Special Report: Top COVID-19 Vaccine Myths

The Top COVID-19 Vaccine Myths Spreading Online

by John GregoryLast updated 9/13/2021 at 2:40pm (ET)

Chine Labbe, Kendrick McDonald, Anicka Slachta, Sophia Tewa, Edward O’Reilly, and Aude Dejaifve contributed reporting.

Editor’s Note: This report was updated in November 2023 to update the list of false narratives and provide information about how NewsGuard’s full library of Misinformation Fingerprints related to COVID-19 can be accessed by companies and institutions interested in data access.

Scientists and researchers managed to produce vaccines to protect against COVID-19. Vaccine candidates have recently been approved in some countries and are in the approval process in others, yet misinformation about the safety and effects of any future vaccine is already threatening its rollout. In this report, we catalogue a sample of top myths about a COVID-19 vaccine that have appeared in NewsGuard’s ratings of more than 9,000 news and information sites worldwide.

NewsGuard’s Misinformation Fingerprints database contains a detailed dataset of all prominent COVID-19 myths spreading online–along with data seeds designed to detect and track each narrative. Request full data access here.

  1. MYTH: The mRNA vaccines being developed for COVID-19 will alter human DNA.
  2. MYTH: COVID-19 vaccines are not being tested against a placebo in clinical trials. 
  3. MYTH: The COVID-19 vaccine will use microchip surveillance technology created by Bill Gates-funded research.
  4. MYTH: Dr. Anthony Fauci will personally profit from a COVID-19 vaccine.
  5. MYTH: A new law in Colorado will force parents into a government-run re-education program if they refuse to give their children a COVID-19 vaccine.




MYTH: The mRNA vaccines being developed for COVID-19 will alter human DNA.

THE FACTS:

Several COVID-19 vaccine candidates rely on messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA), which carries genetic information needed to make proteins, according to the U.S. National Cancer Institute. These vaccines would instruct cells to produce a protein that resembles part of the COVID-19 virus, triggering the body’s immune system to respond and produce antibodies. 

MRNA vaccines are a new technology, but it is not possible for those vaccines to alter your DNA. “This cannot change your genetic makeup,” Dr. Dan Culver, a pulmonologist at Cleveland Clinic, told The Associated Press in September 2020. “The time that this RNA survives in the cells is relatively brief in the span of hours. What you are really doing is sticking a recipe card into the cell making protein for a few hours.”




MYTH: COVID-19 vaccines are not being tested against a placebo in clinical trials.

THE FACTS:

The final phase of clinical testing for COVID-19 vaccine candidates are Phase 3 trials, in which the vaccine is given to tens of thousands of patients. Researchers then compare how many patients become infected with COVID-19 compared to a separate group of patients who received a placebo, to determine the vaccine’s efficacy and safety. All 10 vaccine candidates that have begun Phase 3 trials as of Nov. 3, 2020, are being tested against a placebo, according to the World Health Organization




MYTH: The COVID-19 vaccine will use microchip surveillance technology created by Bill Gates-funded research.

THE FACTS:

There is no vaccine — for COVID-19 or otherwise — with a microchip or other surveillance feature. In December 2019, researchers at MIT, who had received funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, published a paper about technology that they developed that can keep a vaccination record on a patient’s skin with an ink-like injection that could be read by smartphone. The technology does not have the capacity to track patients’ movements, Kevin McHugh, a Rice University bioengineering professor who worked on the study while at MIT, told FactCheck.org. The Gates Foundation told FactCheck.org that the research is unrelated to COVID-19.

It is true that Gates has said that “digital certificates” could be used as part of a larger vaccination effort, but there is no evidence that he or his foundation has created technology to track recipients of a COVID vaccine. Digital certificates are used to send encrypted information online, and the Gates Foundation told Reuters: “The reference to ‘digital certificates’ relates to efforts to create an open source digital platform with the goal of expanding access to safe, home-based testing.”

Gates himself denied the claims during an interview on CBS News on July 22, 2020. “There’s no connection between any of these vaccines and any tracking type thing at all. I don’t know where that came from,” he said.




MYTH: Dr. Anthony Fauci will personally profit from a COVID-19 vaccine.

THE FACTS:

There is no evidence that Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), has personal investments in vaccines being developed for COVID-19. Fauci’s agency is working with pharmaceutical company Moderna on a potential vaccine — one of 202 that are currently in development, according to the World Health Organization — but PolitiFact found no record of a business relationship between Fauci and Moderna in an April 2020 search of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s database.




MYTH: A new law in Colorado will force parents into a government-run re-education program if they refuse to give their children a COVID-19 vaccine.

THE FACTS:

The School Entry Immunization Bill, signed into law by Colorado’s governor in June 2020, does not make any reference to COVID-19 or a COVID-19 vaccine. The law did toughen the state’s process for obtaining a religious or personal belief vaccine exemption, requiring parents requesting such an exemption to either submit a form signed by a health care provider, or complete what the law calls an “online education module” about vaccine science, produced by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.





Correction: An earlier version of this report inaccurately stated there were two severe cases of COVID-19 observed among the 36,000 people who received either the Moderna or Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. Only one severe case of COVID-19 was reported among vaccine recipients in either trial, both of which were published in December 2020, with the single instance coming in the Pfizer/BioNTech trial. NewsGuard apologizes for the error.

Correction: An earlier version of this report incorrectly listed the year a Reuters article about Christian Eriksen was published. It was 2021, not 2020. NewsGuard apologizes for the error.

Editor’s Note: This report was updated in November 2023 to update the list of false narratives and provide information about how NewsGuard’s full library of Misinformation Fingerprints related to COVID-19 can be accessed by companies and institutions interested in data access.