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CLAIM: Klaus Schwab, the founder of the World Economic Forum, wrote a book that included a passage about a plan to kill billions of \u201cuseless eaters\u201d through war, disease and starvation.<\/p>\n

AP\u2019S ASSESSMENT: False. The passage comes from a book promoting conspiracy theories written by an author called John Coleman. <\/span><\/p>\n

THE FACTS: An image featuring a page from a book has circulated across Facebook, Twitter and TikTok in recent weeks, with one large paragraph highlighted. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAt least 4 billion \u2018useless eaters\u2019 shall be eliminated by the year 2050 by means of limited wars, organized epidemics of fatal rapid-acting diseases and starvation,\u201d the passage reads in part. The paragraph goes on to detail forms of mass extermination and brutal population control, and also includes racist references to Chinese and Japanese people. <\/span><\/p>\n

A caption at the bottom of the image attributes the book to Schwab, who has published several books since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFor those of you that don\u2019t know here\u2019s that ambitious page from Klaus Schwab\u2019s book,\u201d the caption reads. \u201cMake sure you read it all the way through, he\u2019s obviously the voice of deep state.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

But the page matches text in Coleman\u2019s 1992 book, \u201cThe Conspirators\u2019 Hierarchy: The Committee of 300,\u201d according to a version archived and republished online in 2017 by the Central Intelligence Agency. <\/span><\/p>\n

The highlighted paragraph appears on page 103 of Coleman\u2019s book. On the prior page, Coleman falsely attributes it to \u201c<\/span>The Open Conspiracy<\/a><\/span>,\u201d a utopian manifesto written by science fiction author H.G. Wells. The \u201cuseless eaters\u201d paragraph does not appear in \u201cThe Open Conspiracy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The phrase \u201cuseless eaters\u201d was <\/span>invoked by Nazi propaganda<\/a><\/span> advocating for the murder of disabled people, according to the United States Holocaust Museum.<\/span><\/p>\n

The World Economic Forum, known for its annual conferences in Davos, Switzerland, has long been the <\/span>subject of conspiracy theories<\/a><\/span> \u2014 in particular, its \u201c<\/span>Great Reset<\/a><\/span>\u201d initiative, a post-pandemic economic plan championed by Schwab.<\/span><\/p>\n

The WEF did not immediately respond to a request for comment. <\/span><\/p>\n

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This is part of AP\u2019s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. <\/span>Learn more about fact-checking at AP<\/a><\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n