Latest news with #SlayNews
New Paper
04-06-2025
- General
- New Paper
MOH debunks fake news on S'pore doing first Covid-19 autopsy and jailing those unvaccinated
Two pieces of fake news made about Covid-19 in Singapore have been debunked by the Ministry of Health (MOH), as it urged the public not to spread unsubstantiated claims that may cause public alarm. On June 3, the ministry said it is aware of "two pieces of misinformation" currently being spread on social media. The first has to do with a message claiming that Singapore was the first country to conduct an autopsy on a person who had tested positive for Covid-19, which it said was found to exist as a bacterium and not a virus. The claim was first circulated in 2021, and re-emerged recently. "This is false. As clarified by the ministry then, Singapore has not performed such an autopsy, and it is also not true that Covid-19 is caused by a bacterium," said MOH. It also said social media posts alleging that Singapore had enacted laws to mandate vaccines and jail those unvaccinated after Microsoft founder Bill Gates visited the Republic in early May are not true. The Straits Times found that such claims had been published in articles on two websites - Slay News and The People's Voice - which tout themselves as news sites. Slay News describes itself as "unapologetically pro-America and pro-free speech", while The People's Voice says it covers "topics the mainstream media won't touch". A search online shows that Slay News' website is registered in North Carolina, and a check of its address in Google Maps shows what looks to be a small farmhouse on a highway stretch. The People's Voice, meanwhile, has its website registered in Arizona, although it has no listed company address. Most of the articles published on both sites centre around right-wing ideology, conspiracy theories and anti-vaccine rhetoric, with fact-checking website Snopes labelling The People's Voice as a rebrand of disinformation-spreading site NewsPunch. For accurate and up-to-date information, members of the public should visit the MOH website at instead.
Reuters
24-04-2025
- Health
- Reuters
Fact Check: Japanese study does not report explosion in deaths among COVID-vaccinated
A new study concludes excess deaths increased in Japan during the COVID-19 pandemic but does not report any explosion in mortality among those vaccinated against the disease, as claimed in social media posts. The research, published, opens new tab on April 5 in BMJ Public Health, looked at excess deaths - the number of deaths over and above past patterns - in Japan between 2020 and 2023 compared with 2015 to 2019. The study found that Japan's excess death rate dipped in 2020, then began climbing, as in other countries, then started tapering off in 2023. The researchers also identified local factors - including how rural an area is or recent flu trends - that might account for variations in excess death rates at the provincial level. Social media posts, opens new tab on April 13 shared a headline from Slay News, a website that Reuters has fact-checked on multiple occasions, about the study that said Japan had issued a global alert about an explosion in excess deaths among vaccinated people. 'This is absolutely a false and misleading claim,' Ganan Devanathan, a doctoral student from the University of Tokyo and lead author of the study, told Reuters in an email. 'Our research in no way suggested that excess deaths are exploding amongst the COVID-vaccinated population. We did not investigate any association with vaccines, or the vaccinated population.' The study concludes that, despite Japan's success in keeping excess deaths down at the start of the pandemic, they increased as it went on, peaking in 2022. 'While numerous events occurred in Japan during the pandemic, it is difficult to draw associations on their impact on excess mortality, and it is likely highly multifactorial,' the authors wrote. 'Urban and rural prefectures may exhibit different patterns as identified, and the interaction with other infectious diseases, such as influenza, likely plays a role.' The study also says that, while more research is required, the low levels of excess deaths in Niigata prefecture in 2022 and 2023 could be down to high COVID vaccination rates there. Japan began rolling out COVID vaccines on February 17, 2021. Overall, Japan had an estimated 219,516 excess deaths between 2020 and 2023, according to, opens new tab the study. Compared with the pre-pandemic period, the researchers found there were 22,045 fewer deaths than expected in 2020. Then, in 2021, there were an estimated 31,791 excess deaths, 119,060 the following year and 90,710 in 2023. Reuters has previously addressed misleading posts and articles saying that excess deaths during the pandemic were caused by COVID vaccines rather than by COVID itself. Addressing a similar claim, Paul Hunter, a professor of medicine from the University of East Anglia, said in a 2024 online article, opens new tab that spikes in mortality during the pandemic period tracked with COVID waves. He also pointed out that, while larger numbers of people who died in 2022 and 2023 were vaccinated, that is because the majority of people were vaccinated by that time, but the rate of deaths among vaccinated people was lower than among the unvaccinated. In addition, Hunter said, possible explanations for excess deaths not linked to COVID 'include the long-term impact of COVID infections, the return of infections such as flu that had been suppressed during the pandemic ... and delays in diagnosing life-threatening conditions as health services struggled to cope with the pandemic and its aftermath.' VERDICT False. The study concludes excess deaths increased in Japan during the COVID-19 pandemic, not that vaccines caused the increase in mortality.
