Let's fact check the recent nonsense from Covid-deniers that people who died "with" Covid "not from" Covid should not be counted as Covid deaths -- and therefore, according to these misinformation spreaders, Covid deaths in the U.S. are very low. This claim is so outrageous it ranks as "Pants on Fire". Let's outline the reality... Claims that COVID death figures are inflated by counting those who died ‘with, not from’ the virus are premised on false assertions Research shows overall deaths associated with COVID-19 have been undercounted, not overcounted, in the U.S. since the start of the pandemic. https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2022/died-with-not-from-covid19-death-toll/ An Instagram post imploring readers to use “simple math” asserts that U.S. deaths from COVID-19 are vastly overcounted. The viral post says the number of estimated annual COVID-19 deaths in the United States is 27,530. That’s a long way away from the 385,460 people who the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says died from COVID-19 in 2020 and the 453,707 who died in 2021. The premise of the post is that a more factual number of deaths would subtract those who died “with COVID, not from,” those who didn’t die in nursing homes and those who didn’t have four or more comorbidities. “It’s just simple math,” the caption says. “Even with these inflated numbers, is 28k deaths a year worth what we are doing (to) society and peoples lives? This is insane.” But in this case, the post itself just doesn’t add up. It 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.) Two of the post’s main premises — that the overall COVID-19 death count is inflated by people who died “with” rather than “from” the virus, and that 75% of COVID-19 deaths occurred in people with four or more comorbidities — have been previously debunked. And though nursing home residents are an already-vulnerable population, studies showed that their risk of dying increased during the pandemic. Dying ‘with, not from’ COVID-19 The false notion that the numbers of people dying from COVID-19 have been skewed because they include people who died “with” rather than “from” COVID-19 dates to August 2020. That’s when then-President Donald Trump retweeted several posts that claimed the CDC was adjusting coronavirus deaths downward. The claims were based on a federal report that indicated that of all Americans whose deaths were attributed to COVID-19 on their death certificates, only 6% did not also list other conditions as being factors. The vast majority of coronavirus-related deaths occur in patients who have other conditions, which are also listed on their death certificates, but that doesn’t mean COVID-19 was not a factor in their deaths. “Early in the pandemic, some of the answers provided by public officials — who were scrambling to track the disease as it overwhelmed health systems — fed skepticism,” according to an article by the Association of American Medical Colleges. The article pointed to April 2020 comments by one White House official who was asked about people who have COVID-19 but die from preexisting conditions; she answered: “If someone dies with COVID-19, we are counting that as a COVID-19 death.” But “federal and state governments gradually altered such policies over the spring and summer to say that in order for a death to be counted as a COVID-19 death, the disease had to have played a role,” AAMC reported. The CDC considers the underlying cause of death as “the condition that began the chain of events that ultimately led to the person’s death,” Jeff Lancashire, acting associate director for communications at the NCHS told PolitiFact in August 2020. In 92% of death certificates that mention the virus, COVID-19 was the underlying cause of death. COVID-19 put nursing home residents more at risk The post’s claim about nursing home deaths appears to stem from the same logic — that the deaths occurred in an already-vulnerable population that often has comorbidities, so they should be excluded from the overall count. But we found nothing that would suggest a solid, scientific reason for backing those numbers out of the equation. One study found that for those in long-term care facilities, the risk of dying increased by 4.29% during the pandemic compared with before the pandemic. What’s more, research and news stories have found evidence that even with the official data collection processes, deaths from COVID-19 have been underreported in nursing homes. No evidence for comorbidities claim The claim that 75% of COVID-19 deaths occurred in people with four or more comorbidities is False. It originated when social media users skewed a Jan. 7 statement from CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky pertaining to deaths of vaccinated people. She said in an interview that a study of COVID-19 deaths in people who had been vaccinated found that more than 75% of them occurred in those who had at least four other illnesses or diseases at the time they became infected with the virus. She cited it as evidence of the vaccines’ effectiveness. However, an edited clip of the interview that circulated heavily did not include the fact that the study only included vaccinated people, leaving a false impression that the 75% statistic reflected all COVID-19 deaths and that the pandemic’s severity had been exaggerated. One more note Contrary to the assertion of the post, researchers have found evidence that overall deaths from COVID-19 have been undercounted, not overcounted, since the start of the pandemic. The CDC tracks what it calls “excess deaths” — the difference in the observed numbers of deaths in a period of time compared with prior years. Deaths from all causes, not just COVID-19, have increased since the pandemic started. The CDC says undercounts could be attributed to a number of factors, including deaths being misclassified or those indirectly related to the pandemic, like health conditions that went untreated due to overburdened health care systems. USA Today analyzed that data and other research and in December found that public health experts believe the true death toll of the pandemic in the U.S. to be “upward of 20% or more higher than the official tally.” Our ruling An Instagram post says the number of estimated annual COVID-19 deaths in the United States is 27,530, after you subtract those who died “with, not from” COVID-19, not in nursing homes and who didn’t have four or more comorbidities. That’s bad math built on several false assumptions and arriving at a false conclusion. COVID-19 was found to be a cause of death for 385,460 people in 2020 and 452,707 people in 2021, according to the CDC. And research shows that, if anything, deaths resulting from COVID-19 have been undercounted, not overcounted, in the U.S. We rate this claim Pants on Fire! Tags: COIVDFACTCHECK COVIDDEATHS
