This week in misinformation

Trending Misinformation about Vaccines & COVID-19

  • False claims are circulating on social media that the head of Pfizer’s research department revealed their COVID-19 vaccine cause sterilization in females due to its inclusion of a protein called syncytin-1. The protein syncytin-1 is important in the creation of a woman’s placenta. The actual Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine does not contain the protein, nor has the vaccine been associated with infertility. Claims around female sterilization from COVID-19 vaccines have persisted since vaccine trials first began.
  • Similar to the previous week, posts across social media, news, and blogs are reporting that COVID-19 vaccines contain microchips that will be used to track those who receive the vaccine. This misinformation is a distortion of the fact that vaccine containers will contain barcodes in order to track their distribution.
  • Facebook and Twitter posts claim that the picture of the 90-year-old woman who received the UK’s first COVID-19 vaccine outside clinical trials was false, and taken months before the vaccine was approved.
  • Facebook and Instagram posts claim that vaccines cause childhood leukemia, due to exposure to formaldehyde in vaccines. Formaldehyde is found in trace amounts in vaccines as a preservative, and has found to be safe.

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