AFP
26-03-2025
- Politics
- AFP
WEF did not call for ban on backyard farming
"WEF Demands Global Ban on Homegrown Food to Meet 'Net Zero,'" says the headline of a March 16, 2025 article from Slay News, a website that has repeatedly shared misinformation. Image Screenshot from Slay News taken March 25, 2025 The article and its headline spread across platforms such as X, Facebook, Instagram, Threads and TikTok -- and also in various languages, including French, Russian, Turkish and Vietnamese. The WEF, an international organization that organizes an annual summit of business and political leaders in Davos, Switzerland, promotes research and collaborative efforts on environmental topics. The institution and Schwab, its longtime chairman and founder, have frequently been the target of unfounded claims and conspiracy theories. The Slay News article claims the WEF funded a January 2024 international study led by the University of Michigan (archived here). The research found that produce grown on small farms in urban areas can leave a carbon footprint an average of six times larger than crops from traditional farms (archived here). But contacted by AFP, the WEF said the organization had no role in the research and has never endorsed countries banning home gardens. "Regarding the study from the University of Michigan, while it certainly provides valuable insights into the climate impacts of urban agriculture, the World Economic Forum had not been involved in this study and has also not funded it," the organization said in a March 24, 2025 email. In a press release about the study's findings, the University of Michigan credits several organizations with supporting the project, including the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research and the US National Science Foundation. It does not mention the WEF. The study's co-lead author, Jake Hawes, now an assistant professor at the University of Wyoming, told AFP the WEF played no role in it (archived here and here). Improve urban farming Hawes said the paper's findings do not support banning home gardens but instead provide recommendations for improving urban agriculture. "Many of the authors are gardeners ourselves, and we fully support the expansion of urban agriculture initiatives that are vital to community resilience and food security," Hawes said in a March 19 email. "We suspect that particular conspiracy theory emerged from the fact that this study was part of a project called 'Food-Energy-Water Meter' or 'FEW-meter,'" he said, creating an acronym using the same three letters as the WEF. The University of Michigan uploaded a video in which Hawes and another researcher show examples of urban or backyard farms and discuss best practices for sustainability revealed by their study, highlighting the lower carbon footprint of locally grown tomatoes (archived here). The WEF has repeatedly published information about the environmental and economic benefits of setting up small household and community gardens for food production (archived here, here and here). AFP has debunked other false claims about climate policy here.
Yahoo
20-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Fact Check: No, World Economic Forum didn't demand global ban on homegrown food
Claim: The World Economic Forum demanded that governments enforce bans on people growing food at home. Rating: A rumor that circulated online in March 2025 claimed that the World Economic Forum demanded governments enforce bans on people growing food at home. The Switzerland-based group, established as a not-for-profit foundation in 1971, is perhaps best known for organizing the annual Davos global summit of innovators and public- and private-sector business leaders. As one of many examples of users sharing the rumor, on March 16, author and economic researcher Chris Martenson posted (archived) a screenshot of an article from Slay News displaying the headline "WEF Demands Global Ban on Homegrown Food to Meet 'Net Zero.'" Slay News' "About Us" page describes the website as "an independent media outlet providing truthful reporting and the free and open exchange of ideas" and "unapologetically pro-America and pro-free speech." Martenson — whose bio on X read "I proudly stand for truth and common sense" — asserted, "The WEF proposes a complete ban on home gardens to 'combat emissions.' They are still strangely silent on their private jets' contributions to emissions. You can't hate these people enough." However, the story from Slay News did not feature any evidence of the WEF demanding that governments enforce bans on people attempting to grow food at home. A spokesperson for the WEF previously told the Ireland-registered fact-checking organization Logically Facts, "The World Economic Forum does not support any policies that would prohibit food cultivation at home." A WEF spokesperson confirmed the authenticity of this statement to us. Logically Facts reported its "false" verdict about the same rumor on March 16, 2024, after Slay News published a strikingly similar article one year prior to the March 2025 story. Slay News also published another version of the article in October 2024, the second of three instances in reporting virtually the same story. In a similar fact check reporting a "false" verdict, the Australia-based RMIT University noted, "The WEF in fact appears to be supportive of homegrown food, featuring many articles promoting