HOAX — HIV Infected Blood Added to Anchor Butter Products

According to a message that is circulating rapidly via social media,  a person has added HIV infected blood to Anchor butter products in the UK.

The post features an image of a handcuffed man being escorted by police. It warns you not to eat any Anchor Butter products for the next few months because of the supposed contamination.

The message claims that the warning was aired on BBC news yesterday and asks that you forward the information to the people you care about.

However, the message is just a nasty hoax. No such contamination has occurred. There are no reports about the supposed incident on the BBC website or any other credible news outlet.

In fact, the message is just a revamped version of two very similar hoaxes that falsely claim that HIV infected blood has been added to Pepsi beverages and Cadbury chocolates.

The image in the hoax post of the man being arrested was stolen from a 2015 Arabic language news report about crime in London and has no connection whatsoever to any food contamination incident.

Arla Foods, who distribute Anchor Butter products in the UK, has confirmed that the message is a hoax via Twitter:

I can confirm this is a hoax and there is no truth to the fake news being circulated.

— Arla Foods UK (@ArlaFoodsUK) February 28, 2018

HIV Infection Cannot Be Caused By Contaminated Food

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the US states that it has never received any reports of HIV infections caused by contaminated food. The CDC also explains that people would not become infected even if they did consume food or drink that contained HIV infected blood:

In an article about HIV transmission, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) notes:

You can’t get HIV from consuming food handled by an HIV-infected person. Even if the food contained small amounts of HIV-infected blood or semen, exposure to the air, heat from cooking, and stomach acid would destroy the virus.

The CDC further explains:

HIV does not survive long outside the human body (such as on surfaces), and it cannot reproduce outside a human host.

Don’t Perpetrate These Hoaxes By Sharing Them

Sharing these false health warnings will do nothing to help people.  Such hoaxes only spread fear and confusion and unfairly malign the companies they target.

If one of these fake HIV contamination messages comes your way, do not keep the hoax alive by sharing it. And let the person who posted it know that the message is a hoax.

An example of the hoax:

These guy added HIV infected blood in the Anchor butter production in Westbury Dairy UK. for next few months please don’t eat  any Anchor  butter. It was shown on BBC news yesterday, please forward these to people who you care.