Let's take a look at recent nonsense being pushed by anti-vaxxers about the U.K. data. False Claim: In England, “COVID-19 vaccinated children are 4,423% more likely to die of any cause and 13,633% more likely to die of COVID-19 than unvaccinated children.” No evidence COVID-19 vaccine is increasing child mortality rates in England https://www.politifact.com/factchec...dence-covid-19-vaccine-increasing-child-mort/ There is no evidence that the COVID-19 vaccine is linked to an increase in child mortality. One person younger than 20 has died because of an adverse reaction to the vaccine, according to the United Kingdom’s Office of National Statistics. A blog took data out of context and omitted that most of the children in the data set who had received multiple COVID-19 vaccinations were at higher risk of death due to existing medical conditions. A United Kingdom-based blog has taken COVID-19 data out of context to claim that vaccinated children are more at risk of death than unvaccinated children. The headline of a July 27 blog post by The Daily Exposé claims: "SHOCKING: U.K. government admits COVID vaccinated children are 4,423% more likely to die of any cause & 13,633% more likely to die of COVID-19 than unvaccinated children." This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The data referenced in the blog post is from the Office of National Statistics, which reports directly to the U.K. Parliament. The office collects, analyzes and disseminates statistics about the U.K.'s economy, society and population. This is not the first time The Daily Exposé has made such a claim. In January, the blog used Office of National Statistics data to falsely assert that the COVID-19 vaccine was causing an uptick in deaths among children. There is no evidence in the ONS data to suggest that COVID-19 vaccines are linked to children’s deaths, agency spokesperson Glenn Garrett told PolitiFact in February. The ONS reported that as of Aug. 23 there had been 45 deaths in England in which a COVID-19 vaccine was mentioned on a death certificate. In 39 of these cases, the vaccine was the underlying cause. Of the people who died, only one was younger than 20. ONS mortality data The ONS data for England covers Jan. 1, 2021 to May 31, 2022 and shows: Total deaths related to COVID-19, by vaccination status, for people ages 10 to 19 Total deaths unrelated to COVID-19, by vaccination status, for people ages 10 to 19 The data set does not list the cause for non-COVID-19 deaths. Of the 272 vaccinated children who died during this time, 10 had COVID-19. And of the 473 unvaccinated children who died, 33 had COVID-19. The sample size of vaccinated children is much smaller than that of unvaccinated children because for most of 2021 in England, the COVID-19 vaccine was available only to children who had health conditions that could make them more vulnerable to a serious case of COVID-19. The vaccine became widely available to all children 12 to 17 years old in August 2021. Children younger than 12 became eligible for the vaccine in December 2021. In England, children ages 16 and older are eligible to receive a booster dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. Some children ages 12-15 who have certain medical conditions are also eligible for a third COVID-19 vaccination. The Daily Exposé’s calculation The Daily Exposé attempted to do its own mortality rate and vaccine effectiveness calculations using the ONS data. It claimed children ages 10 to 14 who have received three COVID-19 vaccine doses are 13,633% (or about 137 times) more likely to die of COVID-19 than unvaccinated children. The blog also claimed children ages 10 to 14 who have received three COVID-19 vaccine doses are 4,423% (or about 45 times) more likely to die of any cause than unvaccinated children. However, this is misleading. The blog’s calculations found deceptively high mortality rates for triple-vaccinated children because of the overrepresentation of children with medical conditions. The Office of National Statistics calculates the age-standardized mortality rates for adults in England. But the office did not do that for children because of the disparities in sample sizes of vaccinated and unvaccinated children, and because children with other health issues that put them at higher risk for severe illness were prioritized for the vaccine and booster shot. In its data set, the ONS notes these disparities and cautions against comparing mortality rates and death counts between people in different vaccination statuses. Garrett, the ONS spokesperson, also told PolitiFact in February that because of these factors, any mortality rate comparisons between vaccinated and unvaccinated children would not be meaningful. Other factors can also influence mortality rates, regardless of vaccination status, including individual health conditions, changes in COVID-19 infection levels, the emergence of new dominant variants and differing levels of immunity from previous infection. Our ruling A blog post said that in England, "COVID-19 vaccinated children are 4,423% more likely to die of any cause and 13,633% more likely to die of COVID-19 than unvaccinated children." There is no evidence that links the COVID-19 vaccine to an increase in deaths among children in England. Disparities in sample sizes of vaccinated and unvaccinated children, and prioritizations for vaccination prevent a valid comparison among the groups, said a spokesperson for a U.K. office that collects health data. We rate this claim False.
