In this harrowing tale, “Steve Leary” claimed his son was vaccinated on Wednesday, January 12, fell ill shortly after and was taken to Westmead Hospital, where he was assessed and sent home five hours later.“Friday morning at 4am we heard him yell out, he was on his bedroom floor, he then collapsed,” Steve wrote.“My wife is heavily sedated in hospital … I am trying to hold everything together for our two-year-old daughter Sammy,” he posted.“I trusted the government … the government killed my boy!”This emotional story was quickly shared thousands of times on Facebook before the profile was taken down — something “Steve Leary” strangely predicted would happen.But that’s perhaps because there was one gigantic problem with his story. It never happened.Instead it was a sick scare campaign by anti-vaxxers trying to stop parents booking their children in for a jab.One anti-vax activist even told Facebook: “This has been verified to be TRUE by a friend of ours who has connections.”But there is no record of a Lachlan Leary who died in Sydney last week.Ambulance NSW has no record of a seven-year-old child dying of a heart attack in the back of an ambulance last Friday, or indeed any day this year.NSW Health checked with the hospital and said: “NSW Health has not been able to locate any record of any such incident.”Daily Telegraph – News Feed latest episodeIf a child dies of a suspected heart attack, the case is usually referred to the NSW Coroner but the office has confirmed there has been no such referral.The Therapeutic Good Administration also collates all adverse events associated with vaccines, and publishes deaths associated with vaccines — whether there is an established cause or not — in its weekly adverse events reports.“To January 18, the TGA has not received any adverse event reports involving the death of any children aged between 5 and 11 years,” it told The Saturday TelegraphNews of the event ran in Indian media, with a picture of Steve Leary that turned out to be the mayor of Winter Park in Florida.Reverse image searches found the profile picture on the fake Steve Leary Facebook page was from a fishing website in Panama.In January a similar fake news hoax claimed another seven-year-old named Allison Coleman died after a Covid vaccine.No such child has been identified and a reverse image search of the picture associated with the post does not match any existing on the internet.Allison Coleman is also fake news.Dr Kaz Ross, independent researcher into conspiracy theorists, said it was a ghoulish tactic by anti-vaxxers.“The kid doesn’t exist (but) it went around like wildfire,” Dr Ross said.“It would have been someone in the anti-vax world who believes that children are dying. They immediately believe this.“It is a new low and it’s ghoulish that they want evidence this is a genocide of children. On the one hand they think they are showing care and compassion but there is a sense of glee and delight because it proves their point.”Got a news tip? Email weekendtele@news.com.auNED-5192-DT-App-Banner
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