Since March 2024, they have been circulating on various social networks, in particular on Facebook and X (formerly Twitter), posts who claim that Japan banned mRNA vaccines against Covid-19, as they have been proven to be the direct cause of the significant increase in deaths in the country.
Num post Specifically, the user also says that the current British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, invested “500 million dollars of his personal fortune” in Moderna — the pharmaceutical laboratory that created one of the vaccines against the coronavirus — and that, therefore, , has insisted that vaccines are safe and effective. However, the truth is far from the allegations made in this and other publications.
Regarding the Japanese government’s supposed decision to ban vaccines, the statement is false. Research carried out by Observer shows that there are several publications on the official website of the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare that support and promote the administration of vaccines.
On the same website, it is also possible to see that the ministry published various information about the importance of vaccination and that, on July 28, 2023, it informed, through a statement, that it extended the supply agreement with the Moderna and Pfizer laboratories, with the objective of having enough vaccines for “the inoculation that will begin in autumn 2025”.
The only new thing is that the administration of vaccines will no longer be fully reimbursed by the Japanese government, as of April 1, 2024.
As for the claim that “an official study by the Japanese government directly linked vaccines to the exponential increase in deaths in the nation”, the study referred to is not only not from the government, but is also not an official study. The scientific publication that the post speech concerns an alleged study, published on the website Preprints.org. This site has the particularity of being a platform where only “papers” that have not yet been reviewed by the scientific community and whose claims have not yet been proven are submitted. In other words, it is not a study of official sources and its content may not be true.
And how is Rishi Sunak involved in this situation? O post in analysis it states that the current British Prime Minister invested half a million dollars “from his own pocket” to finance the Moderna vaccine, but this statement is also not true.
As it is possible to confirm through an article published by the English newspaper The Guardian, on November 17, 2020, Sunak does have a connection to the pharmaceutical company, but because, before entering politics, the investment fund he co-founded — Theleme Partners — was one of Moderna’s financiers. Although it is not known whether Sunak profited from the creation and distribution of this vaccine, the fact is that no investment was made personally.
Conclusion
Several networks circulate posts who claim that Japan banned vaccines against Covid-19, as an official study by the Japanese government proved that they are responsible for the significant increase in deaths in the country. However, the research carried out by the Observer concluded that the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare continues to support inoculation through the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines and that the study mentioned is not official and has no proven results.
Thus, according to the Observer classification system, this content is:
WRONG
In Facebook’s classification system this content is:
FALSE: The main content claims are factually inaccurate. Generally, this option corresponds to “false” or “mostly false” ratings on fact-checker websites.
NOTE: this content was selected by Observador as part of a fact checking partnership with Facebook.
Source: https://observador.pt/factchecks/fact-check-o-japao-baniu-as-vacinas-contra-a-covid-19/
