A Facebook video claims the UK government admitted the COVID-19 vaccine damages immune systems, making those who are double vaccinated more susceptible to future viruses.
The claim is false. The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) told AAP FactCheck no such admission has been issued and the claim has no basis in fact.
The claim was made in a live stream video by Facebook page Stop the Rot Sack the Lot on October 12 featuring a man who calls himself Red Pill Glen.
Stop the Rot Sack the Lot purports to be an alternative news service with regular topics including COVID-19 vaccines and global conspiracy theories.
Glen makes the claim that the UK government admitted the vaccine harms immune systems (video mark 11min 8sec) and cites an official UK government document as the source.
“Those that have been double vaccinated, they’ve also admitted…are going to pretty much get sick with any virus that comes along now, because their immune system is shot,” he said in the live stream. “This is in the UK government’s documents.”
AAP FactCheck contacted Glen to clarify which document he was referring to. He did not respond directly, but within two hours repeated the claim in a post on his Telegram channel, citing the source as the UKHSA’s COVID-19 Vaccine Surveillance Report Week 42.
The document has been misinterpreted previously by social media users with the same or similar claims made. Reuters and Full Fact are among those to have debunked the claim.
The claim comes from a misinterpretation of a sentence on page 23 of the report, which Glen specifically cites in his Telegram post. The sentence reads: “…recent observations from UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) surveillance data that N antibody levels appear to be lower in individuals who acquire infection following 2 doses of vaccination.”
However, experts cited in both the Reuters and Full Fact articles explain that this does not mean the vaccine damages natural immune systems, only that some antibodies detectable post-infection are lower in those who are infected after two doses of the vaccine.
The UKHSA rubbished the claim that the organisation had said those who are double vaccinated now have damaged immune systems.
A representative told AAP FactCheck via email: “The claims made are clearly false and don’t appear to have any basis in fact.”
The representative also referred to its Vaccine Surveillance Reports and pointed to the Week 40 document from this year (page 9) for evidence on vaccine effectiveness.
Multiple studies have looked at the issue including a study that found those who have received a dose of the COVID-19 vaccine had a better antiviral interferon response. Another study found that a third dose of the vaccine became necessary to achieve protection against the virus due to antibody decay.
The Verdict
The claim that the UK government admitted the COVID-19 vaccine damages the immune system, making those who are double vaccinated more susceptible to viruses, is false.
The UKHSA told AAP FactCheck no such admission has been made and that the claim has no basis in fact.
The claim is based on a misinterpreted section of a UKHSA document and has been previously been debunked.
False – The claim is inaccurate.
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