A May 22 Instagram post (direct link, file link) shows a screenshot of a tweet claiming that a government company reported a large accumulation of certain diseases after the advent of COVID-19 vaccines.
“BREAKING NEWS: AIDS-associated diseases and cancers have increased 338-fold since (the COVID-19 vaccine) was released, according to the CDC and foreign government agencies,” the tweet read.
The post received more than 1000 likes in two days. The original tweet has been retweeted more than 3000 times.
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention never reported such a buildup and said it did not discover a link between COVID-19 vaccines and HIV or cancer. One expert told USA TODAY that there is no evidence for this claim. The online page that originally made the claim using figures from an unverified database that allows anyone to submit reports of adverse effects from the vaccine.
The claim appears to come from an online page called “The Expose,” which in the past posted incorrect information about vaccines. The headline of a May 11 article reads, “COVID vaccine rollout caused a 338-fold accumulation in AIDS-associated illnesses. “and cancers in 2021, according to the CDC. “
The CDC, however, says this claim is accurate.
“To date, CDC has not detected any unanticipated patterns or patterns of diseases and cancers associated with HIV or AIDS after vaccination that imply that COVID vaccines cause or contribute to those conditions,” CDC spokesman Scott Pauley told Lead Stories.
The CDC did not respond to a request for comment from USA TODAY.
The agency’s website says there is no agreement between COVID-19 vaccines and the threat of HIV, the disease that can cause AIDS. It also states that COVID-19 vaccines are for other people living with HIV and states that other people living with HIV have been included in vaccine clinical trials.
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Donald Alcendor, an associate professor of cancer biology at Meharry Medical College, has told USA TODAY in the past that there is no link between COVID-19 vaccines and HIV or cancer.
“More than 6 billion other people have received COVID-19 vaccines worldwide, and the occurrence of cancer and HIV transmission have not been reported to be a causal link with vaccines,” he said.
The number of new HIV infections internationally fell by more than 3% between 2020 and 2021, according to UNAIDS, a company that describes itself as “leading the effort to end AIDS as a public health risk by 2030. “
The article published through “The Expose” cites figures from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, a government database that did not verify reports of adverse events in all likelihood similar to vaccines.
The online knowledge base page states that you can submit a report, adding to the general public, and includes a disclaimer stating that “VAERS reports may include incomplete, inaccurate, incidental, or unverifiable information. Reports to VAERS may also be biased. As a result, there are limits to how knowledge can be used scientifically. “
USA TODAY reached out to the Instagram user who shared the post for comment, but did not get a response. The Twitter user may simply not be contactable.
PolitiFact debunked the claim.
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