Who would you rather trust with your health – medical experts or TikTok?
Seeking medical advice from TikTok would be a bit like trying to order food from Netflix: you’ll soon find out that you’re in the wrong place.
Misinformation has been rife throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and TikTok certainly isn’t innocent in this respect.
Since the start of the pandemic, social media users have spread falsehoods over everything from the source of the virus to the effects of COVID-19 vaccines.
Last month, some viewers started what may be the weirdest coronavirus-related rumour yet: that vaccines make you magnetic.
As you may already have guessed, this is simply not true. But before we get to that, let’s examine the claims of these sages on TikTok.
Claims of Vaccines Making People Magnetic Go Viral on Social Media
In early June this year, videos of people sticking coins and refrigerator magnets to their arms went viral on social media.
Typically, this wouldn’t make front-page news, but these people claimed to have this magnetism after getting a COVID-19 vaccine.
The videos, first shared on TikTok and Instagram, soon went viral all over social media, spreading an absurd conspiracy theory: that the vaccines contain microchips or other metals used by the government to track Americans.
In reality, oily or sweaty arms may be the answer.
No, COVID-19 Vaccines Won’t Turn You Magnetic
In response to the growing online movement, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) maintained that COVID-19 vaccines will not make a person magnetic, even at the site of the injection.
This because the vaccines are free of “metals such as iron, nickel, cobalt, lithium, and rare earth alloys, as well as any manufactured products such as microelectronics, electrodes, carbon nanotubes, and nanowire semiconductors” that can create an electromagnetic field, CDC said.
“In addition, the typical dose for a COVID-19 vaccine is less than a milliliter… which is not enough to allow magnets to be attracted to your vaccination site even if the vaccine was filled with a magnetic metal.”
According to Jamie Alan, associate professor at Michigan State University, putting moisture or even licking a magnet can help it stick to you.
He suspects that the magnets in the viral videos are sticking to people’s oily or sweaty arms, and that the people in the videos are balancing them.
The Meedan Health Desk, a team of public health experts who fact-check medical claims, had an interesting response to the claims, saying humans are all a “little magnetic”.
“The human body contains a tiny quantity of iron. That iron can actually repel magnets when it mixes with the oxygen molecules in our systems,” it said.
“Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scans rely on our body’s magnetic functions to produce their critical insights into our insides.”
So, no. COVID-19 vaccines do not make you magnetic. And here is some visual proof:
@balancedanesthesia #stitch with @gabymtzz ???
@dr.ayede COVID-19 Vaccines does not cause magnet to stick to skin #covidvaccinemagnet #covidvaccines #learnontiktok #teamhalo #SageTellMe #covid19vaccine
You can also check out a complete list of ingredients in the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines at CDC’s official site.
And, as always, don’t believe everything you read on the internet, especially if you’re on TikTok.
Featured Image: BaLL LunLa/ shutterstock.com; TikTok (@balancedanesthesia)