Misinformation Alerts
Knowing what misinformation is being shared can help you generate effective messaging.
These insights are based on a combination of automated media monitoring and manual review by public health data analysts. Media data are publicly available data from many sources, such as social media, broadcast television, newspapers and magazines, news websites, online video, blogs, and more. Analysts from the Public Good Projects triangulate this data along with other data from fact checking organizations and investigative sources to provide an accurate, but not exhaustive, list of currently circulating misinformation.
Alerts are categorized as high, medium, and low risk.
- High risk alerts: We recommend directly addressing and debunking the misinformation
- Medium risk alerts: We recommend monitoring the situation but not actively engaging.
- Low risk alerts: Provided for informational purposes. We do not recommend additional action at the moment.
The FDA recently approved the anthrax vaccine Cyfendus for adults up to age 65 with suspected or confirmed exposure to Bacillus anthracis, the bacteria that causes anthrax. Several vaccine opponents claim that the approval was “rushed” and misleadingly claim that the vaccine was approved for all people, falsely implying that it will be a routinely administered vaccination.
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A video circulating on social media claims that the lipid nanoparticles that protect vaccine mRNA as it is delivered to cells can interact with and be programmed by 5G wireless technology. The claim is based on a patent filed by Moderna related to lipid nanoparticle delivery of mRNA and other genetic material. The patent has nothing to do with 5G or any other cellular or wireless technology.
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Last week, a University of Southern California basketball player and son of an NBA star was admitted to the hospital after going into cardiac arrest during a workout. Shortly after the news broke, vaccine opponents began baselessly claiming that his cardiac arrest was vaccine-related. Speculation about the young athlete having vaccine-induced myocarditis has garnered millions of views and thousands of shares on social media.
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A discredited research scientist best known for promoting health-related conspiracy theories recently accused Pfizer of “covering up” a batch of the diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis (DTaP) vaccines linked to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) cases. According to the post, instead of simply recalling the batch, the company deliberately distributed it throughout the country to avoid clusters of injury and death and then recorded the plot in a memo. This claim is related to the recently resurfaced myth that the U.S. Supreme Court declared vaccines “unavoidably unsafe.”
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An informed consent advocacy group posted a series of images repeating a host of myths about vaccine safety. The post claims that pediatric clinical trials are short, lack controls, and do not include safety training, a previously debunked anti-vaccine argument.
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A conservative website claims COVID-19 vaccines caused 74 percent of deaths in vaccinated people. The post cites a non-peer-reviewed study that went viral after being pulled from the medical journal The Lancet’s website because its conclusions were unsupported.
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A video repeats the claim that public health experts discredited ivermectin to ensure that COVID-19 vaccines got emergency authorization.
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A prominent vaccine opponent claims that his study analyzing autopsies reports of people who died after COVID-19 vaccination found that vaccines caused 74 percent of the deaths. He further claims that the study was removed from the website of the prestigious medical journal The Lancet less than a day after it was published. The authors and their supporters now claim the “medical establishment” is censoring them.
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A low-quality screenshot of an apparent blood clot is being attributed to an embalmer who claims to have observed large clots in the bodies of people who have died from heart attacks or strokes since the COVID-19 vaccine’s rollout.
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An advocacy group founded to protest COVID-19 vaccine mandates is shifting its attention to routine vaccines. In a recent post, the group proposes a decades-old anti-vaccine argument that a decrease in infectious diseases was due to improved sanitation and hygiene rather than vaccines.
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Alerts are categorized as high, medium, and low risk.
- High risk alerts: We recommend directly addressing and debunking the misinformation
- Medium risk alerts: We recommend monitoring the situation but not actively engaging.
- Low risk alerts: Provided for informational purposes. We do not recommend additional action at the moment.
Vaccine Misinformation Guide
Get practical tips for addressing misinformation in this new guide. Click image to download.
Vaccine Misinformation Guide
Get practical tips for addressing misinformation in this new guide. Click image to download, or see highlights.