Lighthouse Journalism found a video where a few cows could be seen dead. It is being claimed in the post that the cows died after the Italian government gave them a Covid-19 vaccine.
We found in our fact check that the viral claim is false.
Claim:
Twitter user Project TABS shared the viral video on profile.
Check the archive version here.
Other users too are sharing the same claim.
Investigation:
We started our investigation by uploading the viral video in the InVid tool. After obtaining some keyframes we searched the internet for the image.
We found an article in Arabic uploaded 10 months ago. The article when translated mentioned that a video clip showed the death of hundreds of cows in Italy, due to the drought that the country witnessed. Italy is suffering from its worst drought in 70 years.
We also found a post on Facebook by Akhbar Al Aan, a media channel.
We then searched on the internet using some keywords and checked for some news reports about the incident.
We found one on ansa.it.
The report said 50 grazing cows were fatally poisoned by sorghum.
We also found a news report in The Straits Times. The report said: The Piedmontese cattle on the farm in Sommariva del Bosco, near Turin in northwest Italy, died suddenly due to acute prussic acid poisoning on Aug 6, according to the local IZS animal welfare body. This acid comes from dhurrin, which is naturally present in young sorghum plants, although not in the same high concentrations as those found in samples taken at the site.
This article was published on August 19, 2022.
Nowhere did we find reports stating that Italy gave Covid-19 vaccine to the cows.
Conclusion: The viral video showing dying or dead cows did not happen due to Covid-19 vaccine. The cows died due to acute prussic acid poisoning on Aug 6 in 2022.
