What was claimed
The US military has found pesticides in Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccines.
Our verdict
This claim is false and originates from a story on a website which states it posts satirical content.
The US military did not find traces of pesticides in Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine
27 May 2022
A Facebook post claiming that vials of Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine contained traces of pesticides is false.
The story in the post is a screenshot of a website called Real Raw News and the article was originally published on 12 May 2022, claiming vials of the vaccine had been recovered during a raid on a warehouse.
It was a follow-up to a story published on the same site earlier that month about the warehouse in Kansas City being raided by members of the US Special Forces who destroyed 250,000 vials that were being stockpiled “to inject into the arms of babies and especially young children”.
The more recent article claimed that some of the 250,000 vials had been analysed prior to being destroyed and that “10 of 60 vials contained insecticides, or more specifically moderate concentrations of cypermethrin and resmethrin”.
Both stories are false. Fact checkers at Snopes report being told via email by a public affairs officer of the US Army Medical Research & Development Command at Fort Detrick that the story is a complete fabrication.
A disclaimer on the “About Us” page of the Real Raw News website states: “Information on this website is for informational and educational and entertainment purposes. This website contains humor, parody and satire. We have included this disclaimer for our protection, on the advice on [sic] legal counsel.”
This may indicate the article isn’t meant to be taken seriously, though this is unclear on the site and not mentioned in the Facebook post.
A statement at the bottom of the website’s “About Us” page adds to the confusion by stating: “An independent publisher, RealRawNews explores content often avoided by the mainstream media.”
Full Fact has checked multiple claims related to the ingredients of Covid-19 vaccines in the past including claims about a chemical called SM-102 and another called PEG.
The full list of ingredients for the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine, now known as Spikevax, can be found here.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because members of the US special forces did not raid a warehouse containing vials of Moderna Covid-19 vaccine and find that some contained pesticides.