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FACT CHECK
Express publishes misleading article about safety of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine
A widely shared article on the Daily Express website makes a number of errors about the safety of the Pfizer vaccine.
It claims a new document, which has been the subject of many false claims online, shows 152,893 side effects from the Pfizer vaccine were revealed in clinical trials.
The document actually counts the number of adverse events following vaccination which are not “side effects,” as claimed in the article. The Express also falsely claims all the data is from clinical trials, and this is “the first time” trial data has been published, when trial safety data has been available since 2020.
The report contains details of 158,893 events taken from 42,086 case reports. These reports came from a mixture of sources, including “cases of AEs [adverse events] reported spontaneously to Pfizer, cases reported by the health authorities, cases published in the medical literature, cases from Pfizer-sponsored marketing programs, non-interventional studies, and cases of serious AEs reported from clinical studies regardless of causality assessment”.
The document was prepared after Pfizer’s vaccine received emergency use authorisation in the US on 11 December 2020, and before full approval on 23 August 2021.
Reports of adverse events following vaccination against Covid have been regularly assessed by the MHRA in the UK.
It says: “The expected benefits of the vaccines in preventing COVID-19 and serious complications associated with COVID-19 far outweigh any currently known side effects in the majority of patients.”
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FACT CHECK
Labour graph showing reduction in army size is misleading
A graph shared by Angela Rayner and local Labour party groups shows that the Conservatives cut the army from 98,000 personnel in 2010 to 72,500 in 2021 - a reduction of over 25,000. But 72,500 represents the planned army size by 2025, not the actual army size in 2021.
In 2021, at its smallest, the army had 76,348 full-time trade-trained personnel—around 21,650 fewer than in 2010.
We contacted Labour, Angela Rayner and the Wrexham Labour party to request corrections. They are still yet to respond.
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MORE FACT CHECKS
Also this week...
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Dangerous false claims are still circulating about the war in Ukraine
We'd be incredibly grateful if you could share our guide for spotting misleading information:
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All the best,
Team Full Fact
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