Oregon station didn't report that McDonald's, Moderna teamed up | Fact check

The claim: Oregon TV station reported Moderna, McDonald’s partnership to distribute McNuggets for ‘bird flu shots’

A July 9 Instagram post ( direct link , archive link ) shows what appears to be the headline of a news story on an Oregon TV station’s website about a supposed collaboration between a vaccine maker and a fast-food chain.

“BREAKING: Moderna has Partnered up with McDonnalds to Give Free Chicken McNuggets For the First Recepients of their ‘Bird Flu’ Shots (sic),” the headline, supposedly from KGW-TV in Portland, Oregon, reads.

The post’s caption states, “Yes, this is real life.”

It received more than 1,500 likes in a week.

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A director at KGW-TV said the station did not publish the report. The image is a fabrication. There is no credible evidence of any Moderna-McDonald’s partnership related to the bird flu vaccine.

Image contains several clues it is fabricated

The Instagram post alludes to incentives offered in 2021 after the COVID-19 vaccines became widely available in which businesses and states offered free food , drinks and chances at lottery jackpots for people who chose to get vaccinated. It also appears to refer to the $176 million in federal funding granted to the vaccine maker Moderna in July to develop a vaccine to fight bird flu, which has been detected in several U.S. states.

But the image referencing free food for recipients of a bird flu vaccine is fabricated. KGW-TV in Portland, Oregon, did not publish a story about the purported partnership between Moderna and McDonald's, said Celeste Ruiz , the station’s director of digital content.

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There are no reports from credible media outlets about the restaurant chain offering any incentives for recipients of the bird flu vaccine. Nor have there been any announcements of a collaboration from either McDonald's or Moderna .

A closer look at the image reveals several clues that it is a fabrication.

The image contains a watermark with the name of a social media user who first posted it to X, formerly Twitter, on June 21 . The user, who routinely promotes anti-vaccine views in meme format , posted a separate meme days later that also referenced the Portland station's website.

Two words in the headline – “McDonald’s” and “recipient” – are also misspelled. And the image in the post includes a timestamp that indicates the headline supposedly was posted at “11:59 p.m. EST” on June 21. But timestamps on the station’s website are posted in Pacific time , not Eastern.

Text in the image falsely claims Moderna said the vaccine had a “107% efficacy” that lasts “three days after waiting two weeks from your third dose.” That’s nonsense. The maximum efficacy of a vaccine is 100% . And the drugmaker has not yet said how many doses will make up its regimen. In announcing the federal grant, officials say late-stage testing for the vaccine isn’t expected to begin until 2025 , pending the results of earlier testing.

USA TODAY reached out to the Instagram user who shared the post but did not immediately receive a response. The X user who shared the original image could not be reached.

Our fact-check sources:

• Celeste Ruiz , July 16, Email exchange with USA TODAY
• McDonald’s, accessed July 17, McDonald's News and Announcements
• Moderna, accessed July 17, News And Blog Posts
• @_APWK_ (Internet Archive), June 21, X post
• KGW-TV, June 21, Car dealerships are being disrupted by a multi-day outage after cyberattacks on software supplier
• KGW-TV, June 21, June moon: Here's when to watch for the 'strawberry moon' in Portland
• The New York Times, March 3, 2021, What Do Vaccine Efficacy Numbers Actually Mean?
• Reuters, July 2, Bird flu concern prompts US to award Moderna $176 million for vaccine development

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Oregon station didn't report that McDonald's, Moderna teamed up | Fact check