Most people know by now that Bill Gates is not going to give you money or a free computer if you respond to a Facebook post.
He’s also not going to give you a secret microchip in a COVID-19 vaccine. This is one of the many myths madly circulating about a COVID-19 vaccine that have prompted about a quarter of Americans to say that they would decline a vaccine when it becomes available.
The Gates myth started in March 2020, when a widely shared article announced, incorrectly, “Bill Gates will use microchip implants to fight coronavirus.” Gates actually said in an interview that digital certificates could be used to show who has recovered, who has been tested and who received the vaccine. According to the BBC, one study, funded by The Gates Foundation, suggested that a special invisible tattoo mark could be used to show who has been vaccinated. Like a small pox vaccination scar, it would not be tracked and personal information would not be entered into a database.
Even so, the Microsoft billionaire does not control public health policy in the U.S.
Another myth in high circulation is that a DNA-based vaccine will genetically modify humans.
According to Mark Lynas, a visiting fellow at Cornell University’s Alliance for Science group, no vaccine can genetically modify human DNA.
In an interview with Reuters, Lynas said that the DNA in DNA vaccines does not integrate into the cell nucleus, so there is no genetic modification. When cells divide, they will only include your natural DNA. But DNA-based vaccines are promising for COVID-19 because DNA sequences could match the required bits of genetic code in the virus.
