On February 2, a message posted on the Telegram channel of Iranian Cleric Ayatollah Abbas Tabrizian warned his 209,000-plus followers not to get vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19).
“Do not approach those who have been vaccinated. Because they have microchips, they have been genetically modified,” the message attributed to Tabrizian read.
“[T]hey are outside of the human race, they act like controlled robots, they have lost the gene for faith, morality, and decency, and they have become homosexuals.”
Tabrizian, who calls himself “the father of Islamic medicine,” lives in the city of Qom, Iran’s religious capital. Radio Farda, the Iranian branch of U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Tabrizian has written several books on so-called "Islamic Medicine" and runs an Islamic Medicine Center.
He has treating 150 people afflicted with incurable diseases a day, called modern medicine the work of “Zionists,” and rejected immunization as “colonialist medicine.”
Tabrizian’s comments were delivered two days before Iran received its first batch of the Russian-developed Sputnik V vaccine, with the first Iranian during a televised ceremony on February 8.
An Iranian Health Ministry spokesman told AFP the country had purchased 2 million doses of the Russian vaccine, RFE/RL reports.
Tabrizian’s recent statements on novel coronavirus vaccination are a composite of old and new COVID-19 conspiracies. All of them are false.
Claims that the COVID-19 vaccination campaign is part of a “covert mass chip implantation” plot have previously been debunked. Allegations that Covid-19 vaccines alter a person’s DNA or can affect their sexual orientation are likewise baseless.
In March 2020, a conspiracy theory began circulating that Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates was looking to use COVID-19 vaccinations to implant trackable microchips into unsuspecting recipients.
The rumor began last March after Gates to a forum on the social message site Reddit about the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He noted that the foundation had committed up to $100 million to help with the COVID-19 response worldwide.
Gates said the foundation aimed to “have some digital certificates to show who has recovered or been tested recently or when we have a vaccine who has received it.”
When asked to clarify what he meant by digital certificates, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation it referred to “efforts to create an open source digital platform with the goal of expanding access to safe, home-based testing.”
Reuters, citing IBM, noted a digital certificate is an “electronic document” used to identify an individual. However, conspiracy theorists combined misinformation about digital certificates with an unrelated technology called quantum microdots, which is being developed with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
One bogus conspiracy alleges that implantable microchips that dissolve under the skin will leave identifiable quantum dots that can be used as a form of ID. While it is true that “Quantum dot dye” would be delivered under the skin together with a vaccine, these signatures are not a microchip or human-implantable capsules.
Rather, they would function like an invisible tattoo that emits “near-infrared light,” showing a vaccination record. The signature could be read up close using a specially equipped smartphone and would not provide for remote tracking.
One such dye, developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is intended to provide for “rapid and anonymous detection of patient vaccination history” in areas lacking the infrastructure for electronic or even paper databases, researchers and experts .
Meanwhile, Tabrizian’s claim that vaccine recipients have been genetically modified demonstrates a misunderstanding of how COVID-19 messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines work. Messenger RNA contains genetic code that triggers the body’s immune response against the coronavirus.
Many traditional vaccines introduce weakened forms of a virus to teach the body how to recognize and fight it. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control how COVID-19 mRNA vaccines “give instructions for our cells to make a harmless piece of what is called the ‘spike protein,’” which are found on the surface of SARS-CoV-2.
After a vaccine recipient’s immune system recognizes that the spike protein should not be there, the body makes antibodies to fight it. “The benefit of mRNA vaccines, like all vaccines, is those vaccinated gain this protection without ever having to risk the serious consequences of getting sick with COVID-19,” the CDC said.