Liberals Push False Smallpox Claim to Undermine RFK Jr.
Plus: The ADL Does Not Equate Christianity with Terrorism; Russia Falsely Links Coca-Cola to "Mobile Morgues" in Ukraine; AOC’s Pronoun Deletion Sparks False Claim on the Right
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Today:
Liberals falsely claim that smallpox has not been eradicated to raise concerns about RFK Jr.’s suitability as health secretary
No, the Anti-Defamation League did not label Christianity as a terrorist group
Ads for Macy’s, Lowe’s, Samsung, and other brands fund false COVID-19 vaccine bioweapon claim
Pro-Kremlin sources share doctored image of Coca-Cola-branded “mobile morgues” in Ukraine
And More …
Today’s newsletter was edited by Eric Effron and Sofia Rubinson.
1. Liberals Advance False Smallpox Claim in Bid to Undermine RFK Jr.
By John Gregory
What happened: Liberals opposed to Donald Trump’s choice of anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services are falsely claiming that smallpox was never eradicated and that it is being held in check by vaccines.
A closer look: The false claim appears to have emerged from a since-deleted Nov. 14 X post by a woman named Karen Piper, whose X profile describes her as “Just another girl with a PhD.”
Piper posted a photo of a child whose face was apparently covered with smallpox, alongside the text: “Say hello to smallpox. It was never eradicated; it’s held in check by vaccines, which RFK Jr. says he will eliminate coverage for, making vaccines ‘optional.’” The post generated at least 429,000 views and 11,500 likes before it was deleted. (Piper issued a correction to her post on Nov. 15, stating, “Correction: It was eradicated BY VACCINES. It’s really an amazing story about the wonders of vaccines.”)
Nevertheless, the narrative was soon advanced in a post by the liberal Facebook page Occupy Democrats, which used the same text and photo as Piper’s original post, along with a photo of Kennedy.
The Occupy Democrats post, shared to the page’s 10 million followers, garnered 7,900 shares within six days, and spread further on X, Threads, Instagram, and Bluesky.
Actually: Smallpox was declared eradicated by the World Health Organization in 1980, after the last known naturally transmitted case of the disease was documented in Somalia in 1977.
Moreover, the virus no longer exists in nature, so it’s not true to assert that vaccines are keeping the virus “in check.” Reuters (NewsGuard Trust Score: 100/100) reported that the virus only exists in samples kept in two laboratories, one in the U.S. and one in Russia.
The smallpox vaccine has not been recommended since the disease was declared eradicated more than four decades ago.
Context: Kennedy, who has advanced false claims about the effectiveness and safety of vaccines, said in an Oct. 14 X post: “I’m not going to take anyone’s vaccines away from them. I just want to be sure every American knows the safety profile, the risk profile, and the efficacy of each vaccine.”
There’s no need to make up false healthcare-related claims made by Kennedy. NewsGuard has documented 92 false claims actually advanced by Kennedy and his anti-vaccine nonprofit Children’s Health Defense in our RFK Jr. Healthcare Claims Depository.
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2. No, the Anti-Defamation League Did Not Label Christianity as an “Extremism, Terrorism, and Bigotry” Group
What happened: Anti-Jewish social media users are falsely claiming that the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish advocacy organization, lists Christianity as an “Extremism, Terrorism, and Bigotry” group.
A closer look: Users advancing this claim posted a screenshot of the ADL’s page on “Christian Identity,” which is listed as an “Extremism, Terrorism, and Bigotry” group.
The claim appears to have surfaced on Nov. 18, 2024, when X user @AngryCitizenxx, whose X profile states that they “say the silent part out loud,” stated, “The ADL has listed Christianity as an Extremism, Terrorism & Bigotry group.” The post received 1.1 million views and 25,000 likes in two days.
X account @1776General_, who frequently posts content promoting what the account calls “White culture,” said in a Nov. 19 post: “The ADL has labeled Christians as ‘Extreme, terrorist, bigotry[.]’ The ADL is waging war on Christians in America. #EndTheADL.” The post garnered 6,700 views and 260 likes in one day.
Actually: “Christian Identity” is the name of a racial-identity based interpretation of Christianity and is not an organized religion or affiliated with a Christian denomination. It has been labeled as an extremist and racist group by the FBI and other organizations.
The ADL’s page on Christian Identity, found in its Glossary of Extremism and Hate, states that Christian Identity is “a racist and anti-Semitic religious sect whose adherents believe that white people of European descent are the descendants of the ‘Lost Tribes’ of ancient Israel.” The word “Christianity” is not mentioned on the page.
An April 1989 FBI document in the agency’s public archives defines Christian Identity as “an ideology that combines religious concepts with elements of racism” whose followers “cite the Bible to support (or legitimize) their antiblack and anti-Semitic beliefs.”
An ADL spokesperson told NewsGuard in a November 2024 email: “This outrageous claim is entirely false. The article in question refers only to a single longstanding racist and antisemitic religious sect known as ‘Christian Identity,’ which is widely acknowledged as extremist.”
Click here to find out more about NewsGuard Trust Scores and our process for rating websites. You can download NewsGuard’s browser extension, which displays NewsGuard Trust Score icons next to links on search engines, social media feeds, and other platforms by clicking here.
3. Brand Victims of the Week: Ads for Macy’s, Lowe’s, Samsung, Capital One, and Others Fund False Claim that COVID-19 Vaccines Cause Cancer.
In this Reality Check feature, NewsGuard identifies global brands that support the spread of misinformation by unintentionally funneling programmatic advertising dollars to sites that repeatedly peddle false claims. Unless advertisers use inclusion or exclusion lists to place their programmatic ads, these ads will appear on websites regardless of their trustworthiness.
