On May 7, 2023, a website called The People's Voice published a story claiming that Chelsea Clinton had said every child in America needed to be "force-jabbed" with vaccines.
The article claimed:
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.
Chelsea – via the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) – along with the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation says she hopes to force jab unvaccinated children via a new initiative called "The Big Catch-up."
The People's Voice article appeared to be the source of the rumor about Clinton. We found social media posts linking to the article on Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit. The People's Voice is a rebrand of Newspunch, a long-time and well-known producer of misinformation.
When I first saw this, I thought it was a joke. I was wrong. Wow. Just wow. https://t.co/ai6nT6XEJr
— Steve Kirsch (@stkirsch) May 8, 2023
The underlying claim in the People's Voice story, as well as the social media posts, was false. We found no evidence that Clinton said every U.S. child should get mRNA vaccines without parental consent.
It appeared to be based on remarks she made during a conference hosted by Fortune in April 2023, in which she promoted routine vaccinations of children globally to curb the spread of preventable viruses. At the event, she was promoting a public health initiative to vaccinate children against diseases such as measles and polio — not COVID-19 — globally, particularly in some countries outside of the U.S. where the rate of such immunizations remains low.
As far as the alleged quote from Clinton serving as the headline for the article by The People's Voice, we watched footage of Clinton's appearance at the Fortune conference from an article written by the publication, searched Clinton's social media accounts, and analyzed reputable news articles, and could not find evidence of Clinton saying anything resembling "It's time to force-jab every unvaccinated child in America." The headline appeared to be a fabricated quote.
"The Big Catch-up" is a real initiative led by the World Health Organization (WHO), Gavi, UNICEF, the Vaccine Alliance, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, according to an April 24, 2023, joint news release from the organizations. The initiative is focused on routine vaccines, which are recommended for all patients depending on age and vaccine history and aim to prevent outbreaks of diseases like measles, diphtheria, polio, and yellow fever.
The initiative was not related to the COVID-19 pandemic. "The Big Catch-up" is particularly focused on increasing immunization in countries where three quarters of children missed vaccines in 2021. The U.S. was not one of those countries. The press release also did not mention mRNA vaccines, which include most COVID-19 vaccines. While the news release said that the initiative would call on leaders of other countries to reach the children who had missed vaccines, it did not say that unvaccinated children from those countries would be "force-jabbed" or vaccinated without parental consent.
At the Fortune event that seemingly fueled the rumored statements about mandatory vaccinations, Clinton said the initiative's purpose was to "catch kids up on their routine immunizations." Like the press release, she did not mention mRNA vaccines, or parental consent, despite what The People's Voice article claimed she said. We found the remarks beginning at 3:09 in the video:
And the last thing I'll say is a new effort that we're a part of is the new initiative launched by the World Health Organization last week to try to catch kids up on their routine immunizations. In 2021 alone, more than 25 million kids under the age of one missed at least one routine immunization. And so we're working with WHO and the Gates Foundation and others to hopefully have the largest kind of childhood immunization effort ever over the next 18 months to catch as many kids up as possible. Because no one should die of polio or measles or pneumonia, including in this country, where we also need people to be vaccinating their kids.
In sum, the initiative cited by Clinton in an interview that was framed as her promoting forced mRNA vaccinations of children in the U.S.. was actually an effort to vaccinate children in countries with low immunization levels against viruses other than COVID-19. There was no evidence of the effort forcing vaccines on children without parents' approval. For those reasons, we rate this claim False.
We've fact-checked rumors that spread from The People's Voice before, including the false claim that the World Economic Forum ordered governments to begin rationing water.