Let's fact check the latest nonsense about natural immunity being superior to vaccination being pushed by anti-vax Covid-deniers. Claim: “The CDC admits that natural immunity from prior infections is superior to vaccinated immunity alone.” Blog post ignores important context about COVID-19 immunity study https://www.politifact.com/factchec...ost-ignores-important-context-about-covid-19/ A CDC study on the spread of the delta variant found that unvaccinated people who were previously infected with COVID-19 accounted for fewer cases than fully vaccinated people who had never been infected. However, the study was conducted before the spread of the more infectious omicron variant and before booster doses were widely offered to the public. The CDC study said vaccination is the best form of protection against the virus, even for people who previously had COVID-19. A blog post claims that according to a study, people who are unvaccinated and previously infected with COVID-19 have better protection against the coronavirus than some fully vaccinated people. "BOMBSHELL: The CDC admits that natural immunity from prior infections is superior to vaccinated immunity alone," the Jan. 19 post claims, citing a study from the federal health agency Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 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.) The blog post gives the impression that COVID-19 vaccination is not helpful for people who have had the virus, and that previously infected people will be able to avoid hospitalization and death if they get COVID-19 again. But that ignores the limited scope of the study and dismisses the conclusion made by researchers — that vaccination can help prevent serious illness, hospitalization and death. A previous COVID-19 infection does not guarantee that a person will not need medical care if they get the virus again. CDC study The blog post cites a CDC study that looked at how people fared against the COVID-19 delta variant between May and November 2021. The delta variant was first reported in India before making its way to the United States in March 2021, according to the CDC. Researchers looked at infection and hospitalization rates among four groups of people in New York and California: Vaccinated people who had previously been infected with the virus Vaccinated people who had not previously been infected Unvaccinated people who had previously been infected Unvaccinated people who had not previously been infected Researchers found that people who had a natural immunity from a previous COVID-19 infection were better protected against the virus during the delta-fueled surge than vaccinated people who had never been infected. But the CDC offered several caveats about its analysis. The CDC said it completed its study before the extensive spread of the more infectious omicron variant, "for which vaccine or infection-derived immunity might be diminished." The study also happened when most people didn’t have access to a booster dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, which would provide additional protection against the virus. The study also had a limited sample size and did not include information about the severity of previous infections or factor in deaths from the virus. COVID-19 vaccination remains important The CDC study’s main takeaway "clearly shows" that vaccination is the safest form of protection against COVID-19, and it provides additional protection for people who have already been infected, Dr. Erica Pan, state epidemiologist for the California Department of Public Health, told PolitiFact. "It shows that people who remain unvaccinated are at the greatest risk of hospitalization and death," she said. "Outside of this (CDC) study, recent data on the highly contagious omicron variant shows that getting a booster provides significant additional protection against infection, hospitalization and death." Another CDC report, from October 2021, affirmed that people who have been infected with the virus should still get vaccinated. Vaccinations coupled with a prior infection provide stronger protections against severe disease, hospitalization and death related to the virus than natural immunity alone. A study from the Mayo Clinic found that unvaccinated people who have previously been infected are twice as likely to get the virus again as those who are fully vaccinated. Meanwhile, a Johns Hopkins Medicine study shows that a fully vaccinated person who has been previously infected will have higher levels of antibodies that can help stave off another COVID-19 infection than an unvaccinated person who has had the virus. Our ruling A blog post claims, "the CDC admits that natural immunity from prior infections is superior to vaccinated immunity alone." The post is misleading and omits key details. CDC researchers found that during the COVID-19 surge driven by the delta variant, unvaccinated people who had already had the virus were less likely to get COVID-19 than fully vaccinated people who never had the disease. However, the study concluded that unvaccinated people are still at a high risk of reinfection and that the best defense against the virus remains being fully vaccinated. The study was done prior to the surge from the omicron variant and before COVID-19 vaccine booster shots became widely available. The statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. We rate it Mostly False.
