A right-wing political commentator claims that governments encouraging vaccination after “the mRNA vaccine was shown not to stop transmission” was “the most evil thing ever done.” Recommendation: These types of posts attempt to undermine the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines and may promote distrust in public health guidance. If directly debunking...
Last week, a nonprofit in Walker County, Alabama, installed the state’s first Narcan vending machine, which offers free naloxone as a nasal spray or as an intramuscular injection. Organizers behind the project say Walker County, which has a population of fewer than 65,000 people, has one of the...
A new Florida law will ban children under the age of 14 from having social media accounts and will require children between the ages of 14 and 15 to have parental permission in order to have social media accounts. The law—which will take effect on January 1, 2025—is...
In the weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments involving access to the abortion pill mifepristone, the anti-abortion group Live Action recirculated a video implying that abortion pills are unsafe and asking viewers to sign a petition to stop pharmacies from distributing abortion pills. The video was initially...
Social media post claims Oklahoma man died after doctors refused to treat his COVID-19 infection with ivermectinA doctor with a large social media following shared a post claiming that an Oklahoma man died after doctors refused to treat his COVID-19 infection with ivermectin and instead treated him with remdesivir. Recommendation:...
Tennessee’s Senate passed a law requiring that any food containing a vaccine be classified and labeled as a drug. Senators who support the bill said they did not know of any examples of vaccine-containing foods being sold but that the bill would ensure regulations are in place if vaccine-containing...
A popular social media post referenced a University of Washington preprint study, which found that people who received three doses of the original COVID-19 vaccine developed strong immunity against COVID-19. The study also found that people who received the most recently updated COVID-19 vaccine, which targets the Omicron subvariant XBB....
The NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene shared a post about long COVID on the department’s social media page. Several comments on the post falsely claimed that long COVID is caused by COVID-19 vaccines, not by COVID-19 infection. Recommendation: These types of posts promote confusion about the cause...
Social media posts in both English and Spanish resurfaced misleading claims about a study linking the flu vaccine with potential stroke risk and casting doubt on the vaccine’s safety. One user inaccurately claimed that older adults who received the flu vaccine had a stroke 42 days after being vaccinated....
In a video with millions of views, a popular right-wing political commentator calls for doctors to apologize for “wrongly” recommending COVID-19 vaccines. The clip has been widely circulated in multiple languages. Recommendation: The video attempts to undermine trust not only in COVID-19 vaccines but also in doctors, who are a...