A post circulating on social media is false, claiming that Japan has declared that ivermectin is more effective than immunizations in the fight against the new coronavirus. According to a video published with the fake message, the Asian country “is more inclined to recognize vaccine injuries and seek other treatment options compared to other developed nations”, which is also not true.
The recording, verified by the Comprova Project, is an excerpt from a video that says that Japan will replace the vaccine with ivermectin, an antiparasitic drug that, according to the narrator, has become a treatment option and can be used as a cure against Covid-19. 19. However, there is no scientific evidence that the drug works against the disease.
Sought by the report, the Japanese Embassy in Brazil said that “there is, so far, no approval process for ivermectin as a drug for the treatment of Covid-19 in the country”. In addition, the Japanese government, on its website, contrary to what the verified content claims, recommends that people get vaccinated.
False, for Comprova, is all content invented or that has undergone edits to change its original meaning and deliberately disclosed to spread a falsehood.
Scope of publication
The post verified here had until July 14, 2022: 14,800 likes, 298 comments and more than 4,700 shares.
what does the author say
The publication was made by a profile on Twitter that does not allow sending messages. The report located the author on Instagram and tried to contact him, but there was no response until the publication of this text.
How do we check
To obtain the information, Google searches were carried out that led to the websites of the Ministry of Health and the Pharmaceutical and Medical Devices Agency (PMDA) of Japan. In these links, it was possible to check the drugs released and the vaccines used to fight the coronavirus in the country.
Comprova also contacted the Japanese Embassy in Brazil by email. In addition to answering questions in the report, the agency sent links to official pages linked to the local government where it is possible to obtain information about vaccines and treatment of the disease. For general data on the pandemic in the Asian nation, the team consulted the Japanese Ministry of Health website and Our World in Data.
japan and ivermectin
“The government of Japan has not mandated the use of ivermectin as a treatment for Covid-19 instead of vaccination. There is currently no approval process for ivermectin as a drug for the treatment of Covid-19 in Japan,” he said. ao Comprova the Japanese Embassy in Brazil.
The antiparasitic is also not on a list of drugs approved for the treatment of coronavirus, according to a list of substances approved by the PMDA. In the same list it is also possible to check the immunizers that are used and accepted in the country.
According to the PMDA page, the drugs approved for Covid-19 by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare of Japan, after March 2020, with scientific review by the agency are: Redemvisir, Baricitinib, Casirivimab/imdevimab (combined use) , sotrovimab, molnupiravir, tocilizumab, and nirmatrelvir/ritonavir also given together.
The video
At the top right of the video appears a logo that, in a Google search, showed to be from TFI Global (The Frustrated Indian), an Indian communication company.
On its website, the corporation says that 8 million people per month read articles published in English or Hindi on the TFI Media website, and that about 30 million people watch videos on the platform.
The company claims to have been created to provide an alternative narrative to conventional news outlets and that it exists to change the global narrative.
The recording opens with a voice saying that “Japan has said, loud and clear, no to the big pharmaceuticals’ vaccination campaigns with one small but remarkable step.” According to the content, the world has discarded ivermectin “unceremoniously so far, but Japan has demonstrated that the drug can be used as a more effective cure and can be a permanent replacement for vaccines” against Covid-19.
The reason why countries do not disclose that the antiparasitic drug would be the cure is, still according to the video, because the nations signed an agreement with the pharmaceutical Pfizer for the purchase of vaccines. “Even if a cure for Covid-19 is found, the contract cannot be void,” says the narrator.
Ivermectin and Covid
“The use of ivermectin for Covid-19 is not provided for in the package insert and the off-label use (when a drug is used for a treatment different from that recommended in the package insert), so far has not had the support of regulatory agencies, as well as the manufacturer. of the drug”, says the most recent technical note found on the Anvisa (National Health Surveillance Agency) website in relation to the drug, from March 2021.
The document also highlights that results “do not seem to be sufficient to support the recommendation for the use of ivermectin in the treatment of patients with Covid-19, and the WHO recommendation for ivermectin to be used only in clinical research protocols seems to be adequate. “.
In the drug leaflet, it is explained that ivermectin is a drug that acts against several species of parasites and worms.
pandemic in japan
According to official data from Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, the country has reported 9,790,789 domestic cases of Covid-19 as of July 13. The number of confirmed deaths related to the disease was 31,437 as of the same date. In addition, another 31,170 deaths remain under investigation.
Japanese health authorities have already approved the use of four immunizers from different pharmaceutical companies: Pfizer, approved in February 2021; Moderna and Astrazeneca, in May 2021; and Novavax, in April 2022.
Pfizer’s vaccine aimed at the public aged between 5 and 11 was approved in January this year, according to the ministry.
Although it faced difficulties in starting vaccination, having approved the first immunizer only in February 2021, about two months after countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States and a month after Brazil, currently Japan is among the countries that immunized the most. . According to Our World in Data, a website of the University of Oxford (England) that monitors data related to Covid-19 in the world, 81.25% of the Japanese were vaccinated with at least two doses until the last day 11 of July. According to the platform, the percentage of partially immunized people is 82.35%.
The author of the post
On social media, the profiler claims to be an economist and entrepreneur. He defines himself as “terribly Christian and enthusiastic about Brazil”.
On his Twitter account, created in January of last year, he shares several posts with criticism of the pre-candidates for the presidency Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) and Simone Tebet (MDB), as well as praise for the speeches and attitudes of President Jair Bolsonaro ( PL) and government actions, such as the reduction of ICMS in the states.
On Instagram, the last publication dates from June 2020 and is a repost by Bolsonaro. No other checks or news about the economist were found.
As previously reported, he was contacted by the report, but did not respond.
Why do we investigate?
Comprova investigates suspicious content about the pandemic, presidential elections and public policies of the federal government that went viral on social media. The post verified here brings risk to the population by lying about the use of ivermectin against Covid. The content is also dangerous for claiming that vaccines are not safe — so far, they are one of the most effective tools against the disease.
At least since November 2021, other agencies have already checked content that claimed that Japan was going to bet on ivermectin against Covid, such as AFP Checamos, Lupa, Fato or Fake, from G1, Yahoo, Estadão Verifies and Reuters.
The antiparasitic also appeared in several checks by Comprova, such as the post that deceives when relating its distribution to the control of the pandemic in the state of India and the content that erroneously states that the University of Oxford found “strong indications” of the drug’s effectiveness against to Covid. The vaccine was the subject of other verifications of the project, such as the video that lies in claiming that it causes cancer and is related to shingles.
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