Let's take a look at the crap being pushed by unhinged anti-vaxxers that many athletes are dying from Covid vaccination. Fact checking a strange new Covid conspiracy theory: Athletes dying from vaccines https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/27/politics/ron-johnson-john-stockton-covid-comments/index.html There's a new lie emerging from Covid-19 skeptics of late: Athletes are dying after getting the vaccine. Former NBA great John Stockton drew national attention earlier this week when he insisted in an interview that "there's 150 I believe now -- it's over 100 professional athletes dead, professional athletes, the prime of their life, dropping dead that are vaccinated, right on the pitch, right on the field, right on the court." On Wednesday, Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson got in on the action in an interview with Charlie Kirk, the head of the conservative group Turning Point USA. "We've heard story after story, I mean all these athletes dropping dead on the field," Johnson said. "But we're supposed to ignore that. Nothing happening here. Nothing to see. This is a travesty. This is a scandal." Johnson's office offered no specifics to back up his claim Thursday. "The senator has been pressing for transparency in government, especially in our federal health agencies, so that the American people have as much information as possible before they make health care decisions for themselves and their families," a spokeswoman said. It isn't a scandal. Mostly because it's not happening. The rumor appears to have begun -- like a lot of misinformation these days -- from the pro-Trump website Gateway Pundit, which published an "article" on December 6 with this headline: "Report Shows Nearly 300 Athletes Worldwide Collapsed or Suffered Cardiac Arrests after Taking COVID Vaccine This Year -- Many Died." The "report" on which the Gateway Pundit piece is based comes from a website called "Good Sciencing" -- an anonymously-run website that is larded with anti-vaccine pseudoscience. "We are a small team of investigators, news editors, journalists, and truth seekers, now backed up by others, who are discovering pieces of information that we can investigate," reads the website's "About" page. "It doesn't really matter who we are." Riiight. Sourcing aside, it's worth looking at the claims that these sorts of websites make. Which Factcheck.org did. And found this: "More than 300 athletes -- including students, professionals, amateurs and retirees -- from around the world were included. We reviewed publicly available information for each of the 19 professional athletes who either came from or played in the U.S. We found no proof of a causal relationship in any of the cases between the vaccines and the injuries or deaths." And there's also this: "Although Good Sciencing claims COVID-19 vaccines were to blame for the deaths or injuries, the website provides no evidence in most cases -- 16 of the 19 -- that the athletes and former athletes were even vaccinated." What's happening here is the purposeful and deeply misleading confusion of correlation with causation. Take the case of baseball great Hank Aaron. Aaron died two weeks after receiving his first dose of the Moderna vaccine. But, according to the Fulton County medical examiner, Aaron, who was 86, died of natural causes. Another commonly-cited episode by these vaccine conspiracy theorists is the collapse of Denmark's Christian Eriksen last year during a major European soccer tournament. Immediately after the incident, social media lit up with claims that Eriksen's collapse was tied to the Covid-19 vaccine. The only problem? Eriksen hadn't been vaccinated when he collapsed. (Eriksen suffered a cardiac arrest on the filed but has since recovered.) What's most remarkable to me about these sorts of claims is how easy they are to debunk. A single Google search can reveal that things like the Gateway Pundit "story" or some tweet or Facebook post your uncle sent you are, in fact, total and complete bunk. It's bad enough that anyone believes this junk. That a sitting US senator not only believes it, but feels confident enough in these false reports to pass them on publicly is just awful. And deeply irresponsible.
