Social media users are sharing a video that makes a series of false allegations about mRNA vaccines designed to combat COVID-19. These include claims that mRNA vaccines are not technically vaccines, that they were developed to control the population and that they have never been tested.
Posts that share the track can be seen (here) and (here) and contain a man making the unfounded allegations. He also says he is in Israel, which has so far given 53% of the population of 9 million at least one dose of Pfizer / BioNTech shot (here).
“It’s not a vaccine in the right international medical definition,” the man said. “It’s a synthetic remedy, it’s not tested, it’s not tried either.” (time code – 1.10).
He then claims that the vaccine was created for the purpose of ‘population control’, adding: ‘The religious say that this vaccine comes from God. No, it’s from Bill Gates, it’s from the World Economic Forum. Their goal is, Bill Gates, if you study its entire history, it’s about population control. ”(Time code – 3.55)
The first claim, that the mRNA COVID vaccine is not a vaccine, has already been dismissed by Reuters. This is because vaccines, despite their different types, all follow the same definition (here).
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), for example, explains that a vaccine is a product that stimulates the immune system to produce immunity against a disease, which ultimately protects the person against the disease (here). This is also how mRNA vaccines work, albeit in a different way than previously seen.
Traditionally, vaccines often use an attenuated or inactivated form of a virus that responds to the immune system when injected. However, the mRNA vaccine for COVID-19 generates the same response by instructing cells in the body to create the protein that surrounds the virus itself (here).
Second, it is not true to say that the Pfizer-developed vaccine has not been tested. Phase three clinical trials began in July 2020 and involved more than 40,000 people in 153 locations around the world in Argentina, Brazil, Turkey, South Africa and the United States. About 50% received a placebo. According to the results published in December, the vaccine has 95% efficacy after both doses have been administered (here).
Reuters also factually reviewed previous claims about vaccine safety (here) (here) and (here).
Finally, it is not true to say that the vaccine was created for the purpose of ‘population control’ – or depopulation. In fact, the opposite is true, as vaccines are eventually being developed to prevent serious illness and death.
Bill Gates has previously been linked to misinformation about population control (here), and as this check explains in more detail (here), many of these theories stem from a misinterpretation of a portion of a speech he gave at a TED conference in 2010.
VERDICT
Untrue. The mRNA vaccine developed by Pfizer / BioNTech, which was administered to more than half of Israel’s population, was carefully tested before being approved for use. The goal of vaccinating people against COVID-19 is also to prevent the spread of the virus, not for population control.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here.