused by genetic heart problems. But social media posts suggest, with no evidence, that SADS is related to COVID-19 vaccines.
Studies have found that COVID-19 increases the risk for heart complications, and that the benefits of COVID-19 vaccination outweigh the risks for males and females in all age groups. Social media posts, however, have misinterpreted and publicized a criticized study that claims to have identified a correlation between emergency calls for cardiac events and the vaccination rate in Israel.
Q. Are vaccinated and boosted people more susceptible to infection or disease with the omicron variant than unvaccinated people?
A. No. Getting vaccinated increases your protection against COVID-19. Sometimes, certain raw data can suggest otherwise, but that information cannot be used to determine how well a vaccine works.
In the wake of mass shootings in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas, some officials have cited mental illness as a reason for the unprovoked attacks. But as we’ve explained before, having a mental illness isn’t predictive of who will perpetrate a mass shooting.
We explain what monkeypox is, what makes the outbreak unusual, and why it’s important to take seriously but unlikely to play out like the coronavirus.
COVID-19 vaccines don’t contain microchips and have readily available ingredient lists. But social media posts use an old clip of the Pfizer CEO talking about an “electronic pill” for schizophrenia to leave the false impression he was confirming a conspiracy theory about microchips in the vaccines.
The World Health Organization can make recommendations after the declaration of a global emergency, but it has no control over any nation’s decisions. Yet conservatives in the U.S. falsely claim that amendments proposed by the Biden administration to existing global health regulations, and a new WHO pandemic treaty, will threaten U.S. sovereignty.
A nonprofit recently reported that, since 2009, the National Institutes of Health and many of its scientists received an estimated $350 million in royalties for developing experimental treatments. Some kept the money, but Dr. Anthony Fauci has said that he donates royalties he receives to charity — a detail left out of some online posts about the payments.
The U.S. indirectly funded some bat coronavirus research at a lab in Wuhan, China. But those experiments could not have led to the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, because the viruses used were very different. Yet former White House trade adviser Peter Navarro repeated a false claim that Dr. Anthony Fauci “killed a lot of people” by funding the lab.
The Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine showed a final efficacy of 91% against symptomatic illness in its phase 3 trial. Social media posts wrongly claim recently released Pfizer documents show the vaccine is “12% effective.” That appears to be a misreading of data released more than a year ago.