Chelsea Clinton did not say it’s time to ‘force-jab’ unvaccinated children

CLAIM: Chelsea Clinton said, “It’s time to force-jab every unvaccinated child in America.”

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. There is no evidence of Clinton ever making such a comment, and a spokesperson confirmed she has not. The fabricated quote stemmed from a website that is known to publish false news and misinformation. Clinton recently spoke at a conference on a new global health initiative called “The Big Catch-Up,” which aims to boost childhood vaccination rates, but does not involve mandatory immunization and will not focus on the U.S. .

THE FACTS: Social media users are sharing a screenshot of a baseless article with a headline reading: “Chelsea Clinton: ‘It’s Time To Force-Jab Every Unvaccinated Child in America.’”

“Chelsea Clinton has declared that unvaccinated children in America must be forced to take the mRNA jab with or without parental consent,” reads one Twitter post that shares the headline. The post has more than 19,000 likes as of Tuesday. The headline was also shared on other platforms, including Instagram.

The headline came from a website called The People’s Voice, which was previously known as News Punch. The website has published numerous stories based on conspiracy theories and has promoted fabricated information and quotes in the past.

The article itself is based on real remarks Clinton made at a recent conference on global health, where she spoke about the Clinton Health Access Initiative, a nonprofit founded by her father, and a new global initiative it’s working with called “The Big Catch-Up.”

The joint effort between the World Health Organization, UNICEF and other partners aims to boost routine vaccination among kids, which fell off during the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to rising rates of measles, polio and yellow fever, according to a WHO press release announcing the initiative. The campaign will focus on 20 countries, which does not include the U.S. as the headline falsely claims.

At no point during her speech did Clinton say that kids should or would be forcibly vaccinated.

Sara Horowitz, a spokesperson for Clinton, confirmed in an email to The Associated Press that Clinton did not say, “it’s time to force-jab every unvaccinated child in America.”

“She did not say this but very much believes (and did say) that no one should die of polio or measles or pneumonia including in this country where we also need people to be vaccinating our kids,” wrote Horowitz.

Daniel Epstein, a WHO spokesperson, pointed to the organization’s press release, and added: “There are no mandatory vaccinations associated with this effort.”

Instead, the campaign aims to boost vaccination rates by “working with countries to strengthen health care workforces, improve health service delivery, build trust and demand for vaccines within communities, and address gaps and obstacles to restoring immunization,” the release states.

The People’s Voice did not immediately return a request for comment.

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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.