Fact Check: Hoax Message Claiming Infected Blood in Cadbury Products

Recently once again on various WhatsApp groups, a picture & text is being shared a lot. It shows a man being caught by police and claims that Cadbury products have been contaminated by a worker of the company, with his HIV (AIDS) infected blood.

WhatsApp Message Text:
“This is the guy who added his infected blood to Cadbury products. For the next few weeks do not eat any products from Cadbury, as a worker from the company has added his blood contaminated with HIV (AIDS). It was shown yesterday on BBC News. Please forward this message to people who you care.”

NARRATIVE ON SOCIAL MEDIA

These types of hoax messages are being shared by mischievous people to create confusion in the minds of readers. Online this kind of message has been shared in many countries.
This kind of hoax and fake claims that foodstuffs from pineapples to canned goods to soft drinks have somehow become contaminated with HIV/AID has been prevalent for many years.
This claim relating to confectionery company, Cadbury, started appearing in 2018. It’s actually a reworked hoax, with Pepsi cold drinks being targeted previously.

This hoax message has been debunked by various sites including fact-checking sites such as Snopes, AfricaCheck, Boom Live, The Quint have already written extensively on this hoax message. Few of these articles are given below for our readers to better understand this story:

Snopes
AfricaCheck
Boom Live
The Quint

In India, few more pictures were clubbed with this hoax picture and shared across WhatsApp:

*** Warning: Few of the pictures displayed below might be offensive to our readers, please be aware***

OUR FACT CHECK

Fact Crescendo team did a fact check on this issue. We did Google Reverse Image search & Google search of the message text and found many references online.

We found the following:

• First & foremost, HIV does not survive long outside the human body (such as on surfaces), and it cannot reproduce outside a human host. It is not spread by:
  • Mosquitoes, ticks, or other insects.
  • Saliva, tears, or sweat that is not mixed with the blood of an HIV-positive person.
  • Hugging, shaking hands, sharing toilets, sharing dishes, or closed-mouth or “social” kissing with someone who is HIV-positive.
  • Other sexual activities that don’t involve the exchange of body fluids (for example, touching).

Our readers can read more about this topic here. So, spreading of HIV through contamination of foodstuff is NOT possible as per World Health Organisation (WHO).

• This fake message is being shared around on WhatsApp groups and online from last few years in many countries.
• This claim relating to confectionery company, Cadbury, started appearing in 2018. It’s actually a reworked hoax, with Pepsi cold drinks being targeted previously.

• Most of the people who share or view these images are confused as to what is real and what is fake.
• To help them we have given few pointers below:

  1) We uploaded the image to Tineye.com to trace the image back to its original source. Our readers can see the result here. We found that this image actually showed extradition of Aminu Ogwuche to Nigeria from South Sudan.  Aminu Ogwuche was accused of masterminding the 14 April 2014 bombing of a bus park in Nyanya, a suburb of Nigerian capital Abuja. The blast killed 71 people and injured 124 people.

  2) Our readers can know more about this arrest reading the articles below:

  Daily Post
  Vanguardngr
  independent.co.uk
  Pulse.ng

  3) We used Tineye.com to search on various other pictures being used along with this hoax message and found the following link:

  Nairaland : These images have been uploaded by someone named ‘Tyup’ on Nairaland Forum.

  The Prepperpages : Picture refers to a case study from Journal of Indian Association of Pediatric Surgeons, Vol. 16, No. 4, October-December, 2011, pp. 155-157

  Awsimages.detik.net.id

  IN CONCLUSION

  Fact Crescendo team tags these kinds of posts as Fake. These kinds of hoax posts or messages will be shared across by many people using WhatsApp and other social media applications again & again. But we as readers should be aware of the reality of these kinds of messages, as to what they really are – just Fake.

  Fact Crescendo advises its readers to refrain from falling prey to unsubstantiated & misleading WhatsApp forwards and social media posts. When in doubt, visit various news media & fact checking websites online.

  Dear Readers,

  Do you feel that a certain story is fake? Do you know some additional factual details about a claim being shared on social media?

  Then you can submit that claim or news here, for our team to verify and fact check for you.

  Thanks,