the benefits of urban farming on its website." Martenson, who shared the rumor but did not originate it, has not responded to our request for comment. Slay News also did not respond an emailed request asking for evidence and answers. One minor question asked of Slay News concerned the page for Frank Bergman, the named author of the story. The author page displayed a picture resembling fake photos generated with artificial intelligence, such as those hosted on The Slay News article published in March 2025 began by restating the claim from its headline and citing a purported "recent WEF study": The World Economic Forum (WEF) is demanding that global governments enforce bans on members of the general public growing food at home in order to supposedly lower "emissions." The globalist organization claims that homegrown food contributes to "climate change." The WEF argues that banning homegrown food will help governments comply with their targets for meeting "Net Zero" by 2030. In order to comply with the WEF's "Net Zero" targets, governments must drastically reduce "carbon emissions" by 2030 and completely eliminate them by 2050. According to so-called "experts" behind a recent WEF study, researchers apparently discovered that the "carbon footprint" of homegrown food is "destroying the planet." The "recent WEF study" cited by Slay News appeared in the Nature Cities publication (archived) on Jan. 22, 2024, with the title "Comparing the carbon footprints of urban and conventional agriculture." The study's abstract, displayed above its detailed contents, described its purpose as seeking a "comprehensive assessment of the environmental performance" of urban agriculture (UA), "a widely proposed strategy to make cities and urban food systems more sustainable." Findings revealed that "the carbon footprint of food from UA is six times greater than conventional agriculture," but also that some urban agriculture crops outperformed conventional agriculture. Jason "Jake" Hawes, an assistant professor at the University of Wyoming who helped lead the authoring of the study, told us the WEF shared no association with the work. "There is no relationship to WEF," Hawes said. "Neither the authors, nor any of the work, was funded by or related to the WEF." A search of the study confirmed Hawes' statement, with no evidence existing of any affiliation to the WEF, including in the study authors' affiliations. The University of Michigan did not name the WEF in its list of organizations providing support for the work. Instead, it credited the U.K. Economic and Social Research Council, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, the French National Research Agency, the U.S. National Science Foundation, Poland's National Science Centre and the European Union's Horizon 202 research and innovation program. Hawes further said: "We certainly do not recommend banning home-grown food. Rather, we conducted the work to support gardeners and policymakers in promoting low-carbon urban food growing. Many of the authors are gardeners ourselves, and we fully support the expansion of urban agriculture initiatives that are vital to community resilience and food security." Hawes added, "For what it's worth, we suspect that particular conspiracy theory emerged from the fact that this study was part of a project called 'Food-Energy-Water Meter' or 'FEW-meter.'" The U.K.-based University of Kent described FEW-Meter as a three-year project starting in June 2018, aimed "at measuring the efficiency of urban agriculture in terms of resource consumption, food production and social benefits." The five countries involved in the project were the U.K., the U.S., France, Germany and Poland. Some online users promoting conspiracy theories often target the WEF and its founder, Klaus Schwab, including pointing to a real initiative Schwab introduced in June 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, known as the "Great Reset." Schwab introduced the effort as one aimed at inspiring global policies that "reflect, reimagine, and reset our world to create a healthier, more equitable, and more prosperous future." In June 2021, reported of the "Great Reset" that a "lack of clarity, combined with the plan being launched by an influential organization, provided fertile ground for conspiracy theories to grow." Adhikari, Rahul. "No, World Economic Forum Has Not Pushed for a Ban on Home-Grown Food." Logically Facts, 15 Mar. 2024, Campbell, David. "The World Economic Forum Has Not Demanded a Ban on Homegrown Food." RMIT Australia, 30 Oct. 2024, "Davos 2025: What to Expect and Who's Coming?" World Economic Forum, 9 Dec. 2024, Hawes, Jason K., et al. "Comparing the Carbon Footprints of Urban and Conventional Agriculture." Nature Cities, vol. 1, no. 2, Feb. 2024, pp. 164–73. "Jake Hawes | Assistant Professor | School of Computing." UWYO School of Computing, Keaten, Jamey. "At Davos, Conflict, Climate Change and AI Get Top Billing as Leaders Converge for Elite Meeting." The Associated Press, 15 Jan. 2024, Keaten, Jamey, and David McHugh. "As Elite Davos Event Ends, Some Hail 'constructive Optimism' despite Divisions, Suffering in World." The Associated Press, 24 Jan. 2025, "Now Is the Time for a 'great Reset' ." World Economic Forum, 3 June 2020, "Our Mission." World Economic Forum, "Project // The FEW-Meter - An Integrative Model to Measure and Improve Urban Agriculture, Shifting It towards Circular Urban Metabolism." Nexus - The Water, Energy & Food Security Resource Platform, Robinson, Olga, et al. "What Is the Great Reset - and How Did It Get Hijacked by Conspiracy Theories?" BBC News, 23 June 2021, "Study Finds That Urban Agriculture Must Be Carefully Planned to Have Climate Benefits." University of Michigan News, 22 Jan. 2024, "The Few Meter - Centre for Architecture and Sustainable Environment - Research at Kent." University of Kent, Centre for Architecture and Sustainable Environment, 5 June 2019, University of Michigan. "Food from Urban Agriculture Has Carbon Footprint Six Times Larger than Conventional Produce, Study Shows." 22 Jan. 2024,
