Claim: CNN reported that Ebola has been found in packages of hair extensions.
Example: [Collected via e-mail, 2014
It was reported, on facebook, supposedly from a tv news article, that Ebola was found in packages of hair extensions.
Received a clip via text message, showing CNN news anchors (Anderson Cooper and another) discussing how Ebola has been found in numerous packages of hair extension in the US. Is this true?
Origins: In mid-October 2014, in the midst of great public concern in the U.S. over the spread of Ebola, a rumor began making the rounds of social media claiming that a news outlet had reported on the Ebola virus being found in packages of hair extensions. Such rumors were bolstered by a purported screenshot of a CNN news segment on that subject:
It was all a prank, however: Neither CNN nor any other news outlet reported on an instance of Ebola turning up in packages of hair extensions. The accompanying image was an altered screenshot of a CNN report from several days earlier on a related, but distinctly different, subject: anchorman Anderson Cooper's interview with a subject in Monrovia, Liberia, discussing whether Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, was aware that he had been exposed to the Ebola virus before boarding the airplane that brought him to the U.S. from Liberia.
Last updated: 11 October 2014