mRNA COVID-19 vaccines have been the subject of misinformation on social media since the emergence of the pandemic, fueling vaccine hesitancy. However, health experts are here to debunk these myths.
"The degree of misinformation is overwhelming about these vaccines. The degree of misinformation and misappropriation of people's words is beyond. I've never seen anything like this," Dr. Monica Gandhi, Professor of Medicine at UCSF told KCBS Radio "Ask An Expert."
One year into having mRNA vaccines and two years into their development, Gandhi said she would expect for the public to have a great understanding of how safe and effective mRNA vaccines are, but this hasn't been the case.
A belief that has circulated the web since the start of COVID-19 is that coronavirus mRNA vaccines alter a person's DNA.
"They absolutely do not," Gandhi said, putting the falsity to rest. "The mRNA can't go anywhere in your body, it can't inject itself anywhere and it can't get into your DNA, it simply can't. So there's no way for it to alter your genetic material."
Despite the safety of the mRNA vaccine, Gandhi said she understands where the misinformation stems from. "The word mRNA, or anything that says genetic material, that's what's confusing," she said. "It sounds unusual because we haven't had these types of vaccines before."
Even though a mRNA vaccine hasn't been used on a wide scale in the past, the technology isn't new. The vaccine type was starting to be developed in the last coronavirus epidemic of 2011, during the emergence of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus, Gandhi explained.
"The technology has been around for 10 years, we just haven't had a pathogen that we needed to fight that was new until now," she said.
Related
