“Chances are we all know someone who has developed #multiplesclerosis recently,” posted GB News host and conspiracy theorist Bev Turner on, inevitably, X at the weekend. “This may be why.”
She then shared a video by fellow vaccine sceptic and YouTuber John Campbell, a retired nurse educator who claimed that the World Health Organization had confirmed on its website that vaccination against Covid-19 could trigger multiple sclerosis.
“Simply explained by the peerless @Johnincarlisle,” crackpot former basketball host Turner continued. “This was always a possible effect of #mrna in any drug – every trial proved it. And people say #fauci was the good guy.”
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Except, of course, that the World Health Organization has never said any such thing, the claim instead stemming from a series of viral posts wildly misrepresenting how the body indexes scientific research.
The posts show screenshots of a study abstract hosted on the WHO’s online COVID-19 Research Database. The database aggregates global, third-party scientific literature to make research searchable – but inclusion does not mean the WHO conducted, funded or indeed endorsed the findings.
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The indexed abstract which sparked the claim (presented by independent Swiss researchers in 2022) described a preliminary study involving just two patients. It suggested a potential immunological link worth investigating, but did not establish a cause-and-effect relationship.
The WHO and leading neurological organisations, such as the US’s National Multiple Sclerosis Society, continue to emphasise that there is no established causal link between Covid vaccines and the onset of multiple sclerosis – and, indeed, stress that actually getting the virus carries a significantly higher risk of neurological complications than getting the jab.
In other words, it’s complete bollocks – but that won’t stop the likes of Turner and Campbell (known for repeating false claims about the use of antiparasitic drug ivermectin as a Covid treatment) promoting their cuckoo conspiracy theories for the likes.
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