STUDY: If You Tweet AstraZeneca Vaccines Causes Blood Clots You’re Spreading Misinformation

A new biased study falsely accuses GreatGameIndia of spreading misinformation for tweeting on the AstraZeneca controversy. The study found that the spread of our tweets after the controversy began increased significantly.

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The Study

Recently, a study (read below) was conducted by researchers from Poland’s Kozminski University titled ‘#AstraZeneca vaccine disinformation on Twitter’.

One would assume that the study identified the spread of misinformation and its source based on the misleading title.

However, that is not the case.

Here is what GreatGameIndia told ThePrint on the issue.

The said research paper identified based on their methodology the spread of information on Twitter regarding AstraZeneca controversy.

Specifically, news reports “linked to in tweets retweeted more than 10 times before and after the news of alleged blood clots”.

It did be ridiculous and malicious to brand any news organization as spreading incorrect information based on an increased number of retweets in a specific duration. 

Biased conclusions of the Study

Although the misleading title of the study suggests to identify misinformation on AstraZeneca controversy on Twitter, that is not what the study identified nor was that its objective.

The only thing that the study looked into was an increase in the number of retweets in a specified duration. The tweets analysed include those from the period before the blood clot reports, and after.

Infact, one of the researchers even told ThePrint on email that the conclusion of the study:

“does not automatically mean the sites were spreading fake news about AstraZeneca. There was “also true information”.

“We are saying that there possibly were coordination efforts aimed at fear mongering.”

Since the researchers themselves are not clear about the study, we provide below for our readers a correct perspective to approach the subject.

PR exercise for AstraZeneca?

The basic tenet of the study was to identify a 10 times increase in retweets on Twitter after the AstraZeneca controversy began.

Now, there are two ways to interpret this data.

The first interpretation is how the researchers saw it – an increased activity after it was revealed that AstraZeneca vaccines were causing blood clots.

To get the full picture, we need to also account for the otherside of the argument that the data tells us.

The second interpretation is, why this very crucial information of public health and safety did not spread through traditional mainstream media the way it should like all other information does?

Why was this very important aspect of the study ignored by the researchers?

Heres how exactly AstraZeneca Vaccines cause Blood Clots

All of this is just diversion and distraction from the real question. So let’s just quit beating about the bush and deal with it.

GreatGameIndia is being targeted for extensively reporting on the AstraZeneca controversy with regards to its vaccines causing blood clots.

Do AstraZeneca vaccines cause blood clots? If it doesn’t than anyone saying so is spreading false information.

But if it does and many European countries have suspended AstraZeneca vaccine for it, than why would anyone who report it be branded as spreading disinformation?

Infact, German scientists have recently in a groundbreaking study showed exactly how the AstraZeneca vaccines cause blood clots.

Scientists in Germany say they’ve worked out the two-step mechanism by which the AstraZeneca vaccine causes rare but devastating blood clots that gobble up the body’s supply of platelets.

“This is, in my opinion, rock-solid evidence,” said Andreas Greinacher, MD, head of the Institute of Immunology and Transfusion Medicine, University Hospital Greifswald, Germany, who was among the first scientists in the world to link the rare clots to antibodies against a key protein in platelets.

Greinacher said that he believes the mechanism linking the vaccine with the rare clotting reactions is likely to apply to other vaccines that also use adenoviruses to ferry instructions for making the virus’s spike protein into cells.

In his new study, Greinacher and colleagues describe a series of events that has to happen in the body before the vaccines create these large clots. He explained that while everyone has the basic immune machinery that leads to the unusual clots, it is almost always kept in balance. The body uses a series of checks to prevent any step in the process from getting out of control.

Meanwhile, the US CDC and FDA have lifted their recommended pause on use of Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine with a condition that it will now include a safety label warning that its vaccine comes with blood clot risks.

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