Bill Gates (Jeff J Mitchell/PA)

Passing mRNA vaccines from animals to humans via food? It simply wouldn’t work

By Abi Jackson, PA
8:16 - February 01, 2023

Claims that Bill Gates “vows to pump mRNA into food supply to ‘force-jab’ the unvaccinated” were circulated on social media in mid-January.

The screenshot appears to show a tweet by Mr Gates saying: “Vaccines in our food supply solves the problem of vaccine hesitancy” – alongside a photo of Mr Gates and a tray of test tubes.

The host of the ‘The People’s Voice’ video claims Mr Gates visited Edinburgh University where he was heard “bragging” about the plans, followed by footage of him at a farm talking about funding scientists working on projects involving livestock vaccination.

Evaluation: False

There is no evidence to support these claims. Screenshots can easily be faked, and there is no evidence Mr Gates ever posted this tweet.

The footage featured of Mr Gates at Edinburgh University’s farm in fact dates from January 2018, before the Covid pandemic began, and there is no record of him ever talking about plans to introduce mRNA vaccines to livestock.

Even if there were mRNA vaccines for livestock, there is no evidence that it would even be possible for mRNA vaccines to be passed from animals to humans via the food chain.

The facts

An advanced search of Mr Gates’ Twitter account reveals no sign of the tweet shown in the screenshot. It can’t be found on archived versions of the page either, suggesting the tweet never existed.

The footage of Mr Gates at the University of Edinburgh farm does exist but clearly matches a video shared on the DFID Twitter page back in January 2018, following a visit by Mr Gates to Edinburgh that month – predating the Covid pandemic.

In the footage, Mr Gates is seen saying to camera: “The Gates Foundation has partnered with DFID (Department for International Development) on a great number of things and among those are work we do together on livestock. Helping animals survive either by having vaccines or better genetics…”

The Gates Foundation did fund agricultural research taking place at University of Edinburgh, providing 40 million US dollars (£32.3 million) to support projects aimed at improving the health and productivity of livestock – but again, this dates back to January 2018. Mr Gates’ visit to the university was also reported on in media outlets the time.

Furthermore, there is no evidence that Mr Gates has mentioned plans involving mRNA vaccines for livestock at any point in time.

The claims appear to originate from a screenshot published by NewsPunch on January 10, which is known as a fake news website, as previously written about by PA, Snopes and PolitiFact. It is accompanied by a video by online talk show ‘The People’s Voice’ shared on January 11 on a platform called Rumble.

In addition, while livestock do receive vaccinations to protect them from various diseases, there is no evidence that it would even be possible for mRNA vaccines to be passed from animals to humans via the food chain.

Dr Lance Turtle, reader and honorary consultant in infectious diseases, University of Liverpool, told PA Media: “Giving an mRNA vaccine to an animal that is then eaten, it is not a plausible way to get a vaccine into humans. It simply wouldn’t work – the vaccine just can’t be transferred from one host to another like that.

“When you inject an mRNA vaccine into a host, usually a person, or plausibly an animal as well, what happens is that mRNA expresses a protein, to turn into protein, at the site where the vaccine is injected in, and that lasts only for a few days at most.”

In addition, the cooking process would “damage the mRNA” and “it doesn’t really work given orally either”.

“It is a completely implausible way to get a vaccine into humans,” Dr Turtle concluded.

“It is not a scientifically supported idea in any way.”

Links

The claim on Facebook (archived)

The original video footage of Bill Gates from January 2018 (archived)

BBC News story of Bill Gates visit to Edinburgh in January 2018 (archived)

‘The People’s Voice’ post from January 11 (archived)

The NewsPunch story from January 10 (archived)

A PA fact check on a previous claim involving NewsPunch (archived)

A Snopes fact check on a previous claim involving NewsPunch (archived)

A PolitiFact fact check on a previous claim involving NewsPunch (archived)

Dr Lance Turtle’s biography (archived)

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