Patents mean deadly diseases and viruses were created or invented in a lab.
The claims originated from a post (archived here) published by Brian Edward on February 28, 2020. It opened:, AIDSUS-Patent 5676977, H1N1US-Patent 8835624, EbolaUS-Patent 20120251502, Swine FluUS-Patent CA2741523 A1, BSEUS-Patent 0070031450 A1, ZIKAATTC VR-84(Rockefeller Foundation), SARSUS-Patent 7897744 & 8506968, CoronavirusUS-Patent 10130701, Users on social media saw this:, , The post\s publisher said in the caption that these viruses and diseases "have been proven to be modified in a lab by humans." The claim is misleading, and this list of random patent numbers does not prove that the maladies were created in a laboratory., For example, the first patent number listed on the graphic has been the subject of several Internet claims that suggest the U.S. government owns a patent for the cure to AIDS, as Metabunk.org has reported. According to the site:, "1. Its not a cure for a AIDS. Its just a patent for some speculative use of colloidal sliver to zap the HIV virus which has never been shown to work.2. The government does not own the patent. Its owned by alternative medicine salesman Marvin S. Antelman\u200b", Scientists do not believe that HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, was lab-made. According to the AIDS Institute, they believe the virus originated in a type of chimpanzee that infected humans when they came into contact with their infected blood., Here are links to the other patents referenced on the graphic, and a description for what each actually represents:, Infodemic.blog is a website that tries to educate the public by separating fact from fiction related to the novel coronavirus. It has created a series of informational tweets about how to trace claims and find better coverage online. It advises that readers should be careful not to assume a list of patents explains the origins of anything:, "So we see this here as well -- youre not linked to a Vox explainer on what virus patents are about. Youre deep-linked directly to a patent that you have no training to understand, and told to interpret it directly, without guidance from experts. pic.twitter.com/1QwBIoThBk", , Lead Stories has reported on viral hoaxes and claims about patents before. The conspiracy theories likely stem from confusion about why someone would patent a virus. This used to be common practice until a few years ago because most researchers wanted to protect their discoveries and make sure nobody else could block the development of vaccines by claiming ownership of a particular virus. A Supreme Court decision in 2012 ruled, "Genes and the information they encode are not patent eligible under §101 simply because they have been isolated from the surrounding genetic material.", The ruling mostly ended the practice., Similar conspiracies related to patented viruses appeared in 2014 about Ebola, as debunked by Snopes. In 2013, there was also confusion about MERS virus patents., Regardless, a patent filing is not evidence of the origin of a virus or disease, and this graphic contains a lot of misleading information., Three more deaths in the United States were tied to the novel coronavirus on March 3, 2020, bringing the death toll in America to nine, as the global mortality rate increased to 3.4%, which compares to less than 1% for the flu, according to the Los Angeles Times. Worldwide, more than 3,000 deaths have been blamed on COVID-19, the name for the novel coronavirus., Other fact checks by Lead Stories concerning coronavirus misinformation include:, Lead Stories is working with the CoronaVirusFacts/DatosCoronaVirus Alliance, a coalition of more than 100 fact-checkers who are fighting misinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Learn more about the alliance here., "Ryan Cooper, a staff writer and fact-checker for Lead Stories, is the former Director of Programming at CNN International, where he helped shape the networks daily newscasts broadcast to more than 280 million households around the world. He was based at the networks Los Angeles Bureau. There, he managed the team responsible for a three-hour nightly program,\xa0Newsroom LA.", "Formerly, he worked at the headquarters in Atlanta, and he spent four years at the London bureau. An award-winning producer, Cooper oversaw the networks Emmy Award-winning coverage of the uprising in Egypt in 2011. He also served as a supervising producer during much of the networks live reporting on the Israel-Hezbollah conflict in 2006, for which CNN received an Edward R. Murrow Award.", Lead Stories is a fact checking website that is always looking for the latest false, deceptive or\n      inaccurate stories (or media) making the rounds on the internet.\n      \n      Spotted something? Let us know!., Lead Stories is a fact checking website that is always looking for the latest false, deceptive or\n        inaccurate stories (or media) making the rounds on the internet.\n        \n        Spotted something? Let us know!.
Fact Check: Patents Do NOT Mean Deadly Diseases And Viruses Were Created Or Invented In A Lab | Lead Stories