False claims that Covid-19 vaccines cause spasms have gone viral on social media, with many users — even language education company Duolingo — making an even more viral joke out of the misinformation.
Anti-vaxxers are spreading videos on social media of people appearing to seize or spasm, falsely claiming these to be Covid-19 vaccine side effects — but in many cases the videos are years old, unrelated to the Covid-19 vaccine and have been debunked by fact-checkers.
Spasms and seizures are not listed as either common side effects or adverse side effects of the Covid-19 vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the CDC emphasizes the vaccines are safe and effective.
One video shared by James Cintolo, who claims in his Twitter bio to be a medical expert, shows a woman convulsing — he called the video “urgent” despite a Twitter fact-checking label noting the video is two years old — and it racked up 25 million views on the platform, inspired widespread mockery and a note from Twitter’s fact-checking team noting it “has been debunked by multiple news outlets and local and Federal health officials, showing no association … with the COVID vaccine,” according to multiple news outlets including a Wired investigation.
Twitter users quickly turned these fake vaccine side effects into a meme: Many tweets, some simply captioned “Thanks Pfizer”—the caption from a widely derided Twitter video by Angelia Desselle labeled as misinformation...
[OSEN=Jang Woo-young reporter] Guk Dong-ho, a cast member of ‘Solo Hell 4,’ has been engulfed in bullying allegations following earlier gay rumors. While he clarified the gay rumors, his rebuttal ...