Let's take a look at the latest nonsense about the Moderna vaccine being shoveled by anti-vaxxers Claim:“Moderna COVID vaccine is no longer recommended due to heart inflammation.” Headline misleads about Moderna vaccine recommendation The Moderna COVID-19 vaccine has not been discredited. A new recommendation about the vaccine applies only to those under the age of 31 in one European country, Belgium. https://www.politifact.com/factchec...ne-misleads-about-moderna-vaccine-recommenda/ A blog headline gives the impression that the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine has been widely discredited. It hasn’t. The headline on the article, which was published on a website called Newsbreak, reads, "Moderna COVID vaccine is no longer recommended due to heart inflammation." The article was shared on Facebook and 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 headline, which lacks detail about who and where is affected by the recommendation, is misleading. The article links to another website that accurately references a Moderna policy change that applies only to those under age 31 in one European country, Belgium. The Newsbreak article is just a brief paragraph that says, in part, "There are all kinds of discussions about the potential side effects of the covid vaccine, and these include heart inflammation for younger people. Check out the latest reports involving Moderna vaccines below." It then links to a site called Health Thoroughfare, which more accurately reports the details of Belgium’s recommendation for Moderna use, saying "the very rare side effect among under-31s of the Moderna coronavirus vaccine" led Belgium to stop recommending it for that age group. Belgium announced it would stop using the Moderna vaccine as a first or second dose for 18- to 30-year-olds, because of a rare side effect of inflammation of the heart muscle, The Brussels Times reported. People in that age group can still receive Moderna as a booster shot, according to the newspaper. "The decision for the basic vaccination of 18- to 30-year-olds is based on international knowledge of possible side effects that are very rare. We took this decision as a precaution," Gudrun Briat, the spokesperson for the Vaccination Task Force, told the newspaper. "Usually the inflammation is harmless and goes away without being noticed, but if there is an alternative vaccine available, it makes more sense not to take any risks," Briat said, according to the article. Other European nations have taken similar steps, PolitiFact reported. In the fall, Sweden temporarily suspended the use of Moderna for those under 30 years old; Finland stopped using Moderna for males under 30 years old; Norway recommended that people under age 18 and men under age 30 take the Pfizer vaccine instead of Moderna’s but did not require it; and Denmark said those under 18 can request Moderna if they wish. Our ruling The headline on a blog article reads, "Moderna COVID vaccine is no longer recommended due to heart inflammation." The headline is misleading; it gives the false impression that the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine has been widely discredited. A new recommendation about the Moderna vaccine applies only to those under the age of 31 in one European country, Belgium, and only to the two initial doses, not boosters. The statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. We rate this claim Mostly False.
Let's fact-check the latest absurd nonsense being pushed by Ron Johnson and Covid-deniers. Their claims that no one died of Covid and all of these people were actually killed by remdesivir are not true. Claim: Says remdesivir is responsible for killing patients hospitalized with COVID-19. No, hospitalized COVID-19 patients weren’t killed by remdesivir https://www.politifact.com/factchec...pitalized-covid-19-patients-werent-killed-re/ An early study in 2020 showed that remdesivir used to treat COVID-19 resulted in little to no improvement. Later studies found the drug was effective, including one that found an 87% lower risk of hospitalization or death. No studies have found that remdesivir was responsible for killing COVID-19 patients. Medical experts explained that remdesivir is given to patients who are at the highest risk of death because of the severity of their disease. At a panel discussion hosted by U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., a nurse claimed that remdesivir, an intravenous antiviral drug used to treat people hospitalized with COVID-19, is actually killing patients. Nicole Sirotek, founder of American Frontline Nurses — a group that opposes vaccines and promotes unproven remedies for COVID-19 — told the gathering that when she went to New York in May 2020 to help with the accelerating COVID-19 crisis, she "didn’t see a single patient die of COVID" in the hospital. She blamed the deaths on the use of remdesivir, which had just received an emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration for adults and children