Fact check: News report about monkeypox wastewater testing, not drinking water contamination

Kate S. Petersen, USA TODAY
·4 min read

The claim: Video implies a TV station reported monkeypox in Georgia drinking water

As monkeypox proliferates in the U.S., some social media users are wrongly implyingthat a local news broadcast reported monkeypox contamination in the Fulton County, Georgia, drinking water supply.

A part of a July 26 WSB-TV Channel 2 news broadcast, recorded as it aired on a television, is visible in a widely disseminated 34-second video clip.

The clip shows reporter Audrey Washington holding a plastic water collection bottle and reporting from outside of the Fulton County Camp Creek Water Reclamation Facility. The chyron displayed on the broadcast says "Monkeypox Outbreak."

In an Aug. 9 Facebook post, the video is titled, "They are putting monkey pox in the water."

A voice, presumably belonging to the person recording the video from the television set, says, "Monkeypox in the water," and "They put something else in the water."

The video was viewed 10,000 times in a week.

But the implied claim here is false. The original WSB-TV Channel 2 news broadcast was not about monkeypox in drinking water, according to an executive producer at the station. Instead, the report was related to a wastewater surveillance program initiated to detect monkeypox outbreaks.

USA TODAY reached out to the Facebook user who shared the post for comment.

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News broadcast about wastewater monitoring effort, not drinking water contamination

Patrick Person, a Fulton County water quality manager, told USA TODAY the social media post was inaccurate.

"Monkeypox was NOT discovered in or added to the drinking water," he said in an email. "The drinking water is 100 percent safe."

During the news clip featured in the social media post, Washington does not mention drinking water, but references wastewater twice.

Brad Stone, a special products executive producer at WSB-TV, told USA TODAY that the news broadcast shown in the social media post was about wastewater monitoring and did not involve drinking water.

"The social media post is not accurate saying (monkeypox) was found in drinking water," he said in an email. "They are just monitoring wastewater."

Stone said the July 26 broadcast was related to a Fulton County wastewater monitoring initiative.

In a July 25 press release, the county said the program would screen for both monkeypox and coronavirus in wastewater.

"Through regular testing of the wastewater, the county ... can measure the amount of the viruses and see whether the levels are increasing or decreasing within the area served by the treatment plant," reads the press release.

The press release said the testing would occur at the Camp Creek Water Reclamation Facility, which is where Washington was filmed during the WSB-TV broadcast. The press release did not mention drinking water.

Person said county wastewater is sampled to test for viral DNA, which can be shed through skin lesions, urine or feces.

Stone said an archived version of the WSB-TV broadcast shown in the social media post had not been posted on the WSB-TV website. However, a different version, as well as a written version of the story, can be viewed on the website. Both reference wastewater, not drinking water.

Fact check: Altered image falsely attributes erroneous monkeypox claims to BBC, WHO and CDC

Our rating: Missing context

Based on our research, we rate MISSING CONTEXT the implication that a TV station reported monkeypox in Georgia drinking water. The broadcast was related to a Fulton County wastewater testing initiative and did not mention drinking water. Monkeypox has not been found in the Fulton County drinking water supply, according to a county water quality manager.

Our fact-check sources:

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Our fact-check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: News report about wastewater testing, not drinking water

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