False claims linking 'white clots' to mRNA vaccines resurface online in Thailand

Published on February 29, 2024 at 03:31
4 min read
By AFP Thailand

Health authorities said "white clots" are commonly found in bodies of the deceased, as opposed to false claims made by a Thai neurologist which linked the clots to mRNA Covid-19 vaccines. Social media posts shared the screenshots of the "white clots" falsely saying these were only found in bodies of mRNA Covid-19 vaccine recipients. Medical experts and national health authorities said these white blood clots have been identified in postmortem autopsies even before the emergence of Covid-19 vaccines.

"Unprecedented tentacle-like white clots have been found in mRNA vaccine recipients, either alive or dead," wrote Thai neurologist Dr Thiravat Hemachudha on Facebook on February 19, 2024.

Thiravat's post includes several images purported to be "white clots" taken from screenshots of YouTube videos credited to John Campbell, a British YouTuber and retired nurse who previously promoted misinformation about Covid-19 pandemic here, here, and here.

The post also cites late German researcher Arne Burkhardt, whose false claims about Covid-19 vaccines AFP has previously fact-checked here and here.

The post, which quickly spread across social media platforms, garnered over 8,500 likes and more than 7,300 shares.

Screenshot of the false Facebook post, taken February 27, 2024

Thiravat has since appeared on a popular news program to discuss these "new findings" of blood clots purportedly found in the bodies of people who have taken mRNA vaccines.

"Prior to the invention of vaccines this has never been observed before," he says during a televised interview on February 20, 2024.

The same claim also circulated on Thai social media here, here, and here.

The claim cited Campbell's YouTube videos such as here, here, and here, where he falsely links the discovery of white fibrous clots to bodies of vaccinated people during the Covid pandemic.

Screenshot of John Campbell's YouTube video titled 'White clots USA, Part 2'

According to health authorities in Thailand, the images shared in the false posts show something identical to what forensics classify as postmortem blood clots, which are not a new phenomenon.

Postmortem blood clots

Thailand's National Vaccine Institute issued a statement on February 21, 2024, clarifying that the white clots seen in the images are not related to mRNA vaccines (archived link).

"The images in the claim do not show a blood disorder caused by mRNA vaccination whatsoever," the statement reads. "It is only an aggregation of fibrin, key protein component of bloods, that occur after death (postmortem blood clot)."

The same statement continues, "It is a natural phenomenon commonly found in the bodies of the deceased. It also has been observed since before the Covid outbreak and the use of the Covid-19 vaccines."

Dr Atthasit Dul-amnuay, a forensic pathologist at Bhumibol Adulyadej Hospital, also concurred that the white clots are natural and are commonly found in deceased bodies.

"I always find such clots when I perform autopsy. It is not related to mRNA vaccines," Atthasit told AFP on February 27.

Similarly, Tany Thaniyavarn, a pulmonologist and medical instructor at Brigham and Women's Hospital -- a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School -- describes the clots' appearance featured on the false post as similar to typical postmortem blood clots.

"Its appearance is exactly like a postmortem blood clot," Tany said on February 23. "It doesn't have a rough surface like antemortem blood clots, so I have doubts about the claim."

Tany added that the presence of white blood clots in dead bodies could come from a number of causes including obesity, diabetes, cigarette smoking or even from a Covid-19 infection.

Covid vaccines and blood clots

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) and Health Canada have listed blood clots as a "very rare" side effect of certain Covid-19 vaccines such as viral vector vaccine AstraZeneca, but not specifically of mRNA vaccines. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported a minimal number of blood clot cases in relation to the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which like AstraZeneca, is also a viral vector vaccine (archived link).

The claim mirrors a previous incident where a US embalmer erroneously linked unusual blood clots to Covid-19 vaccines, a claim that was subsequently debunked by AFP in 2022.

David Smadja, professor of hematology at the George Pompidou Hospital in Paris, emphasized the absence of data indicating a risk of thrombosis -- a condition where blood clots block blood vessels -- with mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna, which are widely used in Canada and the United States (archived links here and here).

A study in The Lancet in 2021 also concluded that the risk of developing blood clots was significantly higher in patients with a Covid-19 infection than in those who received mRNA vaccines.

AFP has fact-checked other inaccurate claims about vaccines here.

Is there content that you would like AFP to fact-check? Get in touch.

E-mail