hospitalized with severe COVID-19. The FDA has since given full approval to remdesivir for hospitalized patients and for outpatients at high risk of getting severely sick. "We all saw it was killing the patients," Sirotek said at the Jan. 25 panel. "And now it’s the FDA approved drug that is continuing to kill patients across the United States. Sirotek also said that patients who received two doses of the drug had a less than 25% chance of survival. Johnson has been a longtime critic of the COVID-19 vaccines. His panel also featured other medical workers who have opposed the COVID-19 vaccines, including Dr. Robert Malone and Dr. Harvey Risch. The video of Sirotek’s speech was posted on YouTube and shared on Facebook. Facebook flagged it as part of the company’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Published data and medical experts whom we spoke to contradicted Sirotek’s claim. Remdesivir is given to people in the hospital whose severe COVID-19 cases put them at high risk of dying, the experts explained. So those who get the drug may die. But there’s no evidence that the drug is what’s killing them. They said Sirotek’s conclusions were based on anecdotal observations and assumptions, not scientific evidence. We reached out to Sirotek’s organization for comment and more information to back up her statements, but did not receive a response. What studies say about remdesivir Remdesivir is an intravenous drug sold by Gilead Sciences Inc. under the brand name Veklury. Until recently, it was approved only for hospital settings, but on Jan. 21, 2022, the FDA approved it to be used for non-hospitalized patients at risk of developing severe COVID-19, and lowered the age limit below 12. Former President Donald Trump was treated with remdesivir when he was hospitalized with COVID-19 in October 2020. The drug was first put forward as an investigational COVID-19 treatment in early 2020, at a time when doctors and researchers were still learning about the disease and how to treat it. Studies have shown varying degrees of effectiveness. In granting the emergency use authorization for the drug on May 1, 2020, the FDA said: "While there is limited information known about the safety and effectiveness of using remdesivir to treat people in the hospital with COVID-19, the investigational drug was shown in a clinical trial to shorten the time to recovery in some patients." The agency was referring to preliminary results from an April 2020 clinical trial conducted by the National Institutes of Health that found that hospitalized patients who received remdesivir recovered from the illness 31% faster than those who received a placebo. An earlier study by the World Health Organization, conducted across 30 countries with over 11,000 adult patients, had found the drug had little to no effect. The WHO still does not recommend remdesivir for hospitalized COVID-19 patients, citing limited evidence that it works. One of the most recent studies, published in The New England Journal on Jan. 27, involved 562 non-hospitalized COVID-19 patients. A three-day course of remdesivir "had an acceptable safety profile and resulted in an 87% lower risk of hospitalization or death than placebo," the study concluded. No causal relationship between drug and deaths None of the studies concluded that the drug was causing deaths. "We simply did not see an increase in death in the group that received the drug," said Dr. Cameron Wolfe, associate professor of medicine and infectious disease expert at Duke University, who has treated patients with remdesivir at the university’s hospital and in the outpatient infusion clinic. Wolfe was also a principal investigator in the NIH clinical study, and the clinical trials run by Gilead Sciences. "That has never been seen in multiple rigorous trials," Wolfe added. "In fact, they usually did better, especially if the drug was given early in the illness." Experts said Sirotek’s conclusion incorrectly assumed a causal relationship to explain the correlation she observed between remdesivir use and patient deaths. Because remdesivir was initially authorized only for people hospitalized with severe COVID-19, "people who were more likely to receive the antiviral, or more of the antiviral, or more frequent dosing of the antiviral, are more likely to have been sick," said Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center and an attending physician in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. What Sirotek observed, he said, "is that essentially the drug selects for the sicker patient." Our ruling Sirotek claimed that remdesivir is responsible for killing patients hospitalized with COVID-19. Neither medical data nor experts back this statement up. Studies have differed on how effective it is as a treatment for COVID-19, but none of them suggest that it’s causing deaths. Experts noted that remdesivir is given to patients who are at the highest risk of death because of the severity of their disease. We rate the claim False.
