Besides their penchant for peddling fake news, NDTV and its journalists are also notorious for indulging in faux outrage in their bid to target the Modi government. Recently, NDTV Vishnu Som took to Twitter to cast aspersions on the shelf life of Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin.
Som quoted a tweet by a user who had shared a picture of a letter extending the shelf life of COVID-19 vaccines to insinuate that children in schools are being experimented upon by administering them with expired stocks of Covaxin doses.
“So my son went to get his first vaccine, the drive for kids begin today and realized that the vaccine had already expired in November. Then a letter was shown wherein it seems the shelf life has been extended!! How, why, on what basis? To clear stock you experiment on kids?” the tweet by Navanita Varadpande read, along with the picture of the aforementioned letter.
Without checking the veracity of her claims, Som presumptuously reacted to her allegations by quoting her tweet and asking Union Health Minister Dr Mansukh Mandaviya if the formal notification clearing expired vaccines for use on children could be released.
As it turns out, the extension of the shelf life of Covaxin from 6 months to 12 months was not a recent phenomenon. It took place more than two months ago, in the first week of November 2021, after the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO), India’s national regulatory body for drugs, granted Covaxin the approval of an extension of shelf life based on “additional data” accessed by it.
“This approval is based on the availability of additional stability data, which was submitted to CDSCO. The shelf life extension has been communicated to our stakeholders,” Bharat Biotech said in a statement issued then.
And more importantly, NDTV was one of the media organisations that covered the news about the extension granted to Bharat Biotech’s COVID-19 vaccine. The report on NDTV was published on November 3, 2021, exactly two months ago.
Yet, in his haste to attack the central government and accuse them of compromising the health of the country’s children, Som did not bother to check reports published by his own media organisation to ascertain if the allegations peddled by the Twitter user held water. Instead, he recklessly propagated her unfounded fears that the government was palming off their expired vaccines by extending the shelf life of Covaxin.
Netizens take a dig at NDTV journalist for casting aspersions against Centre without checking reports published by his own organisation
Many social media users were quick to remind Som that the extension of shelf life for Covaxin was already granted and the news about it was also covered by his own organisation. Some of them took a swipe at the NDTV journalist for not trusting his own organisation which they claimed was prone to spreading fake news and misinformation.
There was an article explaining this two months back Vishnu. But if you cannot rely on the alleged media outlet that carried it, I fully understand. https://t.co/QszZz42tZ8 pic.twitter.com/ycNAvbYvL3
— Ajit Datta (@ajitdatta) January 3, 2022
This website says it’s already granted . Oh wait it’s NDTV https://t.co/tcOWlqZuZG
— Anoop (@AnoopChathoth) January 3, 2022
Don’t even read or trust your own channel 🙂 pic.twitter.com/vqhRLPslHa
— Viveka Shenoy 🇮🇳 (@vivekashenoy) January 3, 2022
The vaccination for children in the age group 15 to 18 has started from today, i.e January 3, 2022. PM Modi, in his address to the nation on December 25, 2021, announced that vaccination against COVID-19 for children belonging to the age group of 15 to 18 will start from January 3 while precautionary COVID-19 dose for frontline and healthcare workers will commence from January 10, 2022.
