Tag: mRNA vaccines

Turbo cancer?

COVID-19 vaccine-caused “turbo cancer” nonsense just keeps getting more turbocharged

No matter how implausible it is or how weak the evidence for it is, the myth that COVID vaccines cause "turbo cancer" just won't die. Quite the contrary, alas. Antivaxxers are—dare I say?—turbocharging it with bad science.

/ April 22, 2024
Frameshift mutation

Do mRNA vaccines produce harmful “junk proteins” that “gunk up” the cell and cause unintended “off-target” immune responses?

A new study is making the rounds in the antivax crankosphere. The study found that the modified mRNA used in the Pfizer vaccine can cause a frame shift (to be explained) that results in the production of proteins besides the intended spike protein. The findings are, as you probably guessed, a big nothingburger compared to how they are being spun.

/ December 11, 2023

Nobel for Medicine Goes To mRNA Vaccine Science

The work of Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman made possible the mRNA vaccines, with implications that go beyond this one application.

/ October 4, 2023

Steve Kirsch: How “anti-COVID-19 vaccine” antivax often becomes radicalized and just plain antivaccine

Tech bro turned COVID-19 misinformation superspreader and antivaxxer Steve Kirsch has now fully embraced "old school" vaccine-autism conspiracy theories, demonstrating how anti-COVID-19 vaccine antivaxxers frequently become just antivaxxers.

/ June 5, 2023

Risk of Myocarditis Following COVID-19 Vaccine

Risk of myocarditis following mRNA vaccines is real but tiny, and far outweighed by the benefit of vaccines.

/ November 2, 2022

New Study – mRNA Vaccines Safe

After more than 298 million doses give, the side effects of the mRNA vaccines are minimal and transient.

/ March 9, 2022
Harry Potter vs. Lord Voldemort

COVID-19 vaccines versus “purity of essence,” revisited

Antivaxxers frequently make the false claim that mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines "permanently alter your DNA". These claims are really a concern about "impurifying" their "purity of essence" and have now gone into some truly disturbing territory, such as antivaxxers calling themselves "purebloods".

/ November 22, 2021
Hasidic Jews in Borough Park

Echoes of measles outbreaks in 2019: Antivaxxers are targeting Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn with COVID-19 misinformation

About a year before the COVID-19 pandemic, large measles outbreaks among Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn and Rockland County were linked to misinformation targeted to their communities by antivaxxers. History is repeating itself with COVID-19.

/ November 1, 2021
Comirnaty

Yes, the FDA really HAS given full approval to the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine

After the FDA announcement a week ago that Comirnaty, the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine developed by BioNTech and Pfizer, had been approved, it took less than a day for antivaxxers to spin a conspiracy theory claiming that the FDA hadn't really approved the Pfizer vaccine at all and that Comirnaty wasn't available, all to protect Pfizer from liability. It's a superficially plausible conspiracy...

/ August 30, 2021