Sarah Palin's statement voted 'Lie of the Year'

Former United States vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin has won the dubious honour of telling the biggest political 'Lie of the Year'.

A panel of experts chose her claim -- that the Barack Obama administration was planning to introduce 'death panels' -- as the most misleading statement of 2009, the 'PolitiFact.com' reported.

The claim set political debate afire when it was made in August, raising issues from the role of government in health care to the bounds of acceptable political discussion. In a nod to the way technology has transformed politics, the statement wasn't made in an interview or a TV advertisement. Palin, 45, posted it on her social networking site 'Facebook' page.

"My parents or my baby with Down syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide whether they are worthy of healthcare," Palin wrote at the height of the debate over President Obama's proposed plans to reform the US healthcare system.

According to the website, Palin's statement on her Facebook page generated a huge controversy and was mentioned almost 6,000 times over the next two months. But, the website claimed that it found there were never any plans to introduce the so-called 'death panels'.

Even the portal's readers overwhelmingly supported the decision. Nearly 5,000 voted in a national poll to name the biggest lie, and 61 per cent chose 'death panels' from a field of eight finalists.