The Amy Bruce ‘Make A Wish Foundation’ Hoax
A chain email is circulating that claims the Make A Wish Foundation will donate money every time a message is circulated to a girl called Amy Bruce who has lung cancer.
An example from 2017 that spread across Facebook can be seen below –
Hi, my name is Amy Bruce. I am 7 years old, and I have severe lung cancer . I also have a large tumor in my brain, from repeated beatings. Doctors say I will die soon if this isn’t fixed, and my family can’t pay the bills. The Make A Wish Foundation, has agreed to donate 7 cents for every time this message is sent on. For those of you who send this along, I thank you so much, but for those who don’t send it, what goes around, comes around. Have a Heart. send this to 15 people
The warning is a hoax. In fact this particular hoax has been circulated since 1999 – only back then it was spreading primarily in the form of chain emails that urged recipients to forward the message to their email contacts.
Like many persistent hoaxes, this one has since made the transition from email to social media, where it can now be spotted being passed on through sites like Facebook.
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From what we can determine, the 7 year old Amy Bruce does not exist, and even if she did, she would now be 25 years old in 2017. Not only that, but charities do not condition donations on how viral a message goes across the Internet. This is a common theme with online hoaxes, which have been making these kinds of assertions for decades. For example, the classic Bill Gates is giving his fortune away hoax.
Over the years, this Amy Bruce hoax has taken on a number of different variants. Some are reworded, while some come attached to images or graphics apparently depicting young Amy Bruce. However they are all hoaxes.
We recommend not spreading this hoax any further and just maybe we can put this ruse to bed for a final time!
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