The people who are opposed to anyone getting vaccinated for deadly diseases such as smallpox, flu, or even the novel coronavirus live in a fact-free world where the only source of information consists of conspiracy theories they find on the internet from others who share their bizarre worldview. Science, medicine, and logic do not exist for such easily deluded individuals.
But a new theory circulating among the anti-vaxxer crowd may well be the most absurd yet: If you take the vaccine for COVID-19, it will change you to another race.
The Daily Beast reports that there’s a strain of misinformation circulating that tells people the coronavirus vaccine threatens to turn the human race into a mutated pro-human:
“This long-simmering idea, which could not only help to steer some people away from vaccines but also fan the flames of already volatile cultural divisions and conflicts, came into stark focus in mid-March, when a meme spread across pandemic denialist Telegram channels, featuring a large image of two sheep fucking, and a block of text that reads: ‘DO NOT BREED WITH SHEEP.’
“‘People who are vaccinated will have modified DNA,’ it continues. ‘No one discusses that DNA is passed onto the next generation. The risk that your children will marry into other cultures is possibly now shadowed by the fact that your children may marry into a COVID vaxed gene group potentially shortening their lives and that of others.'”
Another anti-vaccine poster went a step further, breathlessly opining that those who are vaccinated suddenly become a threat to the unvaccinated:
“They are now genetically modified humans,” that user posted in a community chat last month. “They are not even technically human anymore. Vaccinated people are honestly a threat to humanity as a whole.”
Did you know you had been genetically modified? It must be true; it was on the internet!
There’s also the race change theory for those who wear their tinfoil hats a few sizes too small:
“Only vaccinated people will marry each other while non vaccinated will also get married,” one Redditor wrote earlier this year. “[It] will split the human race into a fake race. The Vaccinated Race.”
Oh my gosh! Does that mean all those flu vaccines we’ve taken for nearly a hundred years have turned us all into flu virus superspreaders without our knowledge?! Make it stop! Soylent Green is people!!!
Let’s all take a few deep breaths and listen to what medical professionals have to say about the matter.
Paul Knoepfler, a cell biologist and genetics researcher at the University of California, Davis, said this about the nutso shit floating around on the World Wide Web:
“I don’t see any way the vaccines could even unintentionally cause genetic changes. It’s just not going to happen.”
More deep breaths. Are those gills on the side of your neck that you’re breathing through? In that case, I have to ask: Did you get Moderna, Pfizer, or Johnson & Johnson?
Some people will believe anything, won’t they?