The ASA has upheld four challenges posed by Full Fact about a misleading ad in a local newspaper.

2 February 2022
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Dear Friend,

Last year, we made a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) about a newspaper advert we first spotted in the Forest of Dean and Wye Valley Review.

We asked readers to help track down further instances of the ad, which incorrectly presented MHRA Yellow Card Scheme report data to make misleading claims about Covid-19 vaccines, including claiming they were not approved for public use.

Readers helped us track down the ad in two more newspapers across the South of England.

The ASA has now agreed that the ad breached their rules and banned the ad from appearing again.

Friend, we’re so grateful to have you standing with us. Can you help keep up the momentum, and chip in to keep our media honest in 2022?
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The ASA upheld all four of the issues we raised.

We challenged whether:

1. the ad misleadingly presented the Yellow Card Scheme report data as the number of injuries and deaths that were caused by COVID-19 vaccines;
2. the claim “Covid vaccines have not been approved for public use” was misleading and could be substantiated;
3. the ad misleadingly implied it had been approved or endorsed by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Authority (MHRA); and
4. the ad was socially irresponsible.

Together we’ve made sure that spreading bad information has consequences.

We’re pleased that the ASA has taken action as a result of our complaint.

But Friend, false claims appear in our media every week.

Just a small monthly donation makes a really big difference, helping us track down false claims in our media and push for the record to be corrected.

Can you join 2,5000 others, and help keep our media more honest and accurate this year?
I'll help the fight for better standards today ([link removed])

As always, thank you for standing with us,

Bethan - Policy and Impact Manager
Full Fact

Read more: ASA's ruling ([link removed])

PS Last year, 2,500 monthly supporters helped make sure we could correct the record in The BBC, The Economist, the Telegraph and more. Join them and help keep our media more honest today ([link removed]) .

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