The World Health Organization has classified vaccine related misinformation into five topic areas. These are: threat of disease (vaccine preventable diseases are harmless), trust (questioning the trustworthiness of healthcare authorities who administer vaccines), alternative methods (such as alternative medicine to replace vaccination), effectiveness (vaccines do not work) and safety (vaccines have more risks than benefits). No ingredients in vaccines, including
thiomersal, have been found to cause autism. The incorrect claim that vaccines cause autism dates to a paper published in 1998 and has since been retracted. The article was partially retracted by
The Lancet as of March 6, 2004, after journalist
Brian Deer raised issues including the possibility of severe research misconduct, conflict of interest and probable falsehood. The paper was fully retracted as of February 2, 2010, following an investigation of the flawed study by Britain's
General Medical Council which supported those concerns.
The British Medical Association took disciplinary action against Wakefield on May 24, 2010, revoking his right to practice medicine. There are some indications that people with autism may also tend to have gastrointestinal disorders like an unusually shaped intestinal tract and micro bacteria alterations. However, multiple large-scale studies of more than half a million children have been carried out without finding a causal link between MMR vaccines and autism. In traditional vaccines, the virus is
attenuated (weakened) and thus it is not possible to contract the disease, while in newer technologies like
mRNA vaccines the vaccine does not contain the full virus. • False:
Vaccines can cause harmful side effects and even death: Vaccines are very safe. Most adverse events after vaccination are mild and temporary, such as a sore throat or mild fever, which can be controlled by taking
paracetamol after vaccination. In 2020, as
COVID-19 numbers rose and vaccinations started to roll out, the misinformation around vaccines causing infertility began to circulate. The false narrative began that
mRNA vaccine-induced antibodies which act against the
SARS-CoV-2 spruce protein could also attack the placental protein
syncytin-1, and that this could cause infertility. There is no evidence to support this. A joint statement of the
American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the
American Society for Reproductive Medicine, and the
Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine clearly states “that there is no evidence that the vaccine can lead to loss of fertility”. There are numerous studies and surveys that purport to show an association between vaccines and a range of conditions: from ear infections and asthma, to ADHD and autism; however most of the studies have been retracted, or are unpublished, and the surveys are non peer-reviewed. One of the studies in question
Alternative remedies to vaccination Responding to misinformation, some may resort to complementary or
alternative medicine and
homeopathy as an alternative to vaccination. Those who believe in this narrative view vaccines as 'toxic and adulterating' while seeing alternative 'natural' methods as safe and effective. Some of the misinformation circulating around alternate remedies for vaccination include: • False:
Eating yoghurt cures human papillomavirus: • False:
Nosodes are an alternative to vaccines: There is no evidence supporting
nosodes' effectiveness in preventing or treating infectious diseases.
Vaccination as genocide Misinformation that forced vaccination could be used to "depopulate" the earth circulated in 2011 by misquoting
Bill Gates. There is misinformation implying that vaccines (particularly the mRNA vaccine) could alter DNA in the nucleus. mRNA in the
cytosol is very rapidly degraded before it would have time to gain entry into the cell nucleus. (mRNA vaccines must be stored at very low temperatures to prevent mRNA degradation.)
Retrovirus can be single-stranded RNA (just as
SARS-CoV-2 vaccine is single-stranded RNA) which enters the cell nucleus and uses
reverse transcriptase to make DNA from the RNA in the cell nucleus. A retrovirus has mechanisms to be imported into the nucleus, but other mRNA lack these mechanisms. Once inside the nucleus, creation of DNA from RNA cannot occur without a
primer, which accompanies a retrovirus, but which would not exist for other mRNA if placed in the nucleus. Thus, mRNA vaccines cannot alter DNA because they cannot enter the nucleus, and because they have no primer to activate reverse transcriptase.
Vaccine components contain forbidden additives Anti-vaxxers emphasize that the components in vaccines such as
thiomersal and
aluminum are capable for causing health hazards. Thiomersal is a harmless component in vaccines which is used to maintain its sterility, and there are no known adverse effects due to it. Aluminium is included in the vaccine as an adjuvant, and it has low toxicity even in large amounts.
