No, there is no cancer-causing DNA from green monkeys in mRNA-vaccines

Context

According to an article published June 11, 2023, in The Epoch Times, a website with a history of false and misleading claims, the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines produced by pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and Moderna are contaminated with green monkey DNA, including a viral promoter known as simian virus 40 (SV40) that has allegedly been linked to several types of cancer in humans, including mesotheliomas, lymphomas, and cancers of the brain and bone. However, the reports are inaccurate.

In Fact

A spokesperson for Pfizer told Logically Facts the reports by The Epoch Times were not accurate: “The vaccine is a completely synthetic vaccine. There were preclinical animal challenge studies utilizing rhesus macaques; however, no part of our vaccine or studies utilized green monkeys.”

There’s also no credible evidence that SV40 causes cancer in humans. Michael J. Imperiale, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Michigan, says studies that link SV40 to mesothelioma, lymphomas, and cancers of the brain and bone have not been reproducible.  

Imperiale explains that the virus SV40 was first discovered as a contaminant of some very early lots of the poliovirus vaccine in the late 1950s and early 1960s and did cause some concern about a possible link to cancers. However, later research did not find evidence that the SV40 contained in polio vaccines administered before 1963 caused cancers.

Promoter sequences from SV40 are found in many common plasmids used for molecular biology and Pfizer might have used one of these plasmids to produce the RNA for their vaccine, explains Imperiale. But the SV40 promoter in and of itself cannot cause cancer because it doesn’t encode a protein, he says. “Even if vaccine lots were contaminated with plasmid DNA, that DNA is inert with respect to any oncogenic properties.”

Logically Facts reached out to Moderna for comment and will update this article if and when we receive a response.

The Verdict

Pfizer did not utilize DNA from green monkeys for their COVID-19 vaccine. There is also no credible evidence that SV40 causes cancer in humans, and studies that link SV40 to mesothelioma, lymphomas, and cancers of the brain and bone have not been reproducible.

The COVID-19 pandemic has given rise to a lot of potentially dangerous misinformation. For reliable advice on COVID-19, including symptoms, prevention, and available treatment, please refer to the World Health Organization or your national healthcare authority.