This story outlines how anti-vaxxers twist legitimate news into fabrications on social media. This example is very representative of the bullshiat they continually push. A Facebook post cries foul at Washington Post headline, but COVID-19 data supports the journalism Unvaccinated Americans and people over age 75 have been particularly hit hard by the omicron variant, according to the Post. https://www.poynter.org/fact-checki...ne-but-covid-19-data-supports-the-journalism/ The omicron variant of COVID-19 has proved to be less severe than previous strains of the virus, but deaths in the U.S. have remained high due to its higher transmissibility, health experts have said. A recent article in The Washington Post noted the high death toll in recent months and noted that omicron had been particularly harder on the elderly and unvaccinated Americans. A social media post used the headline from that story alongside an image of a graphic embedded in the story to misleadingly suggest the Post article was misinforming readers. “Here is an article caption by The Washington Post,” the Feb. 8 Facebook post read. “Look at the second image for a statistical reference. That was provided within this article. You tell us if this headline is misleading or misinformation.” 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.) That’s because the headline is right — and the graphic is right. And they are not contradictory, as the Facebook post suggests. “Deaths highest in a year as omicron hits unvaccinated, elderly” reads the headline in one image. Next to it, a screengrab shows a graphic from that story illustrating deaths by age groups since the start of the pandemic. It’s not clear if the author of the post takes issue with the death totals rising or the fact that the headline mentions the toll on the unvaccinated. But the claim is incorrect on either count. If you navigate to the original Post story, which is not linked in the Facebook post, you will find the first paragraph reads: “Though considered milder than other coronavirus variants, omicron has infected so many people that it has driven the number of daily deaths beyond where it was last spring, before vaccines were widely available, according to Washington Post data.” Indeed, the Post’s data tracker, which is linked to in the story and draws from Johns Hopkins University figures, shows that COVID-19 deaths for all ages are higher than at any time since the previous spring, including during the delta surge in September. The CDC’s numbers, which are based on deaths reported by states and territories, differ slightly from the Post’s, but show a similar trend. The story goes on to say that, according to health officials, omicron has been especially deadly for Americans over age 75, the unvaccinated and medically vulnerable people, citing doctors and health officials The graphic shows the percentage of total deaths by age group over time since April 2020 through January 2022, based on CDC data. It reveals that people over age 75 made up about half of the COVID-19 deaths in January. The Post article cites doctors and public health officials when discussing deaths among unvaccinated Americans during the recent omicron surge, which began shortly after Thanksgiving. The City of Chicago, for example, “reported an age-adjusted death rate peaking at 14 per 100,000 for the unvaccinated around Jan. 22 compared to about 1 per 100,000 for the boosted,” the Post article said. The most recent CDC data on deaths by vaccination status from Sept. 19 through Dec. 4, 2021, shows unvaccinated Americans dying at a rate of 9.74 per 100,000 cases, compared with 0.10 per 100,000 for fully vaccinated people. Our ruling A Facebook post accused The Washington Post of misleading readers with a headline showing that the omicron variant of COVID-19 has pushed deaths in the U.S. to their highest numbers in a year and that the elderly and unvaccinated have been hit hardest. It juxtaposed the headline with a graphic from the article that showed the percentage of deaths by age group, indicating that the omicron variant has hit people over 75 particularly hard in recent months. Data from Johns Hopkins University — which the Post used — as well as CDC totals show that deaths had risen recently to their highest numbers since last spring. While data on deaths by vaccination status aren’t yet available after Dec. 4, the Post spoke with doctors and public health officials who noted a higher death rate among unvaccinated Americans. The Post’s article was neither misleading or misinformation, but this Facebook post was. We rate this claim False.
Let's fact check the latest bullshiat being pushed by InfoWars... Claim: "Study proves children’s hearts destroyed by COVID vaccine." Children are at far higher risk of myocarditis from COVID-19 infection than from vaccines https://www.politifact.com/factchec...en-are-far-higher-risk-myocarditis-covid-19-/ A claim that a CDC report proves that COVID-19 vaccines are causing heart damage in children ages 5-11 takes the data out of context. Relative to the total number of children who have been vaccinated, cases of myocarditis and other serious adverse events after COVID-19 vaccination are very rare. Children are more likely to sustain heart damage and other health complications from COVID-19 infection, not vaccination. Texas cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough recently claimed that a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study shows COVID-19 vaccines are causing myocarditis in children. But he took the data out of context, making misleading assertions about vaccine safety that ignore the greater health risks COVID-19 infection poses to children. The claims came in a video interview with InfoWars, a website known to publish false stories and conspiracy theories. The video was titled "Study Proves Children’s Hearts Destroyed By COVID Vaccine." "The data were not good at all," McCullough said. "They ended up with 100 serious safety reports, 15% of which had an elevation in troponin. That means there's heart injury occurring in children below age 12. We previously didn't think this was possible. When we looked at myocarditis before COVID-19 vaccination you almost never saw it before puberty." This interview 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). Several of McCullough's claims about COVID-19, including myocarditis in teens and children, have been previously disproven as false or misleading. We reached out to McCullough but did not hear back before publication. Myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart muscle, is rare in children. A June 2021 statement signed by multiple professional medical associations and federal health agencies states that myocarditis is an extremely rare side effect after vaccination, and those who do get