Vaccines are part of a governmental/pharmaceutical conspiracy The
Big Pharma conspiracy theory, that pharmaceutical companies operate for sinister purposes and against the public good, has been used in the context of vaccination. The theory states that vaccines have unusual substances in them and that they are only made for an increase in profit.
Vaccine preventable diseases are harmless There is a common misconception that vaccine-preventable diseases such as
measles are harmless. However, measles remains a serious disease, and can cause severe complications or even death. Vaccination is the only way to protect against measles.
Personal anecdotes about harmed individuals Personal anecdotes and sometimes false stories are circulated about vaccination. Misinformation about vaccines and the falsified
links between vaccinations and autism have been spread, including claims that people died due to
COVID-19 vaccines. Through the spread of
false media, civilians are led to incorrectly believe that vaccinations are the leading cause of autism, even though autism occurs during fetal development, not after the mother has given birth. A child's potential placement on the spectrum can be influenced by factors such as genetics, the environment, metabolic disorders, epigenetic mechanisms, and the mother consuming medication while pregnant that should not be consumed during pregnancy. Individuals who refuse to be vaccinated put themselves at risk of being exposed to—and contributing to the spread of—diseases and infections with harmful long-term effects that may cause death. Of the many experiments performed regarding the links between vaccinations and autism, none of them have conclusively proven such a link.
Other conspiracy theories Other conspiracy theories circulated on
social media have included the false notion such as; • False:
Polio is not a real disease and the symptoms are actually due to DDT poisoning: The first major documented polio outbreak in the United States occurred in 1894 in Vermont. In the early 20th century, a
polio epidemic started in the west causing 6,000 deaths and leaving 27,000 people paralyzed. In 1954,
the Salk Institute created the
polio vaccine putting an end to the epidemic and saving millions of lives. The incorrect theory that polio was related to
pesticide poisoning predates the discovery of the polio vaccine. It was proposed in 1952 by Dr. Ralph R. Scobey in an article in the
Archives of Pediatrics. Scobey argued that there were similarities between the symptoms of polio and various types of poisoning, and suggested that polio outbreaks might be more likely to occur during the summer and be related to consumption of fresh fruit and vegetables. they are not dangerous in the way that Scobey believed them to be, as a cause of polio. Studies have clearly demonstrated causal relationships showing that polio is caused by a virus. Vaccines have proven effective in preventing the disease and eliminating wild poliovirus in most parts of the world. • False:
The COVID-19 vaccines contain injectable microchips to identify and track people: This conspiracy theory started circulating in 2020 claiming the
COVID-19 pandemic was a cover for a plan to implant trackable microchips and
Bill Gates, co-founder of
Microsoft, was behind it. A
YouGov poll conducted in 2020 suggested that 28% of Americans believe in this conspiracy theory. The origin of the theory is a long-term effort of
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on sponsoring research on vaccinating people by pricking skin with an array of a large count of sharp microneedles coated with a vaccine, as well as with some fluorescent ink. The needles were made of silicon using the
similar technology integrated circuits are made. Any piece of silicon resulted from this technology is called a "chip", be it an
integrated circuit, a
MEMS device, or something else. So the theory has arisen from the confusion of different meanings of the word "chip". In the series of research papers, the chip is just pressed against the skin with a finger to make the needles prick the skin, then the vaccine coating and fluorescent ink are transferred from the needles into skin, then the chip itself is disposed of. The ink is meant to leave a
tattoo that could be visualized by irradiating the dye with the light of certain wavelengths, this way allowing to check if the tattoo was made, which is useful in the contexts when vaccination is compulsory and using more low-cost and secure alternatives like database lookups of
ID card or
biometrics is infeasible due to lack of infrastructure like power grid and Internet connectivity. So the chip is neither meant to be implanted, nor can physically fit into a syringe needle, as the conspiracy theory suggests. == CDC as source of vaccine misinformation ==