This week: A NewsGuard analyst based in the U.S. was shown programmatic ads for Macy’s, Lowe’s, Samsung, Capital One, Bloomingdale’s, Ulta, Subaru, and T-Mobile on a Nov. 19 article published by Principia-Scientific.com (Trust Score: 20/100). Principia-Scientific.com is a London-based website that has repeatedly advanced false claims about COVID-19 vaccines. The article claimed that “data from the University of Pittsburgh shows that the ‘vaccines’ cause cancer.” However, COVID-19 vaccines do not cause cancer, according to multiple studies and experts. (See NewsGuard’s Misinformation Fingerprint for this claim here.)
Dominick Infante, director of corporate communications at Subaru, told NewsGuard in a November 2024 email: “Without access to the source code, we are unable to determine whether the advertisement was delivered through a Subaru retailer’s programmatic campaign. However, this website did not appear in Subaru of America’s programmatic display media in the last 30 days. We will continue investigating the origin of the ad and the website in question.”
Representatives for Macy’s, Lowe’s, Samsung, Capital One, Bloomingdale’s, Ulta, and T-Mobile did not immediately respond to NewsGuard’s emailed requests for comment.
(Disclosure: NewsGuard is among the companies that license data that would help advertisers only advertise on reliable, brand suitable news sites.)
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If you see or hear something that you think may be provably false, please alert NewsGuard via realitycheck@newsguardtech.com and we'll do our best to get to the bottom of it. Note: Tips should not include content that you simply disagree with, however strongly.
4. Russians Spread Doctored Image of Coca-Cola-branded “Mobile Morgues” in Ukraine
What happened: Pro-Kremlin news sites and social media accounts are advancing a manipulated image purporting to show “mobile morgues” sent by Coca-Cola to Ukraine’s Sumy region. The image is an apparent effort to show that Ukraine is suffering higher-than-usual losses in the war, and that Coca-Cola seeks to profit from these deaths.
A closer look: The photo shows white mobile containers with the Coca-Cola logo and an English sign stating, “Mobile Morgue.” The photo spread widely in Russian state media in mid-November 2024.
A Nov. 17 article in pro-Kremlin En.Topcor.ru (Trust Score: 12.5/100) headlined “Coca Cola has delivered mobile morgues to Ukraine to store the bodies of Ukrainian Armed Forces militants” stated: “The fact is that the morgues located nearby are already overcrowded. And the list of losses is growing daily… A mobile refrigeration unit for storing human bodies in this case is a good way out of a difficult situation.”
The same day, pro-Kremlin X user @David_qva shared the manipulated photo and said in Spanish, “The West’s war in Ukraine is a profitable business, now Coca Cola’s ‘mobile morgues’ are coming, down to the last Ukrainian…!!” The post garnered 20,900 views and 840 likes.
Actually: Coca-Cola has donated mobile boilers to Ukraine to deal with its war-ravaged energy infrastructure. A photo of these boilers was digitally manipulated to label them as “mobile morgues.”
The original photo, which appeared on an Oct. 30, 2024, article on the Ukrainian Red Cross website, shows the same row of white mobile containers, but with Ukrainian signs reading "mobile boiler room.”
In 2023, Ukraine received 45 mobile boilers, which operate on natural gas or diesel fuel, as part of the joint humanitarian initiative with Coca-Cola, according to the Red Cross.
Andriy Bublyk, a Ukrainian official at Coca-Cola HBC, the American company’s bottling partner in Europe, said in a statement that the mobile boilers are used to "provide heating to schools, kindergartens, hospitals and residential buildings."
Context: Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy grid since the start of the war have caused Ukraine to lose half of its power generation capacity, and Ukraine could face blackouts of 20 hours a day this winter, according to Politico (Trust Score: 100/100).
5. AOC Did Not Drop Pronouns from Her X Profile to Appear Less “Woke” After 2024 Election
By Sam Howard
Contrary to claims on the right, Trump’s victory did not compel AOC to abandon “wokeness.”
What happened: Conservatives are falsely claiming that U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, considered a leader of the Democratic left, deleted the “she/her” from her X account after Trump won the 2024 election — an act they claim signals a shift in public opinion away from supporting transgender rights and other “woke” agendas.
A closer look: Following the 2024 election, websites and social media users on the right noted that Ocasio-Cortez does not include pronouns in her X profile.
Right-wing news site PJMedia.com (Trust Score: 27.5/100) stated in a Nov. 17 article: “Now the winsome AOC has just signaled a massive cultural shift by actually removing the pronouns from her X bio. Has the trans madness crested and is now receding? Could be.”
In a since-deleted Nov. 14 post, conservative X user @EndWokeness stated, “2 years ago, AOC posted an apology for forgetting to put pronouns in her bio. She just removed them on X.” The post was viewed more than 720,000 times and reposted more than 1,700 times before it was deleted.
Actually: Ocasio-Cortez’s profile change is not recent, and she says it was not a rejection of “wokeness.”
AOC removed the “she/her” from her profile eight months ago, in March 2024, according to archived versions of the account saved by the Wayback Machine.
Ocasio-Cortez said in a Nov. 16 X post that she deleted “she/her” to create space in her profile to add the phrase “personal account.” The move, she said, was in response to a March 2024 U.S. Supreme Court decision holding that public officials generally enjoy more First Amendment protection for social media accounts presented as their “personal” rather than official profiles.
Indeed, NewsGuard found that Ocasio-Cortez’s X profile reached the maximum character limit when her pronouns were included in her biography. The revised biography, now featuring the phrase “Personal account” in place of the pronouns, also hits the maximum character count.
Note to readers: The next Reality Check will be published on Dec. 3. Have a Happy Thanksgiving!
Reality Check is produced by Co-CEOs Steven Brill and Gordon Crovitz, and the NewsGuard team.
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