Cadbury Chocolate Eggs Are Infected With HIV-Positive Blood-Fiction!
Summary of eRumor:
Warnings spread across social media about Cadbury products being infected with HIV-positive blood in the weeks leading up to Easter, when many Cadbury products are purchased.
The Truth:
False reports about food being tainted with HIV have become somewhat common in recent years. False claims that Cadbury products are infected with HIV became the latest variation of the rumor in spring 2018.
The post includes a photo of a handcuffed man and stern warning about Cadbury products being infected with HIV or Aids. A caption states: “This is the guy who added his infected blood Cadbury products. For the next few week(s) 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 (about).”
First, BBC didn’t report that Cadbury products were contaminated with HIV. Second, the man pictured in the photo is Aminu Ogweche, a Nigerian terrorist who was the mastermind of a bombing attack in April 2014 that killed 75 people. By all accounts, Ogweche never worked for Cadbury and has not been diagnosed with HIV or Aids.
The same photo of Ogweche was used in a separate false claim that a Pepsi worker tainted Pepsi products with HIV-infected blood in August 2017. We’ve also investigated false rumors about blood oranges, bananas, canned foods and ketchup being infected with HIV. None of them are true.
And, according to nonprofit Aid for AIDS, it wouldn’t possible to contract HIV from Cadbury products, blood oranges or any other type of food or drink. That’s because HIV is a “very fragile virus” that needs the human body as a host to survive. Removed from the body “HIV can’t survive,” the group states, “in minutes, it will die and be harmless.”