No, there aren’t self-assembled nanostructures in COVID-19 vaccines

What's being claimed?

A well-known anti-vax journal has promoted an unevidenced study on social media. This study claims to have found real-time cellular injuries in COVID-19 vaccine recipients for the first time.

The claim has circulated heavily on X, where one post (archived here) has been seen more than 1.3 million times since September 6, and on Facebook, where one post (archived here) has been shared 543 times.

By incubating Pfizer and Moderna vaccines in "conditions that were designed to duplicate human cells in the human body," the study found "spontaneous assemblies" of nanostructures shaped like spirals, discs, tubes, chains, or long, thin crystallized structures. This, the report claims, suggests the presence of nanotechnology in COVID-19 injectables, and users on social media are calling it "hard evidence" that COVID-19 vaccines cause fibrous blood clots.

However, while social media posts claim the study is peer-reviewed – in other words, that subject experts have evaluated its validity – this is not the case. Rather, it is the latest work of a well-known anti-vax journal, and the study has no scientific backing.

Where does the study come from?

The study was published in the International Journal of Vaccine, Theory, Practice, and Research.

While the journal describes itself as a "peer-reviewed scholarly open-access journal," neither the journal nor the study can be found on ScienceDirect, the world's leading database of peer-reviewed journals and articles, nor in the United States National Library of Medicine.

However, the journal does appear in fact-checks and long-forms about vaccine misinformation as several of its editorial board members lack the relevant scientific credentials and have a track record of spreading anti-vaccine claims. 

"The whole paper is just a big red flag," Matti Sällström, professor of biomedical analysis at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden, told Logically Facts. He believes that the paper is using the cover of a so-called "scientific journal" with the purpose of pushing nonsense experiments.

"The editorial board is a joke," he added. "None of the editors or associate editors are scientists of a good reputation. Some even are not in the scope of the title of the journal."

This includes the journal's editor-in-chief, John Oller, a former linguistics professor who has published a book falsely claiming a link between vaccines and autism, and Daniel Broudy, who co-authored the paper in question. He is also the co-editor of a journal called Propaganda in Focus, where he has co-authored an article that refers to the COVID-19 pandemic as "a manufactured global health emergency" with links to the Great Reset, which is a baseless conspiracy theory.

Sällström also pointed to several well-known anti-vaxers among the journal’s associate editors, including Stephanie Seneff and Brian S. Hooker.

What about the nanostructures?

Previous claims falsely asserted that pharmaceutical companies secretly embed nanotechnology into COVID-19 vaccines that can connect to wireless networks or 5G communications technology. 

COVID-19 vaccines do contain something called nanoparticles, but these are not robots or computers that can connect to Wi-Fi. The term "nano" is simply a unit of size, and the particles are lipids, which are organic compounds of fats, oils, hormones, and components of membranes that self-assemble into groups because they are not soluble in water. Nanoparticles are put in vaccines to protect the vaccine component as it travels through the body to the cells.

Sällström confirmed that there is no evidence in the scientific literature that COVID-19 vaccines can cause cellular damage and "self-assembled nanostructures" in the body, and the images claiming to show photos of nanostructures seen through a microscope do not prove otherwise.

"These are random structures that can be seen under a light microscope in any type of liquid. It's nonsense," he said. "Also, if there would be nanostructures, i.e. structures that are in the size of 1 to 100x10-9m, these would definitely not be visible by light microscopy as claimed in the article." 

Images claiming to show "nanostructures". Source: X/Screenshots/Modified by Logically Facts.

The verdict

The claim that COVID-19 vaccines contain nanostructures is not supported by scientific research, and the viral study has been published by a well-known anti-vax publication. Therefore, we have rated this claim as false.