The claim

There are claims on social media that the COVID-19 vaccines cause AIDS. It reads “Millions will get AIDS from the COVID vaccines by fall.” Among other things, Michael Wendler also shared a web article about this on his Telegram.

Our conclusion

No, COVID-19 vaccines do not cause HIV or AIDS. This is a regularly repeated bogeyman.

No, the Covid vaccination does not solve AIDS. Not even for people who have been vaccinated several times, or simply for anyone. Nevertheless, this story is told regularly; Michael Wendler recently shared a web article about it on his Telegram channel (“forwarded”). Although he posted two days later that he had never claimed that “you get AIDS from the Covid-19 gene injection,” he shared the article itself without comment on his article on March 27, 2022. Basically, we don't need to write a new fact check about Covid vaccinations here, because there is various content that already clearly states that the vaccination does not cause AIDS. We refer to these at this point:

  • Reuters: Fact Check-COVID-19 boosters do not cause positive HIV tests ( here )
  • Euronews: COVID-19 vaccines do not create variants of HIV/AIDS ( here )

Ultimately, this is complete nonsense, since AIDS is caused by the HIV virus and not by the Covid vaccination.

“AIDS is an acquired immunodeficiency disease. It is the final stage of an HIV infection. The pathogen, the HIV virus, attacks certain cells of the immune system. It is primarily transmitted through unprotected sexual intercourse.”

You don't catch the HIV virus "incidentally", but there are certain routes of infection ( see here ). But this story has a serious and long-standing background. In the end it's about fear.

AIDS & the HIV infection narrative

Already last autumn, the claim emerged that vaccinated people would become ill with AIDS en masse by the end of the year ( see here ). Of course that didn't happen. But that apparently doesn't stop supporters of conspiracy theories from simply changing the date of the alleged AIDS cases and moving them into the future.

But why AIDS of all things? There is a very old narrative behind this story, namely the story that we could easily become infected with the HIV virus. Here two stories are simply plausibly close to each other. Covid-19 vaccination and HIV: We are dealing with two stories about viruses, we are dealing with the deadliness of one story. And that is something very important, here the vaccination, which is not fatal, is linked to a disease that can certainly have a fatal outcome.

A precursor to this narrative is the HIV-infected needle in the cinema seat. This is a fairly ancient urban legend that was spread online many years ago. The story itself is explained quite simply: in a cinema in a certain city there would be an HIV-infected needle in a cinema seat. So visitors would have to be careful while visiting this cinema. There are different versions of this story, sometimes also as a story about going to the disco.

The core is the fear of infection and becoming ill with AIDS. This narrative core has now been transferred to the Covid-19 vaccination. So basically the same mechanisms come into play here. People become insecure and afraid. Be it during a visit to a disco or cinema, or in the current case also before a vaccination. In its modern version, the story is intended to cause people to stop getting vaccinated.

Basically, a fact check is more or less pointless at this point, because anyone who is convinced of the story will not believe a fact check. In this respect, we are again dealing with a battle between narratives.

That could also be of interest

Fact check: One sixth of Europe's natural gas demand cannot be replaced in the short term without imports from Russia. The federal government rejects a ban on the import of Russian energy for reasons of security of supply. Continue reading …


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Notes:
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