Misinformation is a common thread between the COVID-19 and HIV/AIDS pandemics—with deadly consequences https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-08-misinformation-common-thread-covid-hivaids.html
Let's see what the anti-vax Covid-deniers are saying about Monkeypox. It's like they want to undermine public health and spread misery across the planet. False Claim: "Monkeypox is a complete, fake sham” that’s “designed to force lockdowns, mandates and shots.” Video falsely claims monkeypox is a governmental hoax https://www.politifact.com/factchec...t-host-falsely-claims-monkeypox-governmental/ The virus has infected nearly 48,000 people worldwide and killed at least 13. It is not life-threatening in most cases, but in rare cases the virus can be fatal, especially if contracted by children younger than eight, women who are pregnant or breastfeeding, and those with weakened immune systems as well as eczema, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most documented cases so far have been among men who have sex with men. But monkeypox is transmitted through close contact with people who are infected, meaning anyone who has close contact with others could be at risk. Monkeypox has infected nearly 48,000 people globally, but a video spreading online suggests it’s all a hoax. "MonkeyPox power-grabbing sham! Fake ‘outbreak’ designed to force lockdowns, mandates, and shots," read the caption on a Facebook video posted Aug. 17. The video features a clip of conservative radio personality Stew Peters saying, "Monkeypox is a complete fake sham, just like COVID-19." The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) First, we find no evidence that any lockdown measures similar to those implemented during the early days of COVID-19 pandemic have been put in place in response to monkeypox. Nor have we seen any laws mandating monkeypox vaccines. Unlike with COVID-19, monkeypox is not new — it was first detected in humans in 1970 — and there is already a vaccine for it. Peters has a history of using inflammatory rhetoric, including making a film earlier this year that promoted the baseless theory that COVID-19 is a synthetic version of snake venom. The clip in this Facebook post comes from a 12-minute segment of Peters’ July 25 podcast "The Stew Peters Show." As evidence that monkeypox is a "complete sham," Peters appeared to be pointing to the low number of fatalities resulting from the virus. "Even the worst countries have only a few thousand cases," Peters said in the video. "And that’s nationwide. In the United States there have been zero monkeypox deaths." The World Health Organization on July 23 declared the ongoing monkeypox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern. Invoking homophobic rhetoric before referring to monkeypox as "bogus" and "fake," Peters also implied that because gay and bisexual men comprise the majority of the virus’ patient population, nobody else is at risk of contracting it. That contradicts what we know about how monkeypox spreads. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report 47,652 documented monkeypox cases worldwide. Thirteen of these were fatal infections, according to data compiled by CDC, World Health Organization, European CDC and Ministries of Health. To date, 17,431 cases have been confirmed in the United States, though none of them have been fatal. Despite the low odds of succumbing to monkeypox, public health officials have urged the general population to take the threat of the virus seriously since it can cause serious, and extremely painful, illness. According to the CDC, monkeypox "is part of the same family of viruses as variola virus, (which is) the virus that causes smallpox." Unlike COVID-19, monkeypox is not primarily spread through airborne transmission. It is typically spread through close, often intimate, skin-to-skin contact. According to the CDC, the spread of the virus includes most often involves sexual contact, hugging, kissing, massaging or prolonged face-to-face contact with an individual who has the virus. "At this time, data suggest that gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men make up the majority of cases in the current monkeypox outbreak," according to guidance from the CDC. "However, anyone, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, who has been in close, personal contact with someone who has monkeypox is at risk." Our ruling A video shared on Facebook carried the caption, "Monkeypox power-grabbing sham! Fake ‘outbreak’ designed to force lockdowns, mandates, and shots." It showed a clip of Peters asserting the monkeypox outbreak was a "fake sham" and pointed to low death counts from the virus as proof. The disease has infected nearly 48,000 people globally and killed 13. There have been no government lockdowns or vaccine mandates issued in response. It is not a sham. We rate this claim Pants on Fire!
Study did not find vaccines increased COVID reinfection https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-iceland-study-covid-reinfection-209502586252 CLAIM: A study conducted in Iceland found that the more COVID-19 vaccine doses you take, the more likely it is that you will be reinfected with the virus. AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. This claim misrepresents the findings of the study, which was not intended to determine causation, the authors told The Associated Press. The research does not support the claim that vaccination increases reinfection rates. THE FACTS: Instagram and Twitter posts this week distorted a recent study by falsely claiming it showed that more COVID-19 boosters increased the likelihood of reinfection. “BREAKING,” read text on one widely shared Instagram post. “The more vaccines you take, the more likely you will catch COVID again: JAMA.” But the research, published earlier this month in the open access medical journal JAMA Network, didn’t include this finding. In fact, the authors explicitly warned against that interpretation. The study, conducted from December 2021 to February 2022, set out to estimate the proportion of people in Iceland who became reinfected with COVID-19 during the omicron variant wave in the country. To do this, it monitored people who had previously been infected with the virus. The authors found that among about 11,500 people studied, just over 1,300, or 11.5%, were reinfected during the omicron wave. When they used a statistical model to predict the probability of reinfection, they found that “2 or more doses of vaccine were associated with a slightly higher probability of reinfection compared with 1 dose or less.” However, they warned that this finding shouldn’t be interpreted as evidence the vaccine caused reinfection. “This finding should be interpreted with caution because of limitations of our study, which include the inability to adjust for the complex relationships among prior infection, vaccine eligibility, and underlying conditions,” the study read. The authors also noted that by the start of the research period, two or more vaccine doses were free and available to anyone 12 and older in Iceland, and the majority of the population had been vaccinated. In an email to the AP, study author Dr. Elias Eythorsson of the National University Hospital of Iceland underscored that the research “should not be used to support a claim that vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 increases re-infection rates.” “Because our aim was not to estimate the causal effect of vaccination on the re-infection rate, we did not include important variables that would be necessary for such an analysis, including what type of vaccine the person received (keep in mind that Iceland used four types of vaccine; Janssen, AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Moderna vaccines) and the time interval from the last vaccine dose,” Eythorsson wrote. “Furthermore, if our aim had been to answer this question, we would not have based our results on a single statistical model as it is notoriously difficult to establish causal claims about vaccine effects from observational data.” To establish causation, the research also would have needed to consider social and behavioral factors such as likelihood to seek out COVID-19 testing, underlying health conditions and more, Eythorsson wrote. Data shows that COVID-19 vaccine boosters continue to be effective against the virus. They protect against severe disease and symptomatic infection, at least infection requiring emergency medical care, according to Aubree Gordon, an epidemiologist at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. Gordon pointed to recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention research that shows a third dose protected adults from moderate and severe infection, and a fourth dose provided further protection to eligible adults aged 50 and older.
