NUcheckt checks messages for their reliability. This time, we’re looking at the claim that the future corona vaccine will permanently change your DNA. This is incorrect.
NUcheckt was asked via email whether a Facebook message claiming that a possible corona vaccine is damaging your DNA is correct. The message was already posted online in August, but has been reshared at least a dozen times in recent weeks. We also see these kinds of claims on Twitter.
They don’t add up. The kind of vaccine that is said to be able to damage your DNA, an RNA vaccine, is not chemically capable of doing this.
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Where is it from?
The Facebook message sent to NU.nl consists of a short text claiming that the corona vaccine damages your DNA and that 700,000 people will die from the future corona vaccine, and a video.
The video is from the German language Wailing Wall TV, an online channel on which conspiracy theories about, for example, Bill Gates, the corona virus and 5G are regularly shared. Wailing Wall TV was founded by Ivo Sasek, who, according to several German media is the leader of a Swiss Christian sect.
The video claims that Gates said there will be 700,000 cases of “vaccine damage” from the corona vaccine. This is not correct: the fact checkers of news agency AP previously noted that the Microsoft founder never said this. He just said that potential corona vaccines should be properly investigated, as rare side effects can affect many people when the entire world’s population is vaccinated.
How do RNA vaccines work?
In addition, the video states that the future vaccine will cause your DNA to change and that you will be “genetically modified” after vaccination. This is also incorrect.
You can imagine the DNA as a kind of cookbook containing almost all your hereditary information. For example, your DNA contains the recipe for the color of your eyes. DNA is contained in the nucleus of all cells in your body. In the video of Wailing Wall TV are warned that RNA vaccines permanently alter this DNA. Among the ten potential corona vaccines now in the final phase of research are two RNA vaccines.
RNA vaccines contain a piece of genetic information that, unlike DNA, is not a complete cookbook, but just the recipe for a signature protein of the coronavirus: the antigens. This piece of genetic information is encased in a package of fats so that it can enter human cells. Once in the cell, this package ensures that coronavirus antigens are produced.
In response to the coronavirus antigens, the immune system produces antibodies against the coronavirus. If the vaccine works properly, you are protected by these antibodies if you later encounter the actual corona virus.
RNA vaccine does not change your DNA
But how can we be sure that your DNA will not be changed by these types of vaccines? Flemish researchers contributed an article explains that the genetic material in an RNA vaccine does enter human cells, but not the nucleus where the DNA is located. That’s one of the reasons these types of vaccines don’t change your DNA.
Robert Carnahan, a vaccinologist at Vanderbilt University in the United States, added earlier ScienceFeedback explains that the chemical makeup of the pieces of genetic information in RNA vaccines is so different from the chemical makeup of human DNA that it is impossible to incorporate into the DNA. If the vaccine cannot be incorporated into your DNA, it cannot change your DNA.
Finally, the genetic material from the vaccine only remains in your cells for a relatively short time. After the antigens have been produced, they are broken down relatively quickly, according to Carnahan.
Have you also seen a message or statement that you doubt the correctness of? Mail to [email protected] and we will get started.
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