CheckMate is a weekly newsletter from RMIT FactLab which recaps the latest in the world of fact checking and misinformation, drawing on the work of FactLab and its sister organisation, RMIT ABC Fact Check.
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CheckMate October 14, 2022
Good morning,
This week, CheckMate investigates claims that COVID-19 jabs are to blame for higher-than-average numbers of deaths in Australia.
We also examine the role of YouTube comments in spreading misinformation and debunk a claim that links graphene oxide, 5G and COVID-19 vaccines.
'No credible evidence' vaccines are behind rising Australian deaths
Politicians and pundits on social media have seized on Australian mortality data to suggest that COVID-19 vaccines are behind a jump in deaths.
"Deaths are 17 per cent higher than normal in Australia," tweeted Queensland LNP senator Matt Canavan. "I don't know what it is but it is about time we got serious about asking why."
Directly below, he shared another user's tweet that read: "The mRNA Covid vaccines are killing people, plain and simple."
United Australia Party national director and former MP Craig Kelly also weighed in, accusing the media of "deliberate silence" on the issue.
"SHAME. DISGUSTING. CRIMINAL," he tweeted.
So, what's going on?
In September, the Australian Bureau of Statistics published provisional mortality data for the year to June 2022.
It includes death counts which the ABS has compared to four-year historical averages (2017-19 and 2021) to provide an "initial indication" of whether deaths are tracking higher than expected.
The results show that there were roughly 17 per cent (13,526) more deaths than the baseline average in the first six months of 2022.
But on the question of whether that says anything about vaccine safety, the Australian Actuaries Institute's Karen Cutter told CheckMate: "The simple answer is no."
She explained that the provisional data only provides counts for a handful of major causes of death, and "does not show anything at all that attributes death to vaccines or not".
Tim Adair, a principal research fellow with Melbourne University's School of Population and Global Health, similarly said the numbers "don't shed any light" on vaccine-related deaths.
And in a statement to CheckMate, the Therapeutic Goods Administration, which regulates vaccines in Australia, warned that despite a rise in deaths this year, it was "false and unscientific to automatically conclude that vaccines caused these deaths".
"There is no credible evidence to suggest that COVID-19 vaccines have contributed to excess deaths in Australia or overseas."
According to the TGA's October 6 weekly vaccine safety report, only 14 deaths have been directly linked to COVID-19 vaccines in Australia, of which 13 occurred after one dose of Vaxzevria (AstraZeneca).
As for the increase, the ABS makes clear that its provisional data "does not provide official estimates of excess mortality".
Partly that's because it "does not take into account changes in population size and age-structures of that population, as well as expected improvements in mortality rates over time".
Adjusting for this, the Actuaries Institute estimates that excess mortality in the first half of 2022 was closer to 13 per cent (11,200).
Roughly half (5,620) of those deaths were "from" COVID-19, it found, meaning non-COVID excess deaths stood at roughly 6.5 per cent.
Major contributors to the rise were dementia, cancer, ischaemic heart disease and cerebrovascular diseases.
(There were also more deaths from other "unspecified diseases", though the institute notes that "this is a large 'catch-all' category" from which it is difficult to draw conclusions.)
But the data does not point to vaccines as a culprit.
As Ms Cutter noted, "the vast majority of the excess deaths were in people aged over 75, but we have a huge population over the age of 16 that has been vaccinated".
"So, the age statistics would indicate that it's not vaccine-related, otherwise we'd be seeing a lot more excess deaths in younger people."
More likely, she said, was that people were suffering strokes, heart attacks or other fatal conditions several months after recovering from COVID-19 — which was consistent with "multiple studies showing that COVID increases" such risks.
In Singapore, where COVID-19 deaths have tracked similarly to Australia's, the government recently released a report that stated: "The gap between [the] official death toll and estimated excess deaths can be explained by deaths in patients recently infected with COVID-19 in the past 90 days."
Dr Adair said another plausible reason for the rise in Australia's non-COVID-19 mortality was that deaths from other infectious diseases, which fell significantly during lockdowns in 2020 and 2021, were on the rise again.
Pointing to the fact that the largest increases were among the oldest age groups and deaths with an underlying cause of dementia, he added: "It is likely many of these deaths would have had an infectious disease as the more immediate cause."
Dr Adair also said that some deaths classified by the ABS as non-COVID-19 would still have had the disease recorded as a contributing factor on the death certificate, and that these deaths "would likely have an underlying cause such as heart disease or diabetes where COVID may have increased their risk of dying from that cause".
Study finds COVID-19 conspiracies flourish in YouTube comments
A new study by Australian researchers has found that YouTube's comments feature may have "played an underrated role" in the production and circulation of COVID-19-related conspiracy theories.
Led by researchers at the University of Queensland and the University of Sydney, the study analysed close to 40,000 comments left under pandemic-related videos posted by Fox News, Vox and the China Global Television Network.
"We found the comments for each video to be heavily dominated by conspiratorial statements covering topics such as Bill Gates's hidden agenda, his role in vaccine development and distribution, his body language, his connection to Jeffrey Epstein, 5G network harms, and human microchipping," the researchers detailed.
According to the study, the results suggested that YouTube comments sections could function as "under-regulated epistemic spaces" in which conspiracy theories could flourish.
"We suggest that conspiracy theory discussions in YouTube comments have all the characteristic traits of participatory culture," the study noted, "meaning that it is a site of intense collective sense-making and knowledge production."
The researchers also said their results suggested that algorithms designed to filter out harmful and incorrect comments were "not working for conspiratorial commentary about COVID-19", adding that YouTube commenters had used "discursive tactics" that automated systems were likely to miss.
The study authors suggested community-led moderation could be successful in stemming the tide of misinformation (as it has been on platforms such as Reddit).
"In short, for YouTube to adequately address this problem, it must attend to both the discursive strategies that evade automated detection systems and to redesigning the space to provide users with the tools they need to self-moderate effectively," they argued.
DNA manipulation and 5G? Another COVID-19 myth busted
A fanciful claim that COVID-19 vaccines contain graphene oxide which can be "activated" and "controlled" through "electromagnetic 5G sensors" has been debunked by RMIT FactLab.
The fact checkers detailed this week how graphene oxide is not used in any COVID-19 vaccines, finding that claims of the compound damaging the immune systems or controlling the DNA of vaccinated individuals through 5G electromagnetic frequencies were unsubstantiated and false.
Catherine Bennett, chair in epidemiology at Deakin University, told FactLab: "Graphene oxide is not listed in the published COVID-19 vaccination ingredients lists and I have not come across anything in my research to link it to the production or use of vaccinations."
Edited by Ellen McCutchan and David Campbell
Got a fact that needs checking? Tweet us @ABCFactCheck or send us an email at factcheck@rmit.edu.au
Editor's note (October 19, 2022): The item on excess deaths has been corrected to say the ABS compared its death counts to four year averages (2017-19 and 2021). It previously said this comparison was against five-year averages (2015-19).
