A viral claim saying that people who have been completely vaccinated against COVID-19 can "shed" viral particles from the vaccine and infect unvaccinated people is fake. The hoax started when a certain website released an article making a claim.
Since the outbreak in December 2019, health and medical experts have been working against the clock to produce a vaccine. Vaccines, too, became engulfed in a slew of conspiracies that began on social media.
The FDA expanded the emergency use authorization or EUA of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine to include young individuals aged 12 to 15 years old.
Shedding Spike Proteins COVID-19 Harmful for Unvaccinated People Including Children and Women?
The most recent vaccine hoax began when LifeSite released an article on May 3 alleging that individuals who had undergone the coronavirus vaccine might also threaten others. LifeSite is alleged "an independent pro-life news outlet."
The article's subhead wrote that vaccinated people would "shed" spike proteins from these "experimental" vaccines to nearby contacts and cause illness to people - including children.
LifeSite based its claim on a press release that America's Frontline Doctors (AFLDs) provided,
"AFLDS warned how spike proteins resulting from experimental COVID-19 gene therapy vaccines have the capacity to 1.) pass through the 'blood-brain barrier' causing neurological damage, 2.) be 'shed' by the vaccinated, bringing about sickness in unvaccinated children and adults, and 3.) cause irregular vaginal bleeding in women," read LifeSite's article.
COVID-19, per LifeSite's article, creates trillions of spike protein particles in the receiver. Vaccinated patients can shed any of these (spike protein) particles when they come into close contact. According to the same report, the particles can cause inflammation and disease in these interactions. In other words, the spike proteins, like the whole virus, are said to be "disease-causing."
COVID-19 vaccinated people don't 'shed' viral particles from the vaccine
Experts refuted LifeSite's viral story, according to USA Today. They said Americans who have received the three vaccines approved by the health authority do not "shed" coronavirus particles.
The report suggested that while there is a slim risk of COVID-19 vaccine recipients becoming ill and contracting the virus, evidence shows they are less likely to transmit the virus than unvaccinated individuals.
According to the same report, America's Frontline Doctors had previously shared misleading facts about the pandemic, including the false assertion that hydroxychloroquine is a treatment for COVID-19.
The COVID-19 vaccines provide instructions to tell our cells how to produce a protein - or even just a fragment of a protein - that activates an immune response within our bodies, according to Jasmine Reed, a public relations specialist for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"After the protein piece is made, the cell breaks down the instructions and gets rid of them. There is no way for a COVID-19 vaccinated person to 'shed vaccine. COVID-19 vaccines do not use the live virus that causes COVID-19 and cannot cause COVID-19. Therefore, people who receive a COVID-19 vaccine cannot shed the virus or the vaccine," Reed told USA Today in an email.
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