Misleading: The video that attributes the death of a 12-year-old teenager to vaccination against Covid-19 is misleading. The case is under investigation by the Center for Epidemiological Surveillance (CVE) of the State of São Paulo. In addition, according to the National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa) there is so far no confirmation of child deaths associated with adverse events post-vaccination of covid-19.
A video that circulates on Instagram and WhatsApp is misleading and relates the death of a 12-year-old teenager in Arujá (SP), on February 3, 2022, to vaccination against covid-19. The coroner responsible for the autopsy informed Comprova that the death was due to a vascular malformation. The São Paulo State Department of Health reported that the investigation is still in progress, and it is not possible to associate death with immunization.
The video features images of the child and a narration made by the father. He claims the boy suffered a massive heart attack while riding his bicycle. The man also says that he was asked by doctors and by the expert from the Legal Medical Institute (IML) if his son had been vaccinated against covid-19. In the images are shown a death certificate and a vaccination card.
The Municipal Health Department of Arujá said that it will only be possible to certify the cause of death after completion of the autopsy exam issued after about 40 days of death.
Comprova spoke to Luciley Cavalcante, the teenager’s mother, through messages on a social network. She informed that the boy never went to the cardiologist, but that he had a routine consultation with the family doctor every six months.
According to Luciley, their distrust of the vaccine was due to the questions that IML professionals asked about the boy’s vaccination when the body was released.According to the São Paulo Public Security Department, responsible for the IML, there is no questioning protocol. regarding vaccination in these situations.
The family members were contacted by the State Department of Health. The mother confirmed that the doctors who treated the boy mentioned pre-existing heart disease as the cause of death.
The profile that published the video was also contacted by the team, and responded that we should look for the victim’s mother and sent us a link with her post to a very similar video, but with her narration.
The content has been classified as misleading because it uses information still under investigation to disseminate anti-vaccination material.
How do we check?
In the video, we located the image of the vaccination card. In the document there is the name, location and data of the vaccines applied. In another part of the recording, there is an image of the death certificate.
The video resolution is low and made it difficult to understand some of the information, but we were able to confirm the victim’s name, mother and father and residential address.
We searched on Instagram and through the name, we found the teenager’s profile.
By researching the people he followed, we found his mother’s profile. As it was blocked, we searched for the same name on Facebook and found her account, Luciley Cavalcante, and her father’s, Renildo Alves. The mother is also sharing the video on her social networks stating that the death would have been caused by vaccination against covid.
We contacted the family through social media.
The vaccination card states that the boy was immunized at the Municipal Basic Health Unit Parque Rodrigo Barreto, in Arujá/SP. The first dose was administered on September 9, 2021 and the second on December 6, 2021, both from Pfizer.
We sent an email requesting information about the case to the Municipal Health Department of Arujá, the State Department of Health, the Ministry of Health, Anvisa, Pfizer and the Civil Police of SP.
Comprova made this verification based on scientific information and official data on the new coronavirus and covid-19 available until March 3, 2022.
Verification
cause of death
The boy’s father, Renildo Alves da Silva, says in the audio that the boy felt sick in front of the house gate. He was found slumped and bruised in the face. According to his mother, Luciley Cavalcante, the boy was taken to the UPA Barreiro, the same unit where he was vaccinated. He died at the scene on February 3.
The family reports that the body was taken to the IML and that the report has not yet been made available to them. Still in the video, the father says that the boy was healthy and had regular checkups. To Comprova, however, the mother reported that the child was never seen by a cardiologist.
The doctor even stated that “no relationship with vaccination was found”, but did not give details, and also did not comment on the adolescent’s previous health condition.
The death certificate also states that the death was caused by cardiac causes. The document describes: cardiopathic shock, acute myocardial infarction, cardiac arrhythmia and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.
Even so, the Municipal Health Department of Arujá and the State Health Department of São Paulo are still investigating whether there is a relationship between death and vaccination. In a note to Comprova, the state ministry classified it as “hasty and irresponsible to say, at this moment, that the case is related to vaccination”.
The National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa) and the Ministry of Health were not notified of the death in Arujá.
Brazil has no deaths of children from vaccines
There are no records of child deaths related to the coronavirus vaccination. The information was disclosed by the president of Anvisa, Antônio Barra Torres, in an interview with Agência Senado on February 16 this year. According to Barra Torres, only ten children in the United States had serious adverse effects after the vaccine, but all were discharged.
Vaccination of teenagers against covid-19 in Brazil is done with Pfizer and Coronavac. The group from 12 to 17 years old, of which the boy was a part, started to be vaccinated in September 2021, following a recommendation from the Ministry of Health.
Why do we investigate?
Comprova checks suspicious content circulating on social media or messaging apps about the coronavirus pandemic, elections and public policies. Verified content had over 61,000 interactions on Instagram alone. It is also possible to locate the misleading video on Facebook and it circulates on WhatsApp as well.
There is currently no confirmation that the boy’s death was caused by the Pfizer vaccine. Thus, shared content contributes to the spread of fake news about coronavirus vaccination.
In other verifications, Comprova has already proved to be misleading, a post that related the death of a child with CoronaVac and that there is no record of child deaths caused by vaccines against covid-19 in Brazil.
Deceptive for Comprova is content taken from the original context and used in another so that its meaning is altered; that uses inaccurate data or that leads to an interpretation different from the author’s intention; content that confuses, with or without the deliberate intent to cause harm.
Investigated by NSC, CNN Brasil, SBT. Verified by Metrópoles, Jornal do Comércio, SBT News, O Dia, O Popular, Estadão
Source: CNN Brasil
