Fact check: Image shows African children suffering from polio, not injured in vaccine trials

Emiliano Tahui Gómez, USA TODAY
·4 min read
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The claim: Photo shows African youths disfigured by vaccines

An image of the gruesome effects of disease has recently resurfaced on social media – as a rallying cry against vaccination.

Across platforms, a meme of a young group of disabled boys has circulated as purported proof of the risk of vaccination. Two boys lean on wooden crutches, and a third walks on all fours, with his rear jutting upwards.

“This was the results of the Vaccine trials on Africans. And no one has even answered for this,” reads a Jan. 26 Instagram post that accumulated more than 800 likes in a week. “Keep your Vaccines.”

But the boys’ symptoms are not the result of vaccine trials conducted on Africans. Instead, they are evidence of a near opposite – they are suffering injuries caused by polio since they didn't have access to the polio vaccine.

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The account that posted the meme could not be reached for comment.

A striking photo with a long life

The image used in this meme has long circulated online as a vivid depiction of the effects of polio. French photographer Jean-Marc Giboux took the photo in 1998 while on a trip to document the effects of polio commissioned by the World Health Organization.

Giboux confirmed this to the Associated Press in 2020.

“They were kids in a center for children affected with polio, and it was during the Sierra Leone civil war,” he told the news service.

Giboux’s personal website includes another image of what appears to be many of the same children.

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The center Giboux referenced is the Cheshire Home for the Handicapped in Freetown, Sierra Leone’s capital. Images of the Cheshire Home for the Handicapped show that children often wear ocean blue shirts with sky blue trim seen in the circulated image.

Conspiracies linking Bill Gates and vaccines resurface

The Instagram post in question also takes aim at Bill Gates, Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist. It claims he didn't vaccinate his own children but "is foaming at the mouth to vaccinate you and yours."

The claim that Gates, and his former wife Melinda, have not inoculated their children has circulated for years. And it's not true.

The Associated Press traced the claim to a 2018 piece by the online publication then known as YourNewsWire. That publication, which changed its name to NewsPunch.com, told AP it no longer stands by the story, having found its original sources illegitimate.

In 2019, Melinda Gates wrote on Facebook that her three children were "fully vaccinated."

USA TODAY previously debunked an array of claims linking Bill Gates to malfeasance, including claims that he is trying to implant microchips on a large scale, planned to block out the sun and predicted the COVID-19 pandemic in 2015.

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Our rating: False

Based on our research, we rate FALSE the claim that a photo shows African youths disfigured by vaccines. The image in question actually shows the consequences of not having vaccines, as it portrays children affected with polio in 1998 in Sierra Leone who weren't vaccinated for the disease.

Our fact-check sources:

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: Image shows African children suffering from polio