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Wednesday, Oct. 20, 2021

Does a video prove that the proposed COVID drug molnupiravir is dangerous?

Dean Miller, Lead Stories

no

There's no credible data supplied in a video that labels the COVID-19 drug molnupiravir as dangerous, and publicly-available evidence does not support the video's claims.

The eight-minute video makes multiple false or unsupported claims including:

Molnupiravir is dangerous because it was developed in a collaboration between a private university and an agency of the Department of Defense. The video provides no reason that a collaboration in and of itself makes the drug dangerous.The drug manipulates the human genome in an uncontrolled way. A July 2021 paper in the Journal of Biological Chemistry describes the drug as an antiviral that interferes with how viruses cause illness. The drug causes mutations in the viral material, not in the human genome.Viruses have no DNA. A standard microbiology text book says, "Most viruses have either RNA or DNA as their genetic material."

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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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