Image copyright
SOPA Images
In the week that the University of Oxford announced promising results from its coronavirus vaccine trial, we are looking at claims on social media about the vaccines and misleading claims about their safety.
The anti-vaccination movement has gained momentum online in recent years, and anti-vaccination activists have focused on making claims related to the coronavirus.
Claim about the impact on DNA
First, a video containing inaccurate claims about coronavirus vaccine trials, made by osteopath Carrie Madej, who has proven popular on social media.
Carrie Madej’s video makes a false claim that the vaccines will change the DNA of the recipients (which contains genetic information).
“Covid-19 vaccines are designed to turn us into genetically modified organisms.”
It also claims, without any evidence, that vaccines “will connect us all to an artificial intelligence interface.”
- Coronavirus Vaccine: Could It Have Side Effects?
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there are 25 different candidate vaccines in clinical trials worldwide, but none of them will alter human DNA and contain no technology to link people to an artificial intelligence interface.
All vaccines are designed to elicit an immune response by training our bodies to recognize and fight the virus.
Carrie Madej makes a number of other false claims, including that vaccine trials “don’t follow any sound scientific protocol to make sure this is safe.”
“The new vaccines undergo rigorous safety checks before they can be recommended for widespread use,” says Michelle Roberts, BBC online health editor.
We have asked Carrie Madej to comment on these claims, but received no response at the time of publication.
Where has the video been shared?
It was first uploaded to YouTube in June, where it logged over 300,000 views, but has also been popular on Facebook and Instagram.
It is still circulating in the United States, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere.
Image copyright
AFP
There was a small protest in South Africa a week after a trial of the Covid-19 vaccine began in Johannesburg.
A scientist in South Africa, Sarah Downs, who writes under the alias Mistress of Science, said her mother alerted her to the video, whose prayer group had shared it.
The scientist sent her own discrediting information to this group and says: “Now they are much better informed, which makes me very happy, because they were all taken by that video.”
- Trials of the coronavirus vaccine in Africa: what you need to know
Complaints about the pace of vaccine trials.
When the preliminary results of the Oxford coronavirus vaccine study were released on Monday, the issue sparked much debate in the coronavirus-focused Facebook groups.
Some Facebook users posted comments saying they did not want the vaccine, as they felt they would be used as “guinea pigs” and that it had “rushed to produce at warp speed.”
While there may be safety concerns given the accelerated pace of development, Professor Andrew Pollard, head of the Oxford Vaccine Group, told the BBC that the rigorous safety processes included in all clinical trials were in place.
This includes safety reports to regulators in participating countries.
The trial has been so rapid in completing the first two phases due to the initial advantage provided by previous work on the coronavirus vaccines at Oxford, the acceleration of administrative and funding processes, and the great interest in the trial which meant that no time was spent searching for volunteers
- What is it like to be a vaccine volunteer?
As the test moves into its third phase, with the participation of thousands of more volunteers, all participants will be monitored for side effects. There were no dangerous side effects from taking the vaccine in the first two phases, although 16-18% of the trial participants who received the vaccine reported fever. The researchers said the side effects could be managed with paracetamol.
When the Oxford vaccine trial began, there was a claim that the first volunteer had died.
The story was quickly debunked by fact-checkers and BBC medical correspondent Fergus Walsh conducted an interview with the volunteer.
Claims about vaccines and Spanish flu
A meme circulating on social networks claims that vaccines were responsible for 50 million deaths during the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic.
But this is completely wrong.
First, as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control state, there was no vaccine at the time.
Scientists in Britain and the United States experimented with basic bacterial vaccines, but these were not vaccines as we would recognize them today, says historian and author Mark Honingsbaum.
This was “for the good reason that no one knew that the flu was a virus.”
- How they tried to stop the Spanish flu pandemic in 1918
There were two main causes of death: the initial flu infection or the huge, strong immune response that the virus triggered and that the lungs filled with fluids.
Additional reports from Olga Robinson, Shayan Sardarizadeh and Peter Mwai.
Read more about Reality Check
Send us your questions
Follow us on twitter
