Tucker Carlson Video Spreads Falsehoods on COVID-19 Vaccines, WHO Accord
SciCheck Digest
Contrary to claims amplified by podcaster Bret Weinstein during an interview with Tucker Carlson, COVID-19 vaccines have saved millions of lives, not killed 17 million people worldwide. Weinstein also inaccurately characterized a proposed World Health Organization pandemic accord and other changes, claiming they aim to take away “personal and national sovereignty.”
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COVID-19 vaccines reduce the risk of severe COVID-19, including in children, and serious side effects are rare. Increasing evidence indicates they reduce the risk of long COVID, and they are estimated to have saved millions of lives.
Still, various people have persisted in making egregiously false claims about COVID-19 vaccines, blaming them for hundreds of thousands of deaths in the U.S., or millions of deaths globally.
According to a survey conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center, FactCheck.org’s parent organization, over time more and more Americans have come to incorrectly believe that the COVID-19 vaccines have killed large numbers of people. In August 2023, for example, 34% of respondents said it was probably or definitely true that the COVID-19 vaccines had killed thousands of people in the U.S., up from 22% in June 2021.
Recently, podcaster and former biology professor Bret Weinstein — known for spreading COVID-19 misinformation — spread yet another falsehood about COVID-19 vaccine deaths.
“I saw a credible estimate of something like 17 million deaths globally from this technology,” Weinstein told Tucker Carlson on a published Jan. 5 on Carlson’s streaming platform. Carlson, as a Fox News host in April 2023, has a of spreading misinformation on diverse
