Antivaccine alternative health tycoon Joe Mercola claims that the unblinding of participants in the clinical trials of Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines was intended to “blow up the trials” and undermine the science, making it impossible ever to identify long term adverse events. What he’s really doing is deceptively oversimplifying complex ethical and scientific issues surrounding these trials in the middle of a deadly pandemic, all in the service of his grift.
Antivaxxers are nothing if not clever. The latest antivaccine claim is that the spike protein made by COVID-19 vaccines injures the lung and will later cause pulmonary hypertension. It’s a claim based on flimsy evidence and extrapolation from cell culture.
Christian Elliot is a self-proclaimed “natural health nerd” and entrepreneur who recently published 18 reasons why he wouldn’t take the COVID-19 vaccine. Unfortunately, it’s viral disinformation based on conspiracy theories, bad science, pseudoscience, and nonsense.
Antivax pediatrician Dr. Larry Palevsky recently demonized COVID-19 vaccines by resurrecting the old antivaccine trope of vaccinated people “shedding” and causing illness in the unvaccinated. This time, he claims, the shedding of spike protein causes illness and menstrual problems in the unvaccinated. It’s utter nonsense.
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.”
