Last month, a Facebook user desperately asked the 17,000 members of an Australian anti-vaccination group a question: if the user must take a vaccine to keep their job, how can they detox the vaccine from their body afterwards?
“I’ve seen posts of vitamins to take I would like to dose them up before and after to try get the shit out of my body. Any suggestions please?” they wrote.
Vaccines are safe and effective. Even if they weren’t, the concept of a vaccine detox is a myth. Professor Allen Cheng, who co-chairs the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI), told Crikey that there’s no scientific basis for a vaccine detox: “‘Detoxing’ isn’t a concept that means much to me from a medical viewpoint — vaccines, like many exogenous substances, are metabolised and eliminated naturally by the body.”
But that hasn’t stopped anti-vaxxers and vaccine sceptics from embracing the idea of promoting COVID-19 vaccination detoxes. Australian anti-vax influencers, groups and community members have all promoted different ways of so-called detoxes.
A key part of the argument for a detox is based on a popular fabrication that COVID-19 vaccines contain graphene oxide, a type of material used in batteries and electronics. Graphene oxide isn’t present in any approved vaccine COVID-19, and even if it was, there’s no way to detox from it.
Users in Australian anti-vax communities on the messaging platform Telegram have shared claims of bodies responding to so-called graphene oxide poisoning. Groups run by One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts, organisers of freedom protests in Australia’s capital cities, and other influencers with tens of thousands of members have made similar posts.
This week, anti-vax and anti-lockdown journalist Morgan C Jonas featured an online interview with Professor Ian Brighthope, which was promoted as a “C-19 injection detox protocol” by Australian anti-vaxxer group Reignite Democracy Australia.
In the interview, Brighthope — who has spent his career promoting nutrient supplements sold as part of his practice — talks up vitamin C, garlic, zinc and other supplements as key to recovery. In the past, Brighthope has promoted the same type of treatment for other diseases, including AIDS and COVID-19 recovery. While vitamins are an important part of a healthy diet, the idea that superdosing them to cure disease is a myth and comes with risks.
Members in anti-vax communities trade supposed detox methods. These “cures” draw from wellness industry concepts, with people promoting types of complementary treatments like homeopathy and essential oils.
Others are making money from it. One Australian Facebook group with 6,000 members — which Crikey has chosen not to name — promotes a multi-level-marketing spray product the seller claims will remove heavy metals and cure asthma, speech problems and even autism.
“Guess where those heavy metals come from? Vaccines!!!!,” the seller wrote in a Telegram group promoting their Facebook group. Crikey has seen thousands of dollars worth of orders being confirmed in October, with users saying they use it on their young children.
Others share links to vitamin stacks and include personal discount codes, suggesting the poster may be taking a portion of sales.
The idea of detoxing has another use for the anti-vax movement: keeping it relevant as the vast majority of Australians choose to get vaccinated. As of November 8, 90% of Australians have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, and polling suggests that half of the remaining people are intending to get the jab.
Promoting detoxes attracts a new audience of those vaccinated Australians who may have misgivings about the vaccine, and opens the door to people who begrudgingly got a vaccine. It also offers conspiratorial-minded Australians the promise of being able to have all the freedoms of the vaccinated person while also staying true to their beliefs.
In effect, it’s a survival strategy for an increasingly irrelevant movement.
Promoting vaccine detoxes comes with the risk that it depends on the false idea that vaccines are dangerous or unsafe. It also preys on a misunderstanding about the side effects of vaccines, which can be distressing. It may promote vaccine hesitancy for those who haven’t already gotten the jab or for future immunisations.
“These people are claiming that they are helping people who decide to vaccinate under pressure,” US-based vaccine researcher and paediatrician Ofer Levy told Mother Jones. “But the message that is getting out is that vaccines are toxic.”
But even as it offers a life raft for a shrinking movement, not everyone is on board. Some of the vaccine holdouts scoff at the idea you can detox the vaccine from your system — but for the wrong reasons.
“Problem is, this jab alters one’s genetic code, which is irreversible,” one said.
Pity there’s no detox for stupidity.
Nor for a half-bright hope.
Love that comment Sydney!!
Nor a vaccine.
Had the jabs, now my hair’s gone curly. Cute! And I heard someone regrew their amputated leg, although I’d have to see it.
“Problem is, this jab alters one’s genetic code, which is irreversible,”
As a molecular biologist, I can say with absolute certainty that this claim is complete and utter bunkum. Unless their bodies are riddled with Reverse Transcriptase, there is literally no way for the mRNA in the vaccine to be converted to DNA-which is what would be needed to effect genetic modification, at the very least. Yet not even that would suffice, given that you’d also need the enzymes that allow a DNA fragment to be transposed into the gene.
A fool and his money are soon parted
The absolute ignorance and lunacy of this ‘anti-vax’, ‘detox’, ‘COVID denying crowd’ takes my breath away.
Their beliefs, actions and general behavior are reminiscent of religious believers and others for whom reality is simply too much to bear. In writing this post I have to constantly remind myself that in all likelihood, most of these people have, at least, some kind of personality disorder at best, or are suffering from a diagnosable mental disorder at worst. You wonder whether they should be more pitied or condemned. Whatever the case, they represent a danger to us all. Not only that, the fact that there are so many of them causes me to wonder about the adequacy of our education system. How can anyone graduate from kindergarten, let alone secondary school and hold such views.
What next will these people be advocating, attaching leaches to our flesh to cure our ills? Then again, such a treatment is probably a bit to advanced and sophisticated for them.