Argentine boy’s death not related to vaccination, despite social media claims

Social media posts are attempting to draw a connection between the COVID-19 vaccine and the death of a 4-year-old boy in Argentina because of his appearance in an advertising campaign encouraging vaccinations. 

Several Instagram posts have shared a screengrab of a headline from the conservative news website The Western Journal that read, "Poster boy for vaccination campaign dies suddenly at just 4 years old." 

Captions on the posts did not link to the full story and implied the boy’s death was linked to vaccinations, specifically the COVID-19 vaccine. One post shared Nov. 13 featured hashtags mentioning Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration. 

Another said, "We need a modern-day Nuremberg trial! What they did to these innocent children can not be overlooked."

The posts’ claims appear to be based solely on the headline and not the article itself, which reported that the boy died of pneumonia. 

The Instagram posts were flagged as part of Instagram’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

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Multiple Argentine news outlets reported that Santino Godoy Blanco died Nov. 3 after coming down with a fever and being admitted to a local hospital. An autopsy determined Blanco died from bilateral pneumonia, which involves infection of both lungs. 

Blanco was featured in a recent advertising campaign from the Argentine Ministry of Health encouraging childhood vaccinations against measles, mumps, polio and rubella. The campaign was unrelated to the COVID-19 vaccine.  

We rate the claim that the death of the 4-year-old poster boy from a vaccination campaign is linked to vaccines False.