Is it true that the COVID-19 vaccination site can attract magnets?

A message is spreading on social networks: supposedly the shoulder where the coronavirus vaccine was injected is capable of attracting magnets due to the chip contained in the vaccine or the high proportion of aluminum. We decided to check if this is true.

Most popular video in Russian distributed TikTok user under the name Thelegacytv. He uses a magnet shaped like a car and places it on his son's left and then right shoulder. On the side where the vaccine was introduced, the magnet holds, and on the other, it falls. The father sums up the result of his experiment with the phrase: “Here is the vaccine. What’s the joke, guess what?” Similar video created by users in English and other languages.

The chip, which can be introduced into the body using an injection needle, currently exists only in development form. Its size is 0.1 mm³, that is, it can only be seen with a microscope. This technology has not yet been widely used. In addition, a metal object of such a small size inserted under the layer of skin and muscles would not be able to attract the magnets that were demonstrated in use. Professor of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (USA, Florida) Eric Palm explainsthat sebum creates surface tension that can actually hold an object, but it has nothing to do with the magnetic field. As the most obvious example, he suggests recalling the fun of “gluing” a coin to the forehead, which many of us were fond of in childhood.

The hypothesis that aluminum in vaccines causes interaction with a magnet can be easily refuted even at home by trying to magnetize an aluminum spoon or fork. Aluminum, although a metal, applies to the group of paramagnets, that is, it interacts only with very strong magnets, which are not found in everyday life. 

Moreover, in the human body it is normal contained 30–50 mg of aluminum, and in vaccines “EpiVacCorona" And "CoviVac"—only 0.5–0.7 mg and 0.3–0.5 mg of aluminum salts, respectively. Aluminum hydroxide in them acts as an adjuvant, that is, a compound that enhances the immune response. The composition of vaccines "Sputnik V", Pfizer, Moderna And Johnson & Johnson derivatives of this metal are not included at all.

Another argument against the reality of the video about a “magnetic” child - it’s not yet for children developed vaccine. The instructions, for example, for GamCovidVac, known as Sputnik V, state that under 18 years of age is a contraindication to administering the drug. Institute named after Robert Koch warnsthat the vaccines have not been studied for safety and effectiveness in children. Only the one developed by BioNTech Pfizer can be administered from the age of 16 years. The instructions for other registered vaccines indicate that the lower age limit for vaccination is 18 years. The child in the Russian-language video is clearly under 16 years old.

Moreover, some of the videos were originally created for entertainment purposes, as their authors said in the description of the video. This happened with the Russian-language video - the child’s father left a message in the caption to the video on TikTok: “Details in Telegram.” He's in the channel writesthat “the child was not vaccinated and this video is fake.” A similar story happened with an American girl under the nickname Emilaaay442. She decided post funny video after my sister asked if her hand was magnetic after the vaccination. As she explains later, before attaching the magnet, she licked it, which created the desired surface tension. In the description of the video, she put the hashtag #howrumorsarespread (#how rumors spread). When the girl realized that the joke had gone too far, she was forced to delete the video that had spread and publish Apologies to those who were thus misled.

Moreover, back in 2011 Reuters published photograph of how a magnet actually interacts with the human body at the site of implantation of a metal object under the skin. The authors of the video do not show anything similar to that real photograph in their videos. 

Thus, many scientific facts refute the very possibility of a magnetic attraction occurring between the injection site of the vaccine and an ordinary refrigerator magnet. Moreover, some of the viral videos were created not for the purpose of spreading conspiracy theories, but, on the contrary, to refute them.  

Fake

What do our verdicts mean?

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