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Tuesday, Feb. 15, 2022

Did Nobel Laureate Luc Montagnier say people fully vaccinated for COVID-19 should be tested for AIDS?

Ed Payne, Lead Stories
no

The prominent French virologist, who died on Feb. 8, 2022, has said some controversial things in recent years, but he did not say this.

A social media post shows a picture of Montagnier — a co-discoverer of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS — with what looks like a translated tweet saying, "If you have taken the third dose, go and take a test for AIDS."

Lead Stories found no evidence of an original, untranslated tweet that matches the English version, but did find it on two different meme-generating websites.

Meanwhile, Dr. Stuart C. Ray, professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, told Lead Stories people vaccinated for COVID are at no risk of getting AIDS from the shot or booster:

"There is no scientific basis for even speculating that the authorized and approved vaccines to prevent COVID-19 could cause AIDS."

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Fact briefs are bite-sized, well-sourced explanations that offer clear "yes" or "no" answers to questions, confusions, and unsupported claims circulating online. They rely on publicly available data and documents, often from the original source. Fact briefs are written and published by Gigafact contributor publications.

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Lead Stories is a fact checking and debunking website at the intersection of big data and journalism that launched in 2015. It scouts for trending stories, images, videos and posts that contain false information in order to fact check them as quickly as possible. It actively monitors the fake-news ecosystem and doesn’t wait for reader tips or reports before getting started on a story.

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