Did Japanese celebrities get sick as a side effect of the COVID-19 vaccine? No, that's not true: None of the celebrities mentioned in a post are claiming their illness is a side effect of Covid-19 vaccine.
The claim appeared on a TikTok video (archived here) where it was published on November 30, 2023. It opened (Translated from Japanese into English by Lead Stories staff):
Fumiko Nishikawa suffered from cerebral hemorrhage after vaccination and recurrence of cerebral hemorrhage. She is hospitalized with paralysis on her left side.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Fri Dec 15 12:09:27 2023 UTC)
In the comments, @joeyoqkvwi7 (archived here), the user who shared this post, wrote (Translated from Japanese into English by Lead Stories staff):
At the time of her first brain hemorrhage (August 2021), she denied that the vaccine was responsible for her illness, but in the past three years it has become clear that she has "brain hemorrhage due to vaccines." The autopsies of the deceased proves that the brain hemorrhage is caused by a vaccine. It would be strange not to suspect her.
Nishikawa, a doctor and a TV personality, announced on Instagram (archived here) that she was hospitalized for a brain hemorrhage on August 17, 2021. In her October 6, 2021, post (archived here), she clearly denied COVID-19 vaccine was the cause of her hemorrhage.
The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare states that post-vaccination illnesses may occur accidentally, but even if an illness occurs after vaccination, this alone does not mean that the illness was caused by the vaccine.
According to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare:
At present, there have been no reports confirming that people who have been vaccinated with the coronavirus vaccine used in Japan are more likely to develop such serious illnesses than those who have not been vaccinated.
The user @joeyoqkvwi7 has been continuously posting anti-vax claims with celebrities who have fallen ill in recent years.
Another example is Mao Takahashi. She announced on her blog that she had a vocal cord edema and had to take steroids to continue working. @joeyoqkvwi7 added the sentence, "Three times vaccinated" to Mao's announcement and posted the news on TikTok (archived here) on December 15, 2023.
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Fri Dec 15 12:25:12 2023 UTC)
Chocolate Planet Matsuo, a comedian, was diagnosed with diverticulitis. The user, @joeyoqkvwi7, posted the TikTok video (archived here) on December 15, 2023, and commented: "If you get vaccinated, you won't be able to fight back against the bacteria in your intestines, and you'll develop diverticulitis".
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Fri Dec 15 12:31:14 2023 UTC)
Additional Lead Stories fact checks of claims about COVID-19 vaccines can be found here.
