Scientists rubbish 'gobbledygook' document falsely linking Covid vaccines and graphene

"This report is the result of a collaboration between EbMCsquared CiC and UNIT in an effort to identify the undeclared contents of vaccines being given to the public in the UK, causing a high number of side effects and deaths," reads the Malay-language caption of a Facebook post shared on June 12, 2023.

"The types of vaccines involved in this investigation are Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Moderna," it adds.

"An independent laboratory in the UK has analyzed the sample using RAMAN spectroscopy and found the presence of GRAPHENE."

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Screenshot of the false post, taken on June 19, 2023

Graphene, a Nobel Prize-awarded material with promising applications for medicine, has been the topic of much misinformation by anti-vaxxers claiming it can be used to "magnetise" and "control" people.

The post shares a link to a lenghty document which says the alleged study was a product of a "joint cooperation between EbMCsquared CiC and UNIT".

The logo of an entity called "Global Humanitarian Crisis Prevention and Response Unit" appears in the document.

It goes on to say the vaccine monitoring systems in the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union have all shown "the rates of increase of death and significant harm are increasing" as Covid jabs are rolled out.

Similar posts also circulated on Facebook here, here and here since at least February 2022.

The claim also also appeared in English and French.

'Gobbledygook'

However, AFP has not found any credible website or social media page for EbMCsquared CiC, UNIT or the Global Humanitarian Crisis Prevention and Response Unit, the alleged entities responsible for the report.

Ian Jones, a professor of virology at Britain's Reading University, described the document as "gobbledygook" (archived link).

"It has pieced together buzz words to sound alarmist but in fact contains no scientifically accurate information," he told AFP on June 20, 2023.

Moreover, actual data from the UK's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), the US Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) and the EU's EudraVigilance database contradict the vaccine safety claims raised by the document.

"Vaccines are the most effective way to prevent infectious diseases and they save millions of lives worldwide. Like all medicines, vaccines can cause side effects. Most of these are mild and short-term, and not everyone gets them," according to the MHRA (archived link).

"A report to VAERS does not mean that a vaccine caused an adverse event," a VAERS web page says (archived link). The system accepts all reports of adverse events that occur after vaccination without regard to whether or not the jab caused the event .

The European Medicines Agency (EMA), which operates the EudraVigilance system, separately notes: "Regulators have an unprecedented amount of data to confirm the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines. As with all medicines, COVID-19 vaccines have side effects, but these are far outweighed by the benefits in terms of protection against severe disease and death" (archived link).

Rehashed graphene claims

Experts have repeatedly said approved Covid vaccines do not contain graphene or its derivative graphene oxide.

"Since this issue was repeatedly circulated several years ago, there have already been attempts to provide correct information by several academics as well as the United States Food and Drug Administration," Dr Thira Woratanarat, an associate professor of preventive medicine at Thailand's Chulalongkorn University, told AFP on June 19, 2023 (archived link).

Alessandro Faia, a spokesman for the EMA, earlier said on March 29, 2023 that the agency "has not seen any credible evidence from its evaluations or from ongoing testing that any COVID-19 vaccine is contaminated with graphene oxide, which is not a recognised excipient in medicines."

Publicly available lists of ingredients for the Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Moderna jabs do not mention graphene or graphe oxide as vaccine components (archived links here, here and here).

AFP has previously debunked similar claims here, here, here, here and here.