myocarditis often recover quickly. The FDA expanded emergency use authorization of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to children ages 5-11 on Oct. 29, 2021. The CDC study McCullough references is a Dec. 31, 2021, report reviewing data from the agency's two vaccine safety surveillance programs, VAERS and v-safe. The 100 serious safety reports McCullough mentions is out of a total of 4,249 adverse events, meaning 97.6% of those safety reports weren't considered serious. While the 15 cases of elevated troponin levels make up 15% of serious adverse events, they amount to only 0.35% of total adverse events. To put these numbers further into scale, those 4,249 reported adverse events are out of 8.7 million vaccine doses administered over that time period; fewer than one-thousandth of 1% of children who received the vaccine reported elevated troponin, a protein released into the blood during heart damage. Of the 11 children verified to have myocarditis, seven had recovered and the other four were recovering at the time of the report's publication. The systemic reactions that McCullough also remarked on in his interview were all mild to moderately severe, the majority of which were fatigue and headache. These are common side effects of a vaccine, indicating that the immune system is responding and building protection against the virus. Of the approximately 4,500 to 4,600 children who reported having any health impact through the v-safe app, barely 1% required medical care. A far greater risk factor for myocarditis, studies show, is COVID-19 itself. A September 2021 CDC report found that patients of all ages with COVID-19 have a 16 times greater risk of myocarditis compared with patients without COVID-19. And while COVID-19 is usually mild among children, some develop multisystem inflammatory syndrome, or MIS-C, where many different parts of the body, including the heart, become inflamed. "While kids are less likely to develop severe illness from COVID-19, they can get COVID-19, they can transmit COVID-19 and they can die from COVID-19," said cardiologist Dr. Matthew Elias in an interview with the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "Even if they initially have no symptoms with infection, they can still develop MIS-C, which many families haven’t ever heard of." "Children are much more likely to develop heart issues after COVID-19 infection than after the vaccine," said Elias. "When children develop myocarditis after COVID-19 infection, it’s typically much more severe than when it occurs post-vaccine." The American Heart Association and American Academy of Pediatrics both recommend COVID-19 vaccination for children over age five. Children are more likely to avoid heart complications from COVID-19 with vaccination than without. We rate this claim False.
Let's take a look at the latest crap being pushed by Covid-deniers. This one is a doozy. Fact check: Experts debunk claim that COVID-19 antibodies turn breast milk green https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...odies-dont-turn-breast-milk-green/6794429001/ The claim: COVID-19 antibodies turn breast milk green Social media users are airing concerns that COVID-19 antibodies, the proteins that help fight the coronavirus, can change the color of breast milk. A Facebook post shared over a year ago shows a screenshot of another post with an image of two bags purportedly holding breast milk. One is white and the other is green with "COVID-19+" written on it. The Facebook user that originally published the post claimed the baby had COVID-19 and its saliva entered thebreast to "communicate" with the milk. "What your (sic) witnessing here is baby letting Mamas (sic) body know that they were sick and Mamas (sic) body responding with antibodies," reads the text of the post. The post generated close to 1,600 interactions and 10,000 shares since it was published Jan. 17, 2021, and it has recently regained traction on Facebook. But the claim is false, as independent fact-checking organizations have reported. Experts told USA TODAY there is no evidence COVID-19 antibodies react with breast milk. It is also normal for breast milk to change color slightly depending on what a parent consumes. USA TODAY reached out to social media users who shared the claim for comment. Antibodies don't turn breast milk green The Facebook post's claim that COVID-19 antibodies turn breast milk green is baseless, Dr. Richard Martinello, medical director of infection prevention at Yale University, told USA TODAY. COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna help the body produce antibodies against the coronavirus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. These antibodies can travel into breast milk and help protect breastfed babies from illness, according to Martinello. "The antibodies by themselves and then somebody being sick with COVID – neither conditions would lead to the breast milk being green," Martinello said. Breast milk is very responsive to what someone puts in their body, so its color can naturally change over time, according to Dr. Kathryn Gray, an associate obstetrician at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. Foods such as spinach, Gatorade and multivitamins can give breast milk a green-tinted shade, Martinello said. Iron supplements might also cause the green color, Dr. Lori Feldman-Winter, an adolescent medical specialist at Cooper University Medical Center, told USA TODAY. "We don't always know what causes breast milk to change colors, but we do know it can change colors from certain foods, medications and rarely infections," Winter said in an email. Green isn't the only potential color for breast milk – and other factors contribute to color change, according to Martinello. "The most common one that we see is red, and that can be from a little bit of bleeding," Martinello said. "Especially early on when mothers start to breastfeed, there could be a lot of irritation around the nipple." Breast milk produced early in the pregnancy or just after childbirth can sometimes have a "deep yellow color" because it has a lot of nutrients, according to the CDC. The Facebook post's claim that a baby's saliva can enter a parent's breast or "communicate" with milk is still being studied, according to Martinello. A baby's saliva "transfers chemicals to a mother’s body that causes breast milk to adjust" to meet the needs of a baby, according to the CDC. But how that process occurs is unclear, Gray said. Our rating: False Based on our research, we rate FALSE the claim that COVID-19 antibodies turn breast milk green. Experts said there is no evidence to support this claim. Breast milk can turn green, but foods like spinach and multivitamins are among the main causes. Breast milk can turn other colors depending on what someone is consuming.
