Dr. Vladimir Zelenko Claims that Half Of Israelis That Took the Covid Vaccine Have Aids !

 

CLAIM: Half of Israel’s population now has AIDS, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, due to receiving multiple COVID-19 vaccine injections.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. COVID-19 vaccines do not cause AIDS, and public health experts say cases of the virus that causes AIDS, human immunodeficiency virus, have not dramatically risen in Israel following mass vaccination.

THE FACTS: In a video clip circulating widely on social media over the last week, a doctor who has promoted hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19 suggested that half of Israel’s population now has AIDS from receiving multiple vaccine injections.

Vladimir Zelenko, a physician from New York state, made the comments on March 23 during an interview with a conservative blog in which he also asserted that multiple injections of the COVID-19 vaccines “destroy” peoples’ immune systems.

He said dozens of peer-reviewed papers support his claims but did not cite specific research or other such evidence in the interview. Zelenko did not respond to a request for comment.

“Around 50 percent of the Israeli population has AIDS,” Zelenko said during the Zoom call, later adding: “Why would getting more shots help?”

One Twitter user shared a clip of Zelenko’s comments in a March 23 tweet, writing: “Disturbing !!,” and “50% of Israelis have AIDS and are unable to manage the mild omicron.”

Another Twitter user wrote: “Did you see the clip of Dr. Vladimir Zelenko speaking about Israel? He said 50% of people in Israel have AIDS from their immune system being destroyed by these shots.”

But the claims are incorrect, according to several medical experts interviewed by The Associated Press.

Recent data from Israel’s health ministry only provides HIV infection rates through 2020. But at that time, only a very small fraction of the country’s population of about 9.5 million had HIV. The ministry’s December 2021 epidemiological report concluded that 7,851 people were “currently registered as living with HIV/AIDS,” and an estimated 8,145 people were undiagnosed and living with HIV — numbers well under half of the population.

Dr. Nadav Davidovitch, an Israeli epidemiologist who advises the country’s government on COVID-19, as well as the Israeli Medical Association on HIV, said Israel hasn’t seen a rise in its HIV rate since the pandemic began, nor since the country initiated its widespread inoculation campaign in late 2020.

“There is no connection,” Davidovitch said of the vaccines and AIDS rates.

In fact, Israel has seen a steady decline in its rate of new HIV infections since 2013, he added. The overall downward trend is further outlined in the December 2021 health ministry report.

Richard E. Chaisson, the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for AIDS Research, told the AP in an email that there has not been a large uptick in AIDS cases in Israel during the vaccine rollout.

“These claims are patently false, of course, and are the product of malicious conspiracy theorists,” Chaisson wrote. “The COVID vaccines do not cause AIDS and do not cause damage to the immune system that is similar to AIDS.”

HIV is a virus that attacks the body’s immune system, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. If untreated, it can lead to AIDS. Davidovitch said Israelis who do have HIV have caught it overwhelmingly through unprotected sex, with fewer cases caused by infected blood transplants.

As the AP previously reported, claims that the COVID-19 vaccines damage the immune system are false. Research from the CDC and others show the vaccines boost the immune response. The mRNA vaccines train the immune system to recognize the spike protein on the surface of the virus that causes COVID-19, prompting an immune response, experts said. The AP has also reported on similar false claims that the COVID-19 vaccines cause HIV.

“COVID vaccines do not contain any component of the HIV virus and cannot infect people,” Chaisson added. “All vaccines activate the immune system to produce antibodies to COVID, but do not damage the immune system.”

Israel approved a fourth vaccine dose for people most vulnerable to COVID-19, the AP reported in December 2021. At the time, roughly two-thirds of Israel’s population had received at least one dose, while some 4.2 million Israelis had received three doses, according to the Israeli government.

The Ministry of Health did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

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Associated Press correspondent Tia Goldenberg in Tel Aviv, Israel contributed to this report.

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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.