[FALSE] Does a dissection video show that COVID-19 vaccinations can cause cerebral thrombosis?

Screenshot of the tweet.

The Claim and Our Verdict

• The claim: A video published Sept. 27, 2021, on Twitter claims to show cerebral thrombosis in people who received COVID-19 vaccinations.
• Fact-checking:
  • A reverse image search found several Instagram posts with similar videos published in 2019. Screenshot comparisons show that these videos are the same with the video discussed in the claim. The video has circulated online since at least Sept. 30, 2019.
  • According to the website of the World Health Organization (WHO), SARS-CoV-2 (the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19) was first discovered Dec. 31, 2019, and research and development for a COVID-19 vaccine began Jan. 12, 2010. However, this video began to circulate online as early as Sept. 30, 2019, before the discovery of the novel coronavirus and the first human clinical trial of a COVID-19 vaccine. The Instagram post published Sept. 30, 2019, claims the video shows brains of patients with intracerebral hemorrhage. Therefore, this video is not associated with COVID-19 vaccinations, and it cannot show that COVID-19 vaccinations can cause cerebral thrombosis.
• Our ruling: Therefore, we rate the claim as FALSE.

News Brief

A video of brain dissections published Sept. 27, 2021, on Twitter claims to show cerebral thrombosis in vaccinated people. Based on the video’s publish date and comments, it could be referring to people who have received COVID-19 vaccinations.

As of the issuance of this report, the video had been shared 41 times, and had received 27 likes on Twitter.

Fact-checking

A reverse image search on Yandex.ru, a Russian search engine, found several Instagram posts with similar videos published in 2019, including: one published Sept. 30, 2019; one published Oct. 2, 2019; and one published Dec. 6, 2019. Screenshot comparisons show that these videos document the same dissection experiment. The video published Sept. 30, 2019, claims to show the brain of patients with an intracerebral hemorrhage, not related to COVID-19 vaccinations.

Screenshot comparisons of the video discussed in the Twitter claim, the videos published Sept. 30, 2019, Oct. 2, 2019, and Dec. 6, 2019, respectively, on Instagram (from left to right).

According to the WHO website, SARS-CoV-2 was first identified after the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission in China reported a cluster of pneumonia cases Dec. 31, 2019. WHO characterized COVID-19 as a pandemic on March 11, 2020. According to an official WHO tweet published Jan. 12, 2020, the genetic sequence for the novel coronavirus was shared with the WHO and was submitted to the GISAID platform. The genetic sequence can be accessed by health authorities and researchers worldwide. This triggered intense global research and development activity to develop a vaccine against COVD-19, according to an article published in May 2020 on Nature. The first COVID-19 vaccine candidate entered human clinical testing March 16, 2020. Based on available information, the video began to circulate online as early as Sept. 30, 2019, which predates the discovery of the novel coronavirus and the first human clinical trial of the COVID-19 vaccine. Therefore, this video could not show the brain from someone vaccinated against COVID-19, nor does it indicate COVID-19 vaccines can cause cerebral thrombosis.