A widely circulated post claims that the WHO administered 50 million smallpox vaccines in Africa that were laced with HIV. The post includes an image of a 1987 news article promoting the conspiracy theory that vaccines “triggered the AIDS virus.”
The persistence of this myth increases its risk. Debunking messaging may explain why the conspiracy theory was immediately and universally rejected by experts, who note that the same smallpox vaccines were administered globally without triggering an AIDS outbreak.
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