Texas’s Higher Vaccination Rate Blamed for Measles Outbreak
PLUS: Photo Does Not Show U.S. Navy SEALs Captured by Houthis; X’s Grok Touted as Credible Author of Climate Change Denial Report
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Today:
Anti-vaxxers claim Texas’s higher vaccination rate caused the measles outbreak
Pro-China accounts misrepresent an old photo to claim that Yemen’s Houthi captured U.S. Navy SEALs
Climate skeptics cite a Grok AI-written study to claim that humans are not responsible for global warming
Today’s newsletter was edited by Eric Effron and Sofia Rubinson.
1. Higher Measles Vaccination Rate Is Not Contributing to Texas Measles Outbreak, Despite Claims on Popular Websites
By John Gregory
What happened: Vaccine skeptics are falsely blaming the measles outbreak in Texas on the increased number of residents who have received the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine, making unsupported claims about “shedding.”
Context: Texas administered 15,000 more doses of the MMR vaccine in the first three months of this year compared to the same period last year, state health officials reported.
A closer look: Citing the spike in vaccinations, websites found by NewsGuard to publish false health claims assert that because the measles vaccine can “shed,” the increase in vaccinations is to blame for the ongoing measles outbreaks.
The claim appears to have originated on JonFleetwood.substack.com in a March 25 article that stated, “With a genetically modified vaccine virus capable of shedding for nearly a month and entering a broader range of human cells than the wild-type strain, the question becomes harder to ignore: Is the vaccine itself playing a role in the surge?”
The article was republished by Modernity.news (NewsGuard Trust Score: 7.5/100) the same day.
On March 27, Natural News (Trust Score: 5/100), a network of more than 490 websites that aggregates stories from NaturalNews.com, also picked up the claim, publishing an article titled, “Despite surge in MMR vaccination in Texas, measles outbreaks continue: Is VACCINE SHEDDING fueling the spread?”
Actually: There are more vaccinated people in Texas this year, but that’s because of rising concerns about the measles outbreak. Indeed, the Texas Department of State Health Services has been vigorously encouraging residents to receive the MMR vaccine due to the outbreak.
The department said in February 2025 that its testing found the state’s measles infections were not caused by the weakened strain of measles virus that is used in vaccines. Such weakened strains are “designed to create immunity without causing full-blown illness,” according to the website of Johns Hopkins Medicine (Trust Score: 77.5/100).
Out of the 400 measles cases identified in Texas, only two of the patients were confirmed to be fully vaccinated, according to TDSHS data published on March 28, suggesting that vaccines are not contributing to the outbreak.
An August 2024 study, published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Clinical Virology, found that genetic material from the weakened measles virus in the MMR vaccine can be shed by recently vaccinated people for up to 29 days after vaccination. However, Dr. Matthew Washam, the study’s co-author, told NewsGuard in a February 2025 email that this shedding is harmless and that the study does not suggest that the MMR vaccine can cause or contribute to measles outbreaks or spread measles to other people.
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2. Photo Does Not Show U.S. Navy SEALs Humiliated by Yemen’s Houthi Rebels
By Charlene Lin
What happened: Pro-Chinese sources are spreading an image purporting to show U.S. Navy SEALs captured by Yemen’s Houthi rebels being paraded on the streets with sacks over their heads, following U.S. airstrikes on the group.
Context: On March 15, the U.S. launched an offensive targeting the Houthis — who are backed by Iran — in response to the militant group’s threats to resume attacks on shipping vessels in the Red Sea. U.S. President Donald Trump said in a March 19 Truth Social post that the Houthis “will be completely annihilated” and warned Iran against continuing to aid the group.
A closer look: The photo displayed above was initially shared by Chinese social media users in early July 2024, following clashes between U.S. forces and the Houthis in the Red Sea. Shortly after the March 2025 U.S. attack, pro-China social media users began pushing the photo more widely.
On Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, pro-China user @dyppe7mteqdm featured the photo in a March 23 video with the caption: “The U.S. Navy SEAL: The Houthis cover their heads with sacks and parade them on the street! Now the whole world knows!” The video garnered 35,000 likes and 820 shares in three days.
