A fresh claim has emerged stating that Nazis invented Lyme disease on the orders of the US government. The claim maintains that Nazi scientists created bacteria that cause Lyme disease on Plum Island in the 1970s following the orders of the US government.
The claim first appeared in a Facebook post through a video, which has a TikTok logo.
The video begins says: "Was Lyme disease a man-made virus? If you're into conspiracy theories, this one's pretty interesting. And to understand this theory, we have to go back to the end of World War II, when the United States secretly recruited Nazi scientists to help with America's security interests."
Video Claims US Hired Nazi Virologist Erich Traub?
A narrator in the video made the claims that Washington had hired a former Nazi virologist Erich Traub to create biological weapons using insects. Later, Traub was sent to Plum Island to assist the US Army in creating bioweapons.
"Through that work, the bacteria that causes Lyme disease escaped the laboratory and was discovered in 1975 in Lyme, Connecticut," the narrator made the claim in the video.
However, the video didn't attribute to any source of information. Also, there's no link original TikTok video to justify its claims.
Researchers at Yale School of Medicine have previously revealed that the bacterium that causes Lyme disease Borrelia burgdorferi existed in the northeastern region of the United States for at least 60,000 years.
Claims Made in Facebook Post Are False
Researchers' findings suggested that the bacteria existed well before the humans came to North America from Bering Strait.
With the claims of researchers of the Yale School of Medicine, the Facebook post's claim appeared to be false. But a top disease control body's comments were also sought over the matter.
"Periodically, rumors arise that implicate the laboratory at Plum Island as the source of Lyme disease in North America. The Plum Island facility was constructed in 1954, in an effort to safeguard against diseases that could damage the US livestock industry. Research indicates that the bacteria that cause Lyme disease existed in the US long before the facility was built," Centre for Disease control told the Lead Stories with regard to the matter.
