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News of the development of more than 90% effective vaccines against the SARS-CoV-2 virus has brought not only a glimmer of hope for the end of the pandemic, but also new concerns about side effects, global conspiracies or the fear of being inoculated with substances that change the biological structure. Several BBC scientists have dismantled the widespread rumors and conspiracies about COVID vaccines.
Researchers with whom BBC reporters discussed analyzed the most widespread fears about vaccines, from injecting microchips to remodeling the structure of DNA.
The vaccine and the change in DNA structure
One of the fears generated by the COVID vaccine is that it will change the DNA of vaccinated individuals. Three independent scientists consulted by the BBC rejected this hypothesis.
Some of the vaccines developed to combat coronavir, such as those developed by Pfizer – BioNTech or Moderna, use fragments of genetic material from the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the so-called mesager ARN.
‘The injection of RNA does not affect the DNA of the human cell at all,’ said Professor Jeffrey Almond of the University of Oxford.
This type of vaccine instructs the body to make a protein found on the surface of the coronavirus. The immune system then learns to recognize it and to make antibodies against the protein.
It is not the first time that these fears have arisen that a vaccine could change a person’s DNA. People complain about this vaccine-based technology mesager ARN so far it has not been tested and approved.
This is true, but several studies have been conducted on the use of mRNA-based vaccines in recent years. Since the start of the pandemic, this vaccine has been tested on tens of thousands of people and has undergone rigorous approval processes, according to researchers consulted by the BBC. Also, monitoring of those inoculated will continue after the vaccine is approved for use.
Bill Gates’ microchips
One of the conspiracy theories claims that the pandemic is the pretext for a secret plan to implant microchips to track people and that behind it is Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has rejected this theory, reports the BBC.
The rumors began to spread in March when Bill Gates said in an interview that in the future “we will have some sort of digital certificate” that will be used to keep track of who has been treated, who has been tested, who has been vaccinated. . However, he did not refer to microchips.
One of the most cited articles published after this interview was entitled: “Bill Gates will use microchip implants to fight the coronavirus”. The article referred to a study funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on a technology by which a person’s vaccination history could be stored in special ink, which would be administered by injection.
The technology is not a microchip, but rather an “invisible tattoo”. It has not yet appeared, it will not allow people to be located, and it will not store personal information of wearers, said Ana Jaklenec, a scientist who took part in the study.
This is not the only conspiracy against Bill Gates. Despite the lack of evidence, a May poll of 1,640 people showed that 28% of Americans believe Bill Gates wants to use the vaccine to implant microchips in people.
Vaccine with tissue of fetuses
Another theory is that the vaccine contains tissue from the lungs of an aborted fetus. And this is false.
“Fetal cells are not used in any vaccine produced,” said Dr Michael Head of the University of Southampton.
A video posted on one of the most followed anti-vaccine Facebook pages refers to a study that, according to the narrator, shows what the vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford is made of. But the narrator’s interpretation is wrong: the study in question talks about how the vaccine behaves when inoculated into human cells in the laboratory.
Confusion can arise because during the process of creating a vaccine there is a stage where cells grown in the laboratory are used – cells from embryonic cells that would otherwise have been destroyed. The technique was developed in the 1960s and no fetuses were aborted to use this study.
Many vaccines are developed in this way, says Dr David Matthews of the University of Bristol, adding that any trace of the cell is removed following a very careful process, at “extremely high standards”.
Oxford University researchers said they worked with cloned cells and these cells “are not cells from aborted fetuses.”
The cells function like a plant that produces a very weak form of the virus, which has been adapted to function like a vaccine. But even if the weakened virus is created using cloned cells, the cellular material is removed when the virus is purified and not used in the vaccine.
The false myth of healing
Another argument against the vaccine is that what it is used for, as the mortality rate caused by the coronavirus is very low.
OR meme spread on social networks states that the cure rate after COVID is 99.7% and that it is safer to contract the disease than the vaccine.
First, the percentage is incorrect. About 99 percent of people with COVID survive, says Jason Oke, a statistician at the University of Oxford.
So about 100 in 10,000 people who contract the disease die, well over 3 in 10,000, since the to invite.
Jason Oke added that in all cases the risks are very age dependent and do not take into account the “short and long term morbidity caused by COVID”.
Plus, it’s not just about survival. For every patient who dies, there are others who survive but undergo hospital treatment, and some remain long-term sequelae.
This leads to enormous pressures on health systems, which are overcrowded with COVID patients, drastically reducing the ability to treat other conditions.
Publisher: Bogdan Pacurar
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