Vaccine critic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was confirmed as the new US health secretary on February 13, 2025. His nomination in mid-November led to a resurgence of claims that question the efficacy of vaccines. Posts recently circulating on social media have shared an old newspaper report that claims to show Microsoft founder Bill Gates calling for “depopulation through forced vaccination”. However, AFP Fact Check already debunked the claim when it first started circulating in 2021. The newspaper “The Sovereign Independent” – which has a history of publishing vaccine misinformation – misrepresented remarks made by Gates in 2010 about population growth, where he did not refer to “depopulation”.

“Do you still think it’s a conspiracy theory?” reads the caption of a Facebook post shared on January 30, 2025, with a photo of a person holding up the front page of a newspaper called “The Sovereign Independent”.

Alongside a picture of Gates, the headline reads: “Depopulation Through Forced Vaccination: The Zero Carbon Solution!”

Text overlaid on the image reads: “This woman is holding a newspaper she has kept since 2011. The paper contains an article by Bill Gates called ‘Depopulation through Compulsory Vaccination’. Gates thinks it will be the most ‘environmentally friendly solution’. No one gave this much thought at the time.”

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The post has been shared more than a hundred times while the same claim has circulated on X, Instagram, and TikTok.

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