Of course what week is complete without the latest nonsense about a "list of studies" from anti-vax Covid-deniers. Claim: List shows “1,000 peer reviewed studies questioning COVID-19 vaccine safety” Studies included on list do not question COVID-19 vaccine safety https://www.politifact.com/factchec...s-included-list-do-not-question-covid-19-vac/ Many studies included on the list clearly state that the benefits of COVID-19 vaccination outweigh the small risk of side effects, which are rare. The list says it includes 1,000 studies, but some studies appear more than once, under different adverse reaction categories. Some of the adverse reactions included on the list cite a single study of one patient. An Australian blog touting "medical freedom" published a misleading list about COVID-19 vaccine safety. The headline on the Jan. 20 list reads, "1,000 peer reviewed studies questioning COVID-19 vaccine safety." The list was shared on Facebook and flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) It was published on Informed Choice Australia, which describes itself as "a portal of information to help you make the right choice," and says people have the right "to refuse any treatment that has not completed all the required clinical trials including long-term studies." Far from "questioning COVID-19 vaccine safety," as the claim says, many studies included in this catalog clearly state that the benefits of COVID-19 vaccination outweigh the small risk of side effects, which are rare. The studies collect, interpret and evaluate data about adverse reactions to COVID-19 vaccines, per the process with scientific research. The list is grouped by adverse reaction categories, with myocarditis — inflammation of the heart muscle — topping the list and 226 related studies cited for that category. The risk of myocarditis from COVID-19 vaccines is small and symptoms are normally mild. By comparison, contracting COVID-19 is "a strong and significant risk factor for myocarditis," especially among children under 16 years old, according to the CDC. The very first study on the list, which examined four patients with myocarditis following COVID-19 vaccination, says, "The authors seek not to frustrate vaccination efforts, but rather to prepare patients and providers for a rare but potential adverse effect." Among the first 10 studies listed, nearly every one included similar language. One of the studies put it like this: "Cases tend to be mild, do not usually require specific interventions, and potential risks of the vaccine are outweighed by the well defined risks of COVID-19 infection." For other adverse reaction categories, the list again pointed to studies that did not question the safety of COVID-19 vaccines: For cerebral venous thrombosis, a blood clot in the brain, one of the studies cited says the frequency of that reaction after COVID-19 vaccination is "markedly lower" than for patients hospitalized with COVID-19. For anaphylaxis, an allergic reaction that causes airways to narrow and block breathing, one of the studies said, "The risk of anaphylaxis to mRNA vaccines is present but extremely low and is offset by the benefits of the vaccine." The blog says it includes 1,000 studies, but some studies appear more than once, under different adverse reaction categories. For example, one study is found under both the anaphylaxis and allergic reactions categories, and multiple studies appear under both myocarditis and pericarditis subcategories. One adverse reaction that’s listed, called Sweet’s syndrome — a painful rash — cites a single study of one person. Our ruling A list published on a blog has a headline that says, "1,000 peer reviewed studies questioning COVID-19 vaccine safety." Many studies included on the list clearly state that the benefits of vaccination against COVID-19 far outweigh the small risk of side effects, which are rare. The list says it includes 1,000 studies, but some studies are on the list more than once, under different adverse reaction categories. We rate this claim False.
Yep... the Covid vaccines contain HIV nonsense is being pushed by anti-vaxxers again. Claim: “The second booster has eight strains of HIV.” COVID-19 vaccines do not contain HIV https://www.politifact.com/factchec...k-posts/covid-19-vaccines-do-not-contain-hiv/ If Your Time is short • The ingredients of COVID-19 vaccines are published and do not include HIV. • The vaccine ingredients do not change between doses.Each shot in the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine series, including the booster, has the same ingredients.