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Weekly Fact-checks


7th October 2022 - 13th October 2022

#Ukraine

False: Video shows Russian missiles destroying NATO tanks en route to Ukraine?
A video clip has been viewed hundreds of times in October in multiple Thai-language Facebook posts that claim it shows Russian missiles destroying NATO tanks en route to Ukraine. This is false: AFP has not found official reports about the purported incident described in the posts. The video actually shows computer-generated imagery taken from an online video game. (Source: AFP)

False: Ukrainian media is reporting that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office was destroyed by a missile strike on Monday.
Ukrainian media is reporting that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office was destroyed by a missile strike on Monday. The building wasn’t destroyed and the claim wasn’t reported by mainstream Ukrainian news outlets. Associated Press reporting documented damage at a park and other locations in the city center, but the president’s office, about a mile away, was not hit. AP journalists on the ground confirmed the building wasn’t struck, and Zelesnkyy filmed a video address outside of the undamaged building after the attacks. (Source: AP News)

False: A video shows producers in Ukraine producing fake footage of Russia’s invasion.
The video is nearly a decade old and shows behind-the-scenes production work on a British sci-fi movie about aliens called “Invasion Planet Earth.” Although the clip has been on YouTube since 2013, social media users circulated it on Tuesday, falsely claiming it shows a film crew in Ukraine staging videos of the war. (Source: AP News)

#Covid-19

False: Covid vaccinated people are no longer humans
Are Covid vaccines modifying humans genetically? Covid vaccines cannot modify human DNA because the vaccine cannot penetrate the nucleus where DNA lies. Also, there is no evidence to confirm that NASA has coined the term 'human borg genesis' to address genetically modified people who have been vaccinated with a covid vaccine. Quick Take An interview published on a media website shows a man claiming NASA has confirmed vaccinated people are no longer human sapiens but human borg genesis. We fact-checked and found the claim to be False. NASA released no such statement to substantiate the claim. (Source: Thip Media)

Lacks Context: A "massive study" of v-safe data collected by the CDC prove that the COVID-19 vaccine caused a "stunning amount" of severe side effects
Does a "massive study" of "v-safe" data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) prove that the COVID-19 vaccine caused a "stunning amount" of severe side effects? No, that's not true: No such study occurred, and no reputable scientific or medical institution has published a wide-scale "study" to establish causation between vaccination and self-reported vaccine adverse events collected by the CDC's voluntary v-safe smartphone program. (Source: Lead Stories)

Not Required: Pfizer director Janine Small admits that Covid-19 vaccine was never tested on preventing transmission of the virus
Did a Pfizer representative "admit" the company erred when its COVID-19 vaccine was "never tested on preventing transmission" of the virus during clinical trials? No, that's not true. Vaccine clinical trials for drug approval are not meant to test that. Clinical trials are intended to check the safety and efficacy of new drugs and vaccines before they are approved for widespread use. Testing for the prevention of disease transmission is not typically part of initial trials, according to vaccine experts. In this case, the vaccine's ability to prevent transmission was assessed later in the roll-out of the vaccine, which was developed in response to a worldwide pandemic. (Source: BizNews)

#Climate Change

False: Scientists manipulated a graph to exaggerate recent global warming
A speaker in a video viewed hundreds of thousands of times on social media claims scientists removed data from a graph to exaggerate global warming. This is false; the chart includes global data that make regional warming stand out less, and such periods do not disprove human-caused climate change. (Source: AFP)

Missing context: Study on Greenland warming does not contradict human-driven climate change
A study by researchers in Japan that explains cooler Greenland summers with less ice melt over the past decade does not undermine the notion of human-driven climate change. The study focused on frequent occurrence of central-Pacific El Niño events for the past 10 years which, the study authors showed, have played a key role in a local slowdown of summer warming in Greenland. Overall, Greenland continues to be a net loser of ice mass. (Source: Reuters)

#Other

Missing context: Eating eggs is as bad for your health as smoking
"Eating only 1 egg per day is just as bad as smoking 5 cigarettes per day for life expectancy," reads a Twitter post shared on August 18, 2022. The report cites a study published in 2012 in the monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal Atherosclerosis, titled: "Egg yolk consumption and carotid plaque". The study said it found "a strong association" between egg consumption and risk of heart disease -- which "follows a similar pattern" to cigarette smoking. Some experts, however, cautioned against reading too much into that study as well. AFP's report about the study quotes cardiology expert Gavin Sandercock of the University of Essex saying: "To say that eating eggs is good (or bad) for you based on a study like this would be foolish as diet is much more complicated than picking on one foodstuff like eggs." (Source: AFP)

#Nordics

Nordic_flags_-inverted--8

Dette stemmer ikke: I Oslo prioriterer vi saker med studentboliger og har regulert over 3500 studentboliger under dette byrådet, så det står ikke på oss
TV 2 skrev i sommer at flere tusen studenter sto i boligkø, og at stat og kommune skylder på hverandre for at byggingen av studentboliger tar tid. (Source: Faktisk)

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