A lengthy and popular Facebook post attributed to an alternative medical doctor makes several misleading claims about the new coronavirus vaccines. The post also erroneously claims that the vaccine contains toxic ingredients like aluminum, mercury “and possibly formaldehyde,” and then concludes that, ultimately, receiving the shot is more harmful than contracting the disease itself.
A lengthy and popular Facebook post attributed to an alternative medical doctor makes several misleading claims about the new coronavirus vaccines. Among them: that the new mRNA vaccines can alter human DNA (that’s Pants on Fire); that we don’t need a vaccine because we’ve reached significant herd immunity (we haven’t); and that anyone who has had COVID-19 would not benefit from the vaccine (not true). The post also erroneously claims that the vaccine contains toxic ingredients like aluminum, mercury “and possibly formaldehyde,” and then concludes that, ultimately, receiving the shot is more harmful than contracting the disease itself. “Here’s my bottom line: I would much rather get a COVID infection than get a COVID vaccine,” reads the post, which accompanies an image of a man wearing a white physician’s coat. “That would be safer and more effective.” Two problems: The list of ingredients cited in the post appears to be pulled from thin air. And a mountain of evidence shows that getting infected with the virus is far more dangerous than the vaccines. The vaccines have been studied for months and have been proven to be safe and effective in tens of thousands of people. COVID-19, by contrast, has killed over 1.6 million people around the world. The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. When the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine received emergency use authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Dec.11, its ingredient list was published online in a fact sheet for recipients and caregivers. The list includes mRNA, lipids, salts, sugar and saline solution. None of the supposedly toxic ingredients listed in the Facebook post appears in the list. The mRNA used in the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines represent a new vaccine technology, but the research behind it has been underway for some time. “It’s not a novel strategy,” said Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “This particular notion of using messenger RNA in a vaccine has been around for 20 years. This is just the first product to get above the water to become a commercial project.” Traditional vaccines introduce an inactivated or weakened version of a virus for the body to fight against. By contrast, Pfizer and Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines use messenger RNA, which is a fragment of the virus’ genetic material.
