NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn't happen this week
A roundup of some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals of the week. None of these are legit, even though they were shared widely on social media. The Associated Press checked them out. Here are the facts:
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Supreme Court hasn’t ruled on COVID-19 vaccines or ‘universal vaccination’
CLAIM: After a legal challenge from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and a group of scientists, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled COVID-19 vaccines are unsafe and “canceled universal vaccination.”
THE FACTS: The Supreme Court has not issued any rulings regarding the safety of coronavirus vaccines and Kennedy, a lawyer who has advocated against vaccines, called articles sharing the claim “misinformation.” Dozens of posts making the false claim link to blogs that regularly publish hoaxes and misinformation. The claim has been circulating for months and recently reemerged as new vaccine requirements issued by the federal government take effect. The articles and posts include a supposed quote from Kennedy. But Kennedy told The Associated Press that the articles are false, as is the quote. “The quote is fabricated,” Kennedy said. “Clearly somebody made it up and is promoting it because the same quote keeps coming back no matter how many times I deny it.” Furthermore, there is no legal case that matches the one described in the articles. “The U.S. Supreme Court has not ruled in a case involving a challenge to a Covid-19 vaccination requirement,” Joanne Rosen, a senior lecturer at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, wrote in an email to AP. Rosen has studied the legislative precedent for vaccine mandates. While Kennedy said he has been a part of more than 30 lawsuits on the subject of vaccine safety, those are at different stages of the judicial process and none...