AFP
18-03-2025
- Health
- AFP
No FDA admission about long-term blood clot risk for Covid-vaccinated
"FDA Admits Covid-Vaccinated at Risk of Blood Clots for Up to 15 Years," is the headline of a February 25, 2025 article by Slay News, which has previously spread health misinformation. Screenshots of the article and replications of its text appeared across social media on Facebook, Instagram and X, including in French. Image Screenshot of Slay News article taken March 17, 2025 Vaccine misinformation is rampant online and has particularly affected conversations about the Covid-19 shots, which experts estimate saved millions of lives (archived here). The pandemic and the vaccine mandates imposed in many countries broadened the audience for skepticism. Plummeting US immunization rates and outbreaks of once-vanquished childhood diseases such as the measles (archived here and here) have experts warning of a looming public health crisis. There were reports of thrombosis linked to the AstraZeneca and Janssen vaccines released early in the coronavirus pandemic. This risk of blood clotting led to restrictions on these shots in several countries, including the United States and France, even as public health organizations such as the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) noted that cases were rare (archived here, here and here). But these were adenovirus vaccines, which use a different type of technology than the messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines mentioned in the Slay News article (archived here). Nicolas Gendron, a hematologist at the Georges Pompidou European Hospital in Paris, said the article is incorrect in claiming proof of decade plus-long risks associated with Covid-19 vaccines (archived here). "Scientifically, to prove that patients are at risk for 15 years, they would have to be followed for at least 15 years," Gendron told AFP in a March 7 interview. "So, we cannot know if this risk is persistent, because vaccination started in 2021. In this case, we could only talk about a four-year risk." Other purported evidence in the Slay News article also fails to prove any long-term risk of blood clots. Unrelated document Advanced keyword searches surfaced no recent press releases mentioning "vaccines" or "blood clots" on the FDA's website. One document cited by Slay News does come from the FDA, but it was advising on follow-up practices after human gene therapy treatments (archived here). Text in the statement says it was published in January 2020, before any public roll-out of Covid-19 vaccines and as the first known Covid-19 cases were reported in the United States. The document discusses long-term observation after receiving gene therapy and states in a footnote that its guidance does not apply to vaccines. Image Screenshot of an FDA document with a footnote highlighted by AFP taken March 17, 2025 While false claims online have repeatedly confused the mRNA shots with gene therapies, these claims have been consistently debunked (archived here). "Messenger RNA vaccines simply give cells information so that they temporarily code for something else," Gendron said. "This isn't gene therapy; pretending otherwise is just word manipulation." Single-subject case report Slay News also referenced a supposed "peer-reviewed study" published in a medical journal. However, the document is classified as a "case report" looking at one individual who died after receiving a vaccine, rather than a large-scale study observing multiple subjects. One of the authors of the paper, Peter McCullough, has repeatedly spread misleading and false claims about Covid-19 vaccines fact-checked by AFP. Image Screenshot of a case report taken March 17, 2025 Gendron said a singular case was not enough to prove a hypothesis and that the scientific community prioritizes large, randomized trials to establish evidence. "A 'case report' is when we report a case, but what we really like to know is if there have been others," he said. Gendron also took issue with the conflation between the "acute pulmonary hemorrhage" mentioned in the case report and blood clots discussed in the Slay News article (archived here). A hemorrhage refers to blood loss from a damaged vessel, whereas blood clots are gel-like clumps forming inside the veins (archived here and here). AFP has previously debunked misleading claims linking vaccines to clots found in corpses by embalmers, as well as allegations that the FDA admitted Pfizer's mRNA caused thrombosis -- which lacked context about the research. As of March 18, 2025, the CDC continues to recommend that every person over the age of six months receive a Covid-19 vaccine and subsequent boosters (archived here). Read more of AFP's reporting on vaccine misinformation here.
