mRNA vaccines aren’t gene editing and don’t alter your DNA
11 October 2021
What was claimed
If you’ve taken an mRNA Covid-19 vaccine, your genetic make-up has been changed, and this is confirmed in a video of World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab.
Our verdict
The mRNA in certain vaccines, like Pfizer and Moderna, has no way of altering your DNA.
What was claimed
There’s graphene oxide in the Covid-19 vaccines which reassembles in the body and becomes a “supercomputer” or “superconductor”.
Our verdict
There is no graphene oxide in the Covid-19 vaccines.
A video on Instagram has claimed that if you have taken an mRNA Covid-19 vaccine, that is gene editing, and your genetic make-up has been changed.
The person in the video points to an interview from 2015 with Klaus Schwab, the founder of the World Economic Forum, as evidence for these claims.
In the clip Mr Schwab says: “The difference of this fourth industrial revolution is, it doesn’t change what you’re doing, it changes you. If you take genetic editing, just as an example, it’s you who are changed and of course this has a big impact on your identity.”
The voice in the Instagram video seems to suggest that the clip means the Covid-19 vaccines that use mRNA technology “have edited you”. As we have written before, this is not the case.
Vaccines using mRNA technology, like those from Moderna and Pfizer, contain the genetic code for a spike protein on the virus’ surface. As the Vaccine Knowledge Project at Oxford University says, when the mRNA gets to the body’s cells, “the same machinery that is used to make our own proteins can make the spike protein.
“This mRNA has no way of getting into the nucleus where our DNA is. Even if it could, mRNA cannot fuse with DNA and as with our own mRNA, has no way of getting translated back to DNA. As such, there is no way for human DNA to be altered by an mRNA vaccine. This mRNA lasts a few days before the cell removes it, but in that time we have produced a lot of spike protein to stimulate the immune response.”
Covid-19 vaccines do not contain graphene oxide
The video also claims that it’s “proven” and “not a conspiracy theory” that there’s graphene oxide in the vaccines, which it says“reassembles in the body and becomes a supercomputer, a superconductor as well”.
We’ve already fact checked false claims that the vaccines contain graphene oxide. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency previously told Full Fact: “There is no graphene oxide in any of the authorised vaccines”.
This claim seems to originate from a thoroughly debunked paper from a professor at a Spanish university. The paper has not been peer reviewed or published in any reputable scientific journal and the University of Almeria, where the author reportedly works, has distanced itself from the manuscript.
There’s also no evidence that graphene oxide can do what the person in the video claims.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because the Covid-19 vaccine doesn’t alter your DNA and doesn’t contain graphene oxide.
*** This article has been archived for your research. The original version from Full Fact can be found here ***
