The mRNA COVID-19 vaccines — like many other vaccines — can contain small amounts of DNA left over from the manufacturing process. There’s no evidence this residual DNA causes “turbo cancer,” or very aggressive cancer. Nor did Moderna admit that “mRNA Jabs Cause Turbo-Cancer,” contrary to an online article that misconstrues a line from a patent application.
People with cancer are particularly vulnerable to severe disease and death from COVID-19. Vaccines provide needed protection. It has not been shown that COVID-19 vaccines cause or accelerate cancer. Nor does a recent paper about a mouse that died of lymphoma “prove” that the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine induced “turbo cancer,” contrary to social media claims.
Each year, respiratory syncytial virus hospitalizes 58,000 to 80,000 children under age 5 in the U.S. The Food and Drug Administration recently approved an antibody injection for babies to protect them during the RSV season. There isn’t evidence the shots have killed any babies, contrary to social media claims.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. makes a variety of incorrect or misleading claims about vaccines, COVID-19 and other health-related topics. But his views on vaccines rose to prominence when he began to advance the thoroughly debunked idea that they cause autism.
Studies have found the rate of autism is the same in vaccinated and unvaccinated children. But the false claim that vaccines are associated with the disorder persists. A prominent spreader of COVID-19 misinformation wrongly told legislators in Pennsylvania that autism is virtually nonexistent among the unvaccinated, citing the Amish population.
Breast cancer in younger women has been increasing gradually in recent decades. But a social media post misrepresents case number projections for 2022 and 2023 to falsely claim they show a dramatic rise in early-onset breast cancer — and then baselessly ties its faulty comparisons to COVID-19 vaccines.
Recent research suggests that gender dysphoria is likely caused by a combination of factors, including hormone exposure before birth. But social media posts make the baseless claim that it could be caused by a vaccine containing DNA from an aborted fetus of the opposite sex. There is no scientific evidence for such a claim, experts said.
Numerous studies have found that additional COVID-19 shots are generally associated with extra protection against the coronavirus. Many people on social media, however, have shared a preliminary finding from a Cleveland Clinic study and misrepresented it as proving that getting more doses increases a person’s risk of infection.
An international initiative called the Big Catch-Up aims to increase vaccination among children who have missed routine vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic. In describing the project, Chelsea Clinton did not say it was time to “force-jab every unvaccinated child in America,” nor will the project impose mandatory vaccinations, contrary to claims.
COVID-19 vaccines substantially reduce the risk of dying from COVID-19, and serious side effects are very rare. Excess deaths among working-age adults in 2021 and 2022 were due to COVID-19 and other factors, not vaccination. Faulty logic underlies claims that vaccines caused mass disability and economic harm.