A silly hoax is claiming that a worker has infected various Cadbury products with the HIV virus, and warns readers not to consume any Cadbury products for the next few weeks.
The hoax is spreading across social media and an example can be seen below.
This is the guy who added his infected blood to Cadbury products. For the next few week do not eat any products from Cadbury, as a worker from the company had added his blood contaminated with HIV (AIDS). It was shown yesterday on BBC News. Please forward this message to people who you care.
This is the latest variant of string of hoaxes that claim a disgruntled worker has infected products with the HIV virus. Previous variants of this hoax have made the same claims only replacing Cadbury with companies including Pepsi, Coca Cola and Dr. Pepper. Additionally baseless claims have also spread in the past claiming fruits such as bananas and oranges have been infected with the HIV virus. Another rumour claimed Anchor Butter products were infected with the HIV virus.
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This variant of the rumour suffers from the same fundamental flaw as its variants, in that the HIV virus does not survive for long outside of the human body, and as such any food item or drink exposed to the virus will render the virus ineffective over a short period of time.
The CDC (Center for Disease Control) has already address this rumour when it was targeted Pepsi products –
HIV does not live long outside the body. Even if small amounts of HIV-infected blood or semen was consumed, exposure to the air, heat from cooking, and stomach acid would destroy the virus. Therefore, there is no risk of contracting HIV from eating food
The photo of a man handcuffed that accompanies this hoax (as it did with a previous Pepsi hoax) has nothing to do with this nonsense. That photo shows Sadiq Ogwuche, a man arrested in connection with a bombing in Nigeria, 2014.
As usual the advice here is to please be careful when sharing information on the Internet; just because something you see on social media looks genuine, it doesn’t mean it is. This is a hoax.