ASA upholds Full Fact complaint about misleading vaccine advert

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has ruled an advert containing misleading Covid-19 vaccine information breaches their rules, following a complaint by Full Fact. 

In its judgement, published today, the ASA concluded that the advert should not be published again.

The ASA upheld all four of the issues Full Fact raised with the advertisement,  including how it “misleadingly presented data” and was “socially irresponsible”.

Misleading medical claims used in the advert include “There are NO long-term studies on the effects of the Covid vaccine, so your reports are vital for the future vaccine safety of others.” and that “mRNA vaccines have never previously been used on humans”.

The ASA also agreed that the advert gave the misleading impression that it had been approved by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

Full Fact was initially made aware of the situation by a reader who had found the advert in a local newspaper, the Forest of Dean and Wye Valley Review. Following a public request for help, Full Fact supporters found the advert in two more newspapers in the south of England, the Forester, and the Cheltenham Post.

Throughout the pandemic, we’ve seen first hand how Covid-19 misinformation puts lives at risk.

Regulators and the media have a duty of care towards the public, and we’re pleased that the ASA has taken action as a result of our complaint. But readers of these local papers deserved better. The ad repeated a series of already debunked and dangerous false claims - it shouldn’t have been allowed to run in the first place.

Access to good, reliable health information has never been more important. No one should be profiting from false information.