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COVID-19 vaccines doctored photo

Doctored photo of vaccination clinic sign pushes false suggestion of harm

A photo of a vaccination clinic in Foxborough, Massachusetts, that was digitally altered to push an anti-vaccine narrative is circulating online. Let’s take a look at the facts.

A Facebook post of a photo showing a white canopy set up outdoors with a large sign that reads, “COVID vaccines here no appointment needed.” An inset box on the sign reads, “Don’t forget to donate your childrens organs” and is circled in red with an arrow. The handwritten word “WHAT?” also appears in red. The News Literacy Project has added a label that says “DOCTORED PHOTO.”
This COVID-19 clinic sign is not authentic.
The text in the white box has been doctored.
The sign is not from a vaccine clinic for children.
The sign — which actually indicated in Spanish inside the white box that COVID-19 vaccines were available without an appointment — was displayed at a vaccine clinic hosted at a New England Patriots training camp last summer.
An authentic photo of the COVID-19 vaccination clinic hosted at a New England Patriots training camp in Foxborough, Massachusetts, last summer. The sign appears in a number of videos shot at the event, including this news report (at 30 seconds) from CBS Boston.

NewsLit takeaway

Text on signs is easy to alter with photo manipulation software and is a common target of bad actors online. In this case, the photo was also presented in a false context, circulating online shortly after the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention approved Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 5 to 11. Be wary of anti-vaccine rhetoric that seeks to propagate fear about the safety of the vaccine for kids, which is expected to surge as the vaccine rollout among children progresses.

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