Why?

Well, I should probably explain Reuters Fact Check first.

Reuters Fact Check is one of the many disreputable fact-check organizations that Meta's Mark Zuckerberg cut ties with in January because, in his words, "The fact checkers have been too politically biased and destroyed more trust than they created, especially in the US." At the time, Zuckerberg cut financial links with Reuters Fact Check and about two-thirds of the entire fact checking industry.

Zuckerberg began to change his tune about fact checking last May after House Republicans released Meta's internal communications. Zuckerberg and other Meta executive were exposed complaining in texts and emails that the Biden White House pressured them to censor COVID topics, and they discussed fact checkers falsely labeling some posts as false.

Reuters launched their fact checking initiative in partnership with Meta back in 2020, claiming in a press release, "Reuters has a superior track record in sourcing, verifying and clearing user-generated content for distribution to thousands of clients globally and we are best placed in using our in-house expertise to fact check social media content."

Well, not really. Like all the fact check organizations, Reuters fact checks narratives, not facts. But before getting into any details, let's wind the clock back to 2022 when Dr. Kerryn Phelps testified before the Australian Parliament about her COVID vaccine injury.

"Regulators of the medical profession have censored public discussion about adverse events following immunisation," Phelps testified, "with threats to doctors not to make any public statements about anything that 'might undermine the government's vaccine rollout' or risk suspension or loss of their registration."

Laying out the details of how the COVID vaccine harmed her and her wife, Phelps explained that medical professionals dismissed vaccine injury, a point driven home by the venue for her testimony: an Australian government inquiry, not on vaccine injury, but on Long COVID. Phelps' credentials made it hard for fact checkers and pharma friendly reporters to shoot her down. She is a conjoint professor at the NICM Health Research Institute, the first woman elected president of the Australian Medical Association (AMA), and a former member of the Australian Parliament.

What became clear at the time, however, is that people injured by the COVID vaccine would only be taken seriously if they discussed their symptoms as a type of Long COVID. A group of Australian patients injured by the COVID vaccine called COVERSE submitted testimony to Australian Parliament that adverse reactions to COVID-19 vaccines could be mistaken for Long COVID, given significant overlap in symptoms.