Let's check-in with the anti-vax clowns in Australia. Oh, they are being spanked and fined for their stupidity. Anti-vaxxers who tried to sue Australia over 'new world order' forced to pay huge legal bill https://www.ladbible.com/news/antiv...tralia-forced-to-pay-huge-legal-bill-20220831
Let's see the latest nonsense being pushed by the Ivermectin cultists... Fact Check: Did NIH Add Ivermectin to List of COVID Treatments? https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-did-nih-add-ivermectin-list-covid-treatments-1739661 Claims began to circulate on social media last week claiming that ivermectin had quietly been approved for use as a treatment for COVID-19. Prominent Twitter users cited a listing of the controversial drug among a list of treatments on the National Institute of Health's (NIH) official website. First approved for use in the late 1980s, ivermectin is an antiparasitic drug that is most commonly prescribed to fight against parasites like worms, lice, and scabies. In the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, the drug became popular among anti-vaccine circles as an alternative treatment for the virus, gaining support from people like Joe Rogan, despite no definitive scientific evidence that it was safe and effective. Due to the drug's surging demand, some began to purchase the ivermectin variant formulated for horses, leading to critics accusing proponents of using "horse dewormer" to treat COVID. Because the horse version of the drug is formulated to be stronger, the use of it by humans led to a significant uptick in reports to poison hotlines. The Claim These most recent claims about ivermectin being approved appear to have originated in a Thursday tweet from Jake Shields, a professional mixed martial artist and outspoken supporter of former President Donald Trump. "Yesterday the National institute of health added Ivermectin to the list of covid treatment," Shields tweeted. "Looks like the conspiracy theorist were right and the 'experts' wrong once again." His tweet had over 42,000 likes and nearly 14,000 retweets as of Saturday afternoon. On Friday, it was shared by conservative talk show host, Jesse Kelly, who took a more extreme stance, accusing pharmacists and doctors of murder for not prescribing ivermectin. Kelly's tweet garnered nearly 13,000 likes. "Remember when the FDA called Ivermectin 'horse dewormer' and pharmacies refused to fulfill doctor prescriptions for it?" Kelly tweeted. "Yeah, all those people are guilty of murder." The Facts The claims being made by conservative figures appear to derive from the official "COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines" website run by the NIH. The site includes information about numerous drugs in various stages of clinical testing for their effectiveness in treating COVID-19. The website only lists ivermectin as approved for use in those clinical trials, stating that it "recommends against the use of ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19" for any situation outside of those tests. The most recent findings from a large-scale NIH-funded test of ivermectin as a COVID treatment were published in June and found that the drug was seemingly not significantly effective. Among over 1,500 participants, with 47 percent of them receiving at least two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, those who received ivermectin recovered from COVID in an average of 11 days. By comparison, those who were given the placebo recovered in an average of 11.5 days. The NIH treatment guidelines website also says that other studies have suggested that sufficient efficacy in treating the virus with ivermectin would require 100 times the dosage amount recommended for humans. The Ruling False. While approved for use in clinical trials, ivermectin has not been approved as a general use for COVID-19 treatment. The NIH still recommends against its use in that regard. Furthermore, significant trials have found little evidence that the drug has any notable effect on recovery time from COVID-19.
The latest nonsense from anti-vax Covid-deniers is to blame the Queen's death on the Covid vaccine. The nonsense these clowns push is amazing in its stupidity and the sheep who lap it up are even dumber. Claim: Queen Elizabeth died because of the COVID-19 vaccine. Claims Queen Elizabeth died because of the COVID-19 vaccine spread without evidence https://www.politifact.com/factchec...-queen-elizabeth-died-because-covid-19-vacci/