An anonymous user on Weibo, a Chinese microblogging site, shared a video that featured the photo, captioning it: “Breaking news from Yemen: The U.S. soldiers were ready to catch the Houthis in Yemen, but they were captured once they landed and paraded around with sacks over their heads.” The video received 20,000 views and 180 likes in three days.
Actually: The photo shows Iranian soldiers mockingly dressed as captured U.S. sailors during a 2016 rally in Iran.
A reverse image search by NewsGuard found that the photo was originally taken by Associated Press photographer Ebrahim Noroozi at a Feb. 11, 2016, rally in Tehran, Iran. The rally commemorated the Islamic Revolution, the 1979 movement that ousted the U.S.-backed shah of Iran.
According to the AP’s photo caption, the image shows members of a paramilitary force within Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Crops at the rally, reenacting the Jan. 12, 2016, capture of U.S. sailors by the Revolutionary Guard in the Persian Gulf. On that day, 10 U.S. sailors were captured and held in Iran for a day after their small vessels crossed into Iranian territorial waters.
There is no credible reporting or evidence that U.S. Navy SEALs were captured by Yemen’s Houthi rebels in March 2025. No U.S. troops were reported to have been on the ground in Yemen.
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. No, Grok AI-Written Study Does Not Prove that Global Warming is a Natural Phenomenon
By Nicole Dirks
What happened: As evidence that human activities are not responsible for global warming, climate change deniers have been citing an article whose “lead author” is listed as Grok 3, the latest version of the artificial intelligence tool launched by Elon Musk’s X platform in February 2025.
A closer look: On March 18, 2025, ScienceofClimateChange.org — which states on its homepage that it publishes studies that contradict “unilateral climate hypotheses” — posted a 16-page article arguing that the sun, not human-caused fossil fuel emissions, are primarily responsible for global warming, and that oceans and forests absorb all human emissions.
The article listed five authors, several of whom have previously challenged the scientific consensus on climate change. The listed “lead author” was Grok.
However, the article recycles familiar and long-debunked arguments that climate change is a wholly natural phenomenon.
For example, Grok et al. argued that all human-produced carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere through absorption by ocean and forests and that global warming is mainly driven by the sun getting warmer. The authors concluded that the theory that global warming is significantly driven by human-produced carbon dioxide emissions “lacks empirical substantiation.”
The article was celebrated by climate deniers on social media, who collectively received over 1 million views in posts advancing the study’s findings and touting Grok’s credibility.
Several users declared: “The Climate Scam is Over. Peer-reviewed AI analysis completely debunks all of the ‘man-made’ claims.”
Conservative site SlayNews.com (Trust Score: 0/100) published an article titled “AI-Led Study Confirms ‘Climate Change’ Narrative Is a Hoax” and stated: “A groundbreaking study led by artificial intelligence (AI) has confirmed that globalist narratives about ‘climate change’ and ‘global warming’ are a hoax. … Grok 3 is designed to solve complex problems.”
Actually: There is broad scientific consensus that climate change is real, worsening, and largely caused by human activities, primarily by emitting carbon dioxide and other planet-warming greenhouse gases.
Even Grok 3, which seems to have changed its mind, now agrees. While AI responses to prompts depend on how prompts are worded, when a NewsGuard analyst neutrally asked if human activities have contributed to climate change, the chatbot responded, “Yes, there’s strong evidence that human activities are a major driver of climate change.”
Who’s behind it? In addition to Grok 3 Beta, the report’s authors included climate skeptic David Legates, who served in the first Trump administration as deputy assistant secretary of commerce at NOAA.
According to a Grok-written press release that accompanied the paper, Grok “spearheaded the research, drafting of the manuscript with human co-authors providing critical guidance.”
The paper was published by ScienceofClimateChange.org, which has advanced other studies contradicting the scientific consensus on climate change.
AI is not always a reliable source: While AI can be a useful tool, it certainly can produce misinformation.
NewsGuard’s December 2024 audit of the 10 leading AI chatbots, including Grok, found that the models collectively repeated false claims 40.33 percent of the time when asked to verify 10 significant false claims that spread in the preceding month. Among the inaccurate responses, 49.59 percent resulted from prompts designed to mimic a malign actor seeking to generate misinformation from the chatbot.
ScienceofClimateChange.org did not respond to an email from NewsGuard asking about the Grok article.
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