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CoronaCheck #101
This week, we look at how Channel Nine's A Current Affair fed a global conspiracy theory about COVID-19 treatments and the Queen.
We also investigate a senator's suggestion that vaccine nanoparticles can be "deformed", and whether a Canadian "freedom" protester was really trampled to death.
Editing mistake goes viral as Queen battles COVID-19
An editing error by Australian news program A Current Affair has sparked a flurry of misinformation around the world with a clip from the show giving the impression that COVID-stricken Queen Elizabeth was being treated with ivermectin contrary to the prevailing official medical advice.
The clip, which aired on Channel Nine on Monday night, featured a high-profile GP explaining how certain medications could be beneficial in treating a COVID-19 patient of similar age to the 95-year-old monarch, whose COVID-positive status was revealed earlier in the day.
"Dr Mukesh Haikerwal says a COVID patient the Queen's age should be isolating and might benefit from new medicines currently approved for high-risk patients at Australian hospitals," a reporter is heard saying in the short clip.
While neither Dr Haikerwal nor the reporter specified ivermectin as one of the potential treatments, footage shown during the reporter's voiceover depicted a box of Stromectol, the name by which ivermectin is sold in Australia.
As Fact Check has previously explained, there is not yet any rigorous, high-quality evidence supporting the use of ivermectin in the treatment and prevention of COVID-19. Currently, the anti-parasitic drug is not approved for such use in Australia, although a number of clinical trials involving the drug are underway, including a major investigation by Oxford University.
"Ivermectin is not approved for use in COVID-19 in Australia or in other developed countries, and its use by the general public for COVID-19 is currently strongly discouraged by the National COVID Clinical Evidence Taskforce, the World Health Organisation and the US Food and Drug Administration," the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) said in September 2021.
According to a June 2021 Freedom of Information response from the UK Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, ivermectin was not licensed for use as a COVID-19 treatment, though there was no ban on doctors prescribing the drug off-licence if, in their professional judgement, "no suitable licensed available alternative" was available.
However, the clip from A Current Affair was seized upon and shared widely across social media by supporters of the drug, who suggested it was evidence the Queen was being treated with the medication.
"Right here at 20 seconds in they say that The Queen is taking monoclonal antibodies and ivermectin," Joey Gilbert, a retired US boxer and Republican candidate for Governor of Nevada, tweeted alongside the video.
"These people need to be charged with crimes against humanity from [sic] withholding this medicine from the world population."
Closer to home, Queensland Liberal senator Gerard Rennick suggested Channel 9 might "know something we don't" and questioned whether ivermectin was being administered at Australian hospitals despite the TGA's ban.
"I've been told by a number of whistleblowers that it is," he wrote on Facebook.
Senator Rennick's former colleague and leader of the United Australia Party Craig Kelly also posted the clip to social media, writing that ivermectin was being used to "save the Queen" while the TGA had banned "peasants" from using the drug.
But according to Dr Haikerwal, the image of Stromectol was "inadvertently inserted into" the report on A Current Affair. On Twitter, the GP pointed to a list of COVID-19 treatments used in Australia which do not include ivermectin.
Speaking to The Guardian, Dr Haikerwal said he did not specify any particular medications during his interview with the show, while ivermectin "never even came into the conversation".
"I said there are medications available for people who are vulnerable," he told the publication. "I didn't even name them, but it was obviously sotrovimab. It certainly wouldn't be ivermectin. I wouldn't recommend it."
A Current Affair, meanwhile, issued a correction on Tuesday saying that the image "should not have been included" and had been inserted as the result of "human error", putting to bed Senator Rennick's suggestion that the program had exposed the use of ivermectin in Australian hospitals.
"We were highlighting an approved infusion medication called sotrovimab and the report accidentally cut to a shot of Stromectol — a product which contains ivermectin," a clarification added to the program's online site reads.
"We did not intend to suggest Dr Mukesh Hawikerwal endorsed Stromectol … We do not suggest the Queen is using ivermectin."
Senator resuscitates mask claim, raises fears over vaccine nanoparticles
Senator Rennick was also busy this week dredging up claims about the dangers of mask-wearing, while casting doubt over the safety of the technology used in some COVID-19 vaccines.
"One thing the doomsday prophets haven't explained is why it's okay to breath[e] higher than average levels of CO2 for extended periods of time by wearing a mask," he wrote in a Facebook post on February 20.
The senator's post echoes false claims that mask wearing could lead to carbon dioxide poisoning, debunked by fact checking teams at AFP, Reuters and AAP, and that masks are harmful to children, which has been shot down by PolitiFact.
More recently, a much-vaunted 2021 study again sounded the alarm on these "risks" but was retracted by its publisher, while a viral video purporting to show how masks trap dangerous CO2 levels was rubbished by Reuters, with experts noting that the woman in the video was, in fact, measuring her exhalations.
Senator Rennick's post went on to question the safety of COVID-19 jabs, suggesting that defrosting and injecting them could "deform" the "nanoparticles in the genetic vaccines".
