Medical misinformation has never contributed to as many deaths as in the last 18 months. Recently released statistics show thousands of “excess” deaths concentrated among the US states and counties with the lowest uptake of Covid-19 vaccines — though the vaccines were free and available to everyone.
Uptake has been suppressed in those areas because a significant chunk of the public has remained intensely skeptical of the Covid vaccines — especially those using mRNA technology, which has been in development for decades but never used until now. Among the rumors: that the vaccines change your DNA; cause infertility; or even kill you. None of these are based in fact.
The most widely circulated misinformation tends to exaggerate the vaccines’ side effects — for example, basing false claims that the vaccines cause infertility on real reports that some women observed temporary changes in their menstrual cycles.
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Then there are wilder claims, such as those shared by the movie Died Suddenly, which was released Nov. 21 and has already been viewed more than 12 million times. It claims falsely that the Covid vaccines have rapidly caused fatal blood clots and cancers.
Both kind of fears can be debunked with data. For example, if vaccines were killing people, excess mortality would be concentrated in the most vaccinated regions, and should show a spike after the peak of the 2021 vaccination campaign, when 3 million people a day were getting shots. Instead, the data show...
Veteran Bollywood actor Shakti Kapoor has strongly rejected false reports circulating on social media claiming his death, calling the rumours “completely fake” and confirming that he is “healthy an...