Did Reuters news agency report that Poland, Sweden and Norway filed a lawsuit against the World Health Organization for infecting Europe with a chemical sprayed from airplanes that causes pneumonia? No, that's not true: The recycled claim involving the WHO, so-called chemtrails and the three European countries has been previously debunked by Reuters. A far wider conspiracy involving so-called chemtrails has also been widely debunked, showing that high-flying jet exhaust vapors are not trails of chemical substances deliberately dispersed in the sky to poison populations below.
The claim reappeared in a video on TikTok (archived here) on December 6, 2023. The caption (translated from Croatian to English by Lead Stories staff) read:
Extraordinary! Poland, Sweden and Norway are suing the WHO for infecting Europe. This was reported by Reuters. The detained pilots admitted that they sprayed with a chemical that causes chemical pneumonia!
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Sun Dec 10 18:02:50 2023 UTC)
In a January 2021 debunk, Reuters wrote:
There is no evidence that Poland, Sweden and Norway are suing the WHO for 'infecting Europe' with chemical pneumonia. Reuters did not report this story, nor did any other reputable news source. Posts feature mislabeled, old photos of aircraft and barrels and refer to a debunked conspiracy theory of 'chemtrails'.
The photograph used in the post is from May 19, 2006, and was taken at the former McClellan Air Force Base in Sacramento, California. It shows an Evergreen International Airlines aircraft that was scrapped from service in 2014, performing a controlled airdrop of a liquid used by fire tankers. with a white vapor trail behind it.
Chemtrails are the subject of many conspiracy theories claiming that governments are releasing toxic chemicals from airplanes to poison the population for nefarious purposes. Lead Stories has published several fact checks addressing false claims about chemtrails.
