There are no parasites in the Covid-19 vaccines

A number of Facebook posts showing black and white images of what look like living organisms claim that vaccines contain “polypodium hydriform parasites”, with some claiming that “graphene oxide in the jab helps [the parasites] grow faster”. (Some posts replace the word “jabs” with syringe emojis.) We assume here that they are talking about the Covid-19 vaccines, based on previous claims linking these to graphene oxide. 

None of these claims are true.

The photos in the Facebook posts are not pictures taken of vaccine samples. They appear to be taken from an entry on the Encyclopedia of Arkansas website, of several stages of the parasite Polypodium hydriforme which develops in the eggs of certain species of fish, including Russian sturgeon which produce caviar. 

The claims that the vaccine contains live organisms seem to have stemmed from claims made in a video where a woman claims to have seen an “object or organism...that had tentacles” in the Moderna vaccine through a microscope. Other fact checkers have investigated her claims and found them to be false. 

Her ‘findings’ could not be verified. They were not part of a study, or peer-reviewed, and there’s no proof that the vials hadn’t been contaminated before their contents were observed through a microscope.

The four Covid-19 vaccines approved for use in the UK—Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Moderna and Janssen—do not contain parasitic organisms. The Jansen and AstraZeneca vaccines use modified viruses to deliver instructions on how to make the SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins into the cells, but this does not meet the definition of a parasite. 

Polypodium hydriforme needs to replicate within the eggs of certain fish as part of its life cycle. It’s therefore extremely unlikely that the parasite would make its way into the Covid-19 vaccines, which do not contain any animal products.

Some of the Facebook posts also claim that graphene oxide in the vaccines “help [the parasites] grow faster”. The woman in the video also claimed there were “graphene-like” structures in the vaccine.

There is no graphene oxide in the vaccines. We have fact checked this several times before. This claim seems to originate from a thoroughly debunked paper from a professor at a Spanish university. The paper has not been peer-reviewed or published in any reputable scientific journal and the University of Almeria, where the author reportedly works, has distanced itself from the manuscript.