A viral Facebook post shared more than 1,700 times claims former President Barack Obama said he would not “allow white people to kill Africans with their toxic vaccines.”

Facebook/Screenshot

Verdict: False

There is no record of Obama making this statement. Obama has been publicly supportive of vaccines in the past.

Fact Check:

The viral post suggests that Obama called for Africans to not accept vaccines from the United States and Europe because they are part of a “Machiavellian plan.”

Here’s the full quote attributed to Obama:

I’ll be an accomplice if I don’t denounce this evil act white people want to do to Africans, first of all I was born in America but I’m African blood, I’m not going to allow white people to kill Africans with their toxic vaccines, I ask Africans to be smart, and to ensure that coronavirus vaccines do not enter African territories, there is a Machiavellian plan they invent, saying we come to help Africans, or that they will come to kill you, I will let this message be shared everywhere, to awaken African minds so that the vaccines do not arrive in Africa.

There is, however, no evidence that Obama ever made this statement. No news reporting could be found to corroborate the alleged quote. The Daily Caller News Foundation also searched Obama’s Twitter account and ProPublica’s archive of his deleted tweets, but didn’t turn up any matches.

The message contradicts Obama’s record on vaccines. In February 2015, he publicly encouraged parents to vaccinate their children, for instance. (RELATED: Did Ilhan Omar Say That ‘All White Men Should Be Put In Chains’?)

Katie Hill, his spokeswoman, confirmed to The Associated Press that Obama didn’t say the alleged quote and is pro-vaccination.

The quote stemmed from a recent controversy in which two French doctors suggested during a television segment that a tuberculosis vaccine be tested in Africa as a potential treatment for coronavirus, according to The Associated Press. The fake Obama quote started circulating around the same time the controversy received significant social media attention in early April.

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