On February 7 and 8, information was spread on social networks (1, 2, 3, 4) that 40 children died in Ukraine as a result of vaccination. A video was attached to the messages. In it, an unknown woman, posing as an employee of the Kyiv office of the Pfizer company, claims that children in Ukraine are injected with an experimental vaccine that is passed off as a flu vaccine, although neither the patients’ parents nor medical personnel know about it. In the video, the woman displays documents showing that during the second stage of the trial, the mortality rate among those who received the vaccine was 4%-5%. Given that more than 1,000 children were vaccinated, the number of deaths must be at least 40-50 children.
From February 6 to 12, this information was published by the following Russian media outlets: Россия 24, vesti.ru, news-kiev.ru, dnr-pravda.ru, bloknot.ru, smi.today/ru and newdaynews.ru. A Россия 24 report, headlined “Western Pharmaceutical Company Turned Children into Guinea Pigs,” said that the third stage of the trial of Pfizer’s new vaccine started in Kyiv and 50 people died during the three-month experiment, a Pfizer employee admitted.
There is no evidence that 40 children died in Ukraine during the Pfizer vaccine trial. Pfizer denies that a woman named Anna Sakhno works for it. Moreover, Pfizer does not conduct clinical trials in Ukraine that could have resulted in the deaths of children.
The primary source of the claim that 40 children died in Ukraine because of Pfizer’s experimental vaccination is a video on TikTok. In the video, a woman in a medical outfit and face mask claims that Ukraine’s Health Ministry and even President Zelenskyy personally know about it and are working closely with Pfizer, supplying the company with all the necessary data from the electronic registers of Kyiv hospitals.
Anna Sakhno’s TikTok account is currently private, and accordingly, it is impossible to find out whether the video distributed on the social network still exists or not. It should be noted that it is impossible to identify this person from her profile picture. It was not possible to find a person with this name and a similar photo on other social networks either, which further strengthens doubts that the person calling herself Anna Sakhno works for Pfizer.
The video is available on YouTube and was uploaded by an account named Pastor 89 on February 4. This account was registered on YouTube on February 3, 2024, and as of February 19, it had published only this video.
The Ukrainian fact-checker Stop Fake contacted the European office of Pfizer about this matter. Pfizer’s spokesperson denied that the company employs anyone named Anna Sakhno. In addition, no trials are currently conducted in Pfizer’s Kyiv office, as confirmed by the clinicaltrials.gov website, which publishes data on clinical trials from around the world. The Center for Strategic Communication and Information Security of Ukraine dismissed this information as false.
The information about the 40 children who died as a result of Pfizer vaccine testing was also published by The Chicago Chronicle online publication, which then Russian media outlets relied on (1,2,3). These outlets also emphasized the involvement of the Ukrainian authorities in these processes and placed the blame on Zelenskyy for allowing the vaccination of children under the age of 12 and effectively sentencing them to death. This tactic is well known, and over the past few months, the Russian media have repeatedly spread information from ostensibly Western but unreliable sources accusing President Zelenskyy of child trafficking, trading organs of Ukrainian soldiers, and buying Goebbels’ villa.
It is worth noting that the spread of such information has a common anatomy: an anonymous person, posing her/himself as a former employee of an organization, posts a video on YouTube and provides “evidence.” This video, along with an extensive article, is then published by a foreign media outlet with a dubious reputation, after which this information appears in the Russian media as foreign publications.
With respect to Pfizer’s clinical trials, all are conducted in accordance with local laws and regulations as well as relevant international standards, including the Declaration of Helsinki and the Guideline for Good Clinical Practice, in order to ensure the safety of all participants.
In this regard, it is important that participants in studies give their voluntary informed consent. The informed consent must clearly explain the purpose of the study, the risks, and potential benefits of participation in the study. In addition, a study participant has the right to withdraw from the study at any time. Informed consent is required from parents or legal guardians for children to participate in studies. The consent must be based on a detailed explanation of the purpose of the study, the procedures, risks, and potential benefits. Thus, the assertion that only authorities can be informed about the vaccine testing is not true.
About the sources:
The Facebook account Maia Tvaltvadze regularly spreads disinformation and conspiracy theories. Myth Detector has repeatedly verified false information previously disseminated by Maia Tvaltvadze.
The Facebook account Georgia First of All regularly spreads false and misleading information about the coronavirus pandemic and COVID-19 vaccines. Quite a number of stories posted by this account have been flagged as false by various fact-checking organizations (1,2,3,4).
Lado Qartvelishvili is the administrator of the Antilab-Georgia Facebook group. The Antilab-Georgia group is associated with the organization Antilab. This organization opposes “American biolabs” and biological weapons and spreads various conspiracy theories and disinformation about this topic. Myth Detector has checked disinformation spread by Qartvelishvili in this group earlier too.
Archive links:
Archive video
Russian media: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
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