Covid vaccines do not cause meat allergy, experts say

"Learn How Alpha-Gal Proteins In COVID Shots Are Triggering Meat Allergies Worldwide," says an August 8, 2023 headline from InfoWars, a site that has previously promoted medical misinformation.

The article features a video in which producer Rob Dew and founder Alex Jones discuss "the emerging connection between alpha-gal syndrome and the Covid-19 vaccines."

"This is all a sick joke on us," Jones says in the clip, which has also circulated on Facebook. "They're giving you this cow protein -- this crystal, this bad cow protein -- so then you get violently sick. That's how they're doing it."

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Screenshot from InfoWars taken August 22, 2023

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Screenshot from Facebook taken August 22, 2023

 

The "Alex Jones Show" footage accumulated tens of thousands of views on video-sharing sites such as Rumble and Bitchute. Posts and articles sharing similar claims have racked up thousands of additional interactions across Facebook and Instagram over the past month -- including in French, according to CrowdTangle, a social media insights tool.

InfoWars and other websites -- including Slay News, which AFP has previously fact-checked for misinformation -- have claimed the allergies that supposedly result from vaccination are linked to plans to end meat consumption, a common theme of conspiracy theories.

But Covid-19 shots are not linked to alpha-gal syndrome, which is a "serious, potentially life-threatening allergic condition," according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The agency says symptoms appear after people consume red meat or other products containing alpha-gal, a sugar molecule found in most mammals (archived here).

Some vaccines do contain small amounts of the compound, but that does not mean they cause alpha-gal syndrome.

"Totally fabricated," Scott Commins, an associate professor who researches the condition at the University of North Carolina (UNC) School of Medicine, said of the claims circulating online. "There is no evidence to relate an alpha-gal IgE response, which forms the biologic basis for alpha-gal allergy, to Covid vaccination."

AFP reached out to InfoWars for comment, but a response was not forthcoming.

Covid shots do not contain alpha-gal

As evidence to support their claims, Jones and Dew cite a CDC webpage titled "Products That May Contain Alpha-gal" that links to a list of vaccine additives (archived here and here).

Dew says in the InfoWars video that there are "about 15 different vaccines that contain these products in one form or another ... that will cause the allergy." Several shots on the CDC list -- including influenza, typhoid and rabies jabs -- do have compounds that may contain alpha-gal.

"Some vaccines contain gelatin (as a stabilizer), and there have been rare reports of people with alpha-gal syndrome who have had allergic reactions to gelatin-containing vaccines," the agency's Immunization Safety Office told AFP in an August 18 email.

However, Covid-19 vaccines available in the United States "do not contain gelatin or other beef or cow's milk products," the office said. The shots' ingredients are publicly available on the Food and Drug Administration's website (archived here).

The Immunization Safety Office added that Covid-19 vaccines "do not cause alpha-gal syndrome, nor trigger allergic reactions in people with alpha-gal syndrome."

The Mayo Clinic says on its website (archived here) that "most people with alpha-gal syndrome in the US get the condition when a Lone Star tick bites them," although other types of the insect can also cause the condition.

"Experts think the ticks that cause alpha-gal syndrome carry alpha-gal molecules," the academic medical center says. "These come from the blood of the animals they usually bite, such as cows and sheep. When a tick that carries these molecules bites a human, the tick sends alpha-gal into the person's body.

"For unknown reasons, some people have a strong immune response to these molecules."

Alpha-gal syndrome cases resulting from tick bites are on the rise; the CDC estimates that as many as 450,000 Americans may have been affected between 2010 and 2022. But Commins of UNC said his research has found no connection between the condition and Covid-19 vaccines.

"We have screened approximately 400 serum samples from folks in highly endemic areas of the southeastern US and found no increase in alpha-gal IgE post-Covid vaccination," he said, noting the results are "part of a manuscript in preparation."

Other independent fact-checking organizations have debunked claims linking Covid-19 shots to meat allergies.

More of AFP's reporting on vaccine misinformation is available here.