Social media posts sharing clips from the film "Plandemic 3: The Great Awakening" claim the drug AZT "is what killed a majority of the AIDS patients." This is false; public health authorities and independent experts say the antiviral, also known as zidovudine, was a life-saving discovery key to making HIV a manageable disease, despite serious side effects.

"AZT is what killed a majority of the AIDS patients. Not the virus," says John Joseph, an American musician and author, in a June 5, 2023 Instagram post.

The post includes a clip from "Plandemic 3," the latest installment in a series of conspiratorial videos about the coronavirus pandemic. AFP previously debunked false claims in parts one and two, which reached millions of people on social media.

The most recent video leads off with a family anecdote from filmmaker Mikki Willis.

"My brother -- was killed by a drug called AZT," he says in the nearly two-hour movie.

Willis continues: "Hundreds of thousands of innocent people died as a result of that prescribed poison. The pusher of AZT was none other than Dr Anthony Fauci."

Screenshot of an Instagram post taken June 7, 2023

Similar claims circulated elsewhere on Instagram and Twitter.

"Ok so everyone knows the AIDS epidemic was just a mass AZT poisoning, right?" said Patrick Gunnels, a former Libertarian candidate for the Texas House of Representatives, in a June 2 tweet.

An estimated 40 million people worldwide have died due to AIDS-related illnesses since the start of...

Read Full Story: https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMiLWh0dHBzOi8vZmFjdGNoZWNrLmFmcC5jb20v...