No Documents to Support CDC’s Claims That COVID-19 Vaccines Do Not Integrate Into DNA: Advocacy Group

Syringes with a COVID-19 vaccine are pictured in Central Falls, R.I., in a file photograph. Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) did not rely on any documents for its claims that the COVID-19 vaccines do not alter or integrate into people’s genetic material, according to an advocacy group for vaccine and pharmaceutical safety and the right to informed consent.

The Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) against the CDC on April 28, 2021, for “all documents relied upon” by the federal agency to make the following claims on its websites regarding the COVID-19 vaccines:

1. “The genetic material delivered by the viral vector does not integrate into a person’s DNA,” 2. “They [viral vector vaccines] do not affect or interact with our DNA in any way,” 3. “The “mRNA never enters the nucleus of the cell where our DNA (genetic material) is located, so it cannot change or influence our genes,” and, 4. “They [mRNA vaccines] do not affect or interact with our DNA in any way.”

The three COVID-19 vaccines administered in the United States contain genetic material in the form of RNA (Pfizer and Moderna) or DNA (Johnson & Johnson) to tell our body to produce the virus’s spike protein.

Three vials of the "Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine" at a new COVID-19 vaccination center at the "Velodrom" (velodrome-stadium) in Berlin, Germany, on Feb. 17, 2021. Michael Sohn/Pool/Getty Images

Nearly a year after the nonprofit filed its FOIA request, the CDC responded, saying it could not provide the necessary documents that ICAN had asked for.

“A search of our records failed to reveal any documents pertaining to your request,” the CDC wrote in its response letter (pdf), adding that the federal agency “saves lives and protects people from health threats.”

The CDC goes on to say that additional information about the vaccines should be directed at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as it is the “sole agency responsible for the safety, efficacy, and security of human and veterinary drugs.”

Posting the statements online without supporting documents seems to be enough for the CDC, according to ICAN.

“All we are asking of the CDC is to back up the claims on its own website—claims it states are ‘facts,’” ICAN said in a press release on April 13. “Apparently, that’s too much to ask.”

“Instead, the CDC is basically saying: we posted the statements on our website and the justification for that is, well it’s on our website. Translation: ‘because we said so,’” the nonprofit added.

ICAN says the CDC should remove the statements.

A general view of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) headquarters in Atlanta on Sept. 30, 2014. Tami Chappell/Reuters

In a reply to The Epoch Times, the CDC reiterated the same messaging that is on its website about the COVID-19 injections. The federal health authority did not clarify whether it relied on any documents to back its claims.

“Both messenger RNA (mRNA) and viral vector COVID-19 vaccines work by delivering instructions (genetic material) to our cells to start building protection against the virus that causes COVID-19,” a CDC spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email. “After the body produces an immune response, it discards all the vaccine ingredients just as it would discard any information that cells no longer need.”

“The genetic material delivered by mRNA vaccines never enters the nucleus of your cells. … Viral vector COVID-19 vaccines deliver genetic material to the cell nucleus to allow our cells to build protection against COVID-19. However, the vector virus does not have the machinery needed to integrate its genetic material into our DNA, so it cannot alter our DNA,” the spokesperson added.

Like the CDC, the FDA gave its assurance that the COVID-19 vaccines only “instructs cells in the body to make the virus’s distinctive ‘spike’ protein ... which does not cause disease,” and that after an immune response, “the body breaks down the components of the vaccines and eliminates them in about 36 hours.”

The FDA spokesperson didn’t answer an inquiry on whether it has the documents to support the CDC’s claims, instead, saying, “You are welcome to submit a FOIA request to the FDA for any additional records.”

Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson did not reply to The Epoch Times’ request for comment.

ICAN says that “potential damage to a person’s genetic code is a central worry among healthcare professionals and the public about a medical intervention rushed to market, heavily promoted by government and media messaging, and imposed with unprecedented levels of coercion.”

Scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology were the first to show in a petri dish, or in-vitro, that the SARS-CoV-2 RNA can be reversed-transcribed and integrated into the DNA of human cells and that “transcription of the integrated sequences might account for some of the positive PCR tests seen in patients.” Their study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

SARS-CoV-2 is the virus that causes the disease COVID-19.

A different in-vitro study out of Sweden showed that mRNA from Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine is able to enter human liver cells and be quickly reverse-transcribed into spike DNA.

Pfizer didn’t comment on the findings of the study, but told The Epoch Times last month that its vaccine does not alter the human genome.

“Our COVID-19 vaccine does not alter the DNA sequence of a human cell,” a Pfizer spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email. “It only presents the body with the instructions to build immunity.”