The nanoparticles in question are tiny droplets of fat (lipids) formulated to encase mRNA molecules, the key ingredient in the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines.
These droplets stop the molecules from being quickly destroyed. They travel through the body, fuse with cells and allow the mRNA to do its work.
"Once delivery is complete, these lipid nanoparticles are degraded by our body just like any other lipid," experts writing for The Conversation have explained.
Pall Thordarson, director of the RNA Institute at the University of NSW, told Fact Check that regulators and researchers conduct comprehensive stability testing to assess what happens as nanoparticles are frozen then thawed, using "various nano-characterisation methods … precisely to determine if the particles have disintegrated or degraded".
But he said it would be "hard to argue on scientific grounds why freezing and then thawing these particles would be unsafe when the temperature extremes are actually lesser than [those] we use for living embryos in IVF treatment", which are stored at minus 196 degrees, compared with Pfizer jabs at minus 90 degrees.
Professor Thordarson added that it could be misleading to describe lipid nanoparticles as "deformed", as they are "slightly 'squashy'" at room temperature.
"This is actually a good thing because the particles may then slightly change shape as they travel through the body," he said.
In an email to Fact Check, a spokeswoman for the Therapeutic Goods Administration said the quality of the vaccine nanoparticles had been demonstrated "in a variety of stability studies through targeted quality control testing", including "when the vaccine has been stored at the ultra low storage conditions for long periods (months) but also at higher temperatures such 2-8°C for days and 25°C for hours".
The TGA not only appraises data provided by vaccine manufacturers, she said, but also performs independent testing to assess, for example, "the size and shape of the particles [and] how well they protect the mRNA package".
"The testing of many batches, which always happens after the vaccine has been thawed to room temperature regardless of how it was stored, shows the lipid nanoparticles retain their properties under all of the approved storage conditions."
No, a woman was not trampled to death in Canada's protests
As so-called "freedom protesters" neared a month of campaigning in the Canadian capital of Ottawa last weekend, police efforts to move on the demonstrators were kicked up a notch, with 70 arrests made and a number of vehicles that had been blocking streets removed.
But widespread social media reports that heavy-handed policing resulted in the death of a woman, who was allegedly trampled by a police horse, are incorrect.
According to Canadian media outlet CTV News, the woman said to have died was "very much alive" and had even appeared in an Instagram post joking about the death hoax.
"Family members said the woman involved suffered a broken clavicle," CTV News reported.
"Ottawa police and paramedics also confirmed that no one had died. Paramedic Chief Pierre Poirier said in a statement that 18 people were transported to hospital from the secure zone on Friday with non-life threatening injuries but no fatalities were recorded."
Incorrect reports of the woman's death were in part spread by a US Fox News host, Sara Carter, who, according to the CBC, tweeted that she had heard a woman may have been "seriously injured or killed".
"She tweeted an apology on Saturday for sharing false information — but her original post had already been amplified widely," CBC News said, adding that the broadcaster had "received a number of calls asking about the person allegedly killed by a horse".
The protests in Ottawa began as a convoy to the city by demonstrators protesting a decision to mandate COVID-19 vaccines for truckers crossing the country's border with the US.
The Canadian movement spurred the "Convoy to Canberra" protests, which have similarly led to the spread of misinformation as covered in previous editions of CoronaCheck.
In other news: Clive Palmer and the United Australia Party claim three former prime ministers as their own. Is that correct?
COVID-like symptoms may have prevented United Australia Party chairman Clive Palmer from attending his scheduled National Press Club appearance this week, but it didn't stop Fact Check from running the rule over one of his most frequently repeated claims.
According to Mr Palmer and the UAP's website, three former Australian prime ministers — Joseph Lyons, Billy Hughes and Sir Robert Menzies — could all be claimed by the UAP.
Fact Check this week labelled that claim as nonsense.
The original United Australia Party was a political party established in 1931 and formally disbanded in 1945. Experts told Fact Check that many members then transferred to the Liberal Party and historical accounts show assets also moved across.
Mr Lyons and Sir Robert (who was Mr Menzies at the time) did indeed serve as prime minister while leading the original UAP, while Mr Hughes, at one stage also a leader of the UAP, served as prime minister under earlier Australian Labor Party, National Labor Party and Nationalist Party governments.
Mr Palmer's party, on the other hand, has only been registered with the Australian Electoral Commission since 2018 and has changed its name twice since then.
In a statement to Fact Check, a spokesman for the Australian Electoral Commission said: "The current UAP was registered in 2018. It was not a continuation of registration from the UAP registered in the 1930s."
Experts told Fact Check the contemporary iteration of the UAP had no connection or continuity to the original UAP beyond sharing the same name. One expert likened the claim to someone changing their name to "Charles Dickens" and claiming to have written Oliver Twist.
Further, experts argued that significant differences in policies and voter bases set the two parties apart, with one saying the "true heir" to the former UAP was today's Liberal Party.
Edited by Ellen McCutchan and David Campbell with thanks to Zac Wheeler
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