Why Is the Associated Press Lying About Gene Therapy Shots?

While the COVID-19 shots are referred to as “vaccines,” they do not meet the classical definition of a vaccine. Health authorities actually had to change the definition to accommodate the COVID shots and shut down the argument that, as experimental gene therapies, they may be riskier than traditional vaccines.

Meanwhile, based on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s definition of “gene therapy” they’re clearly gene therapies, and both Moderna and BioNTech acknowledge this. Despite that, the notion that the COVID shots are a form of gene therapy is so risky for Big Pharma’s bottom line,¹ they’re going to great lengths to make sure people don’t think of them that way.

Most recently, The Associated Press (AP) tried to debunk the idea that COVID shots are gene therapy, but as you’ll see, they’re either lying to protect the industry, or have gotten so inept they don’t know how to do investigative journalism anymore. Either way, it doesn’t reflect well on their credibility.

AP Lies About COVID Shots Not Being Gene Therapy

AP, at the end of December 2022, published a “fact check” titled “No, COVID-19 Vaccines Aren’t Gene Therapy,” in which they argued:²

“The COVID-19 vaccines do not change a person’s genes, as gene therapy does … The shots from Pfizer and Moderna use messenger RNA, or mRNA, to instruct the body to create a protein from the coronavirus. The Johnson & Johnson vaccine, meanwhile, uses a modified adenovirus to trigger an immune response …

In recent days, social media posts have shared a claim that the vaccines are ‘gene therapy’ — which involves modifying a person’s genes to treat or cure a disease, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.”³

The Definition of Gene Therapy

The FDA defined gene therapy in July 2018 and has not changed it since. Per the FDA’s website as of this writing:⁴

“Human gene therapy seeks to modify or manipulate the expression of a gene or to alter the biological properties of living cells for therapeutic use. Gene therapy is a technique that modifies a person’s genes to treat or cure disease …”

Here’s where AP went wrong. They only used ONE part of the FDA’s definition of a gene therapy — the part about modifying expression of a gene — in its debunking attempt. But the full definition also includes the words “or to alter the biological properties of living cells,” which is precisely what the COVID shots do.

The mRNA in the COVID jab are molecules that contain genetic instructions for making various proteins. mRNA COVID shots deliver synthetic mRNA with a genetic code that instructs your cells to produce a modified form of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein.

In other words, they “alter the biological properties of living cells for therapeutic use.” Whether they modify your DNA is irrelevant. Note the word “or” in the FDA’s definition. It means it can be one OR the other. They don’t have to alter gene expression in order to still qualify as gene therapy, at least not per the FDA’s definition.

Yes, the COVID Jabs Are Gene Therapies Per Definition

Moderna’s November 2018 Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) registration statement⁵ also confirms that its mRNA injections are defined as gene therapy, clearly stating that “mRNA is considered a gene therapy product by the FDA.”

The September 2019 SEC filing for BioNTech (its mRNA technology is used in the Pfizer vaccine) is equally clear, stating on page 21:⁶

“… in the United States, and in the European Union, mRNA therapies have been classified as gene therapy medicinal products …”

So, in the U.S. and Europe, mRNA therapies, as a group, are classified as “gene therapy medicinal products.”⁷ There’s simply no way around this. Yet to this day, mainstream media tries to “debunk” the reality of the COVID jab.

Definition of Vaccine Was Changed to Fool You

In 2018, Moderna acknowledged that mRNA technology was of a “novel and unprecedented nature,”⁸ yet for the past three years, we’ve been told that it’s just a newer, faster way to make vaccines.

The fact of the matter is that when the mRNA shots were rolled out in early 2021, they didn’t meet the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s definition of a vaccine. They only met the FDA’s definition of a gene therapy. And the only reason they meet the CDC’s definition of a vaccine now is because the CDC changed their definition.⁹

All the way up until the end of October 2021, the CDC defined a vaccine as “a product that stimulates a person’s immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease, protecting the person from that disease.” Immunity, in turn, was defined as “Protection from an infectious disease,” meaning that “If you are immune to a disease, you can be exposed to it without becoming infected.”

The new definition¹⁰ of “vaccine” is: “A preparation that is used to stimulate the body’s immune response against diseases.” So, a “vaccine” went from being something that produces protective immunity, to simply stimulating an immune response. The key words “to produce immunity” were eliminated from the equation.

This makes the COVID shots fit the description, as they do not make you immune against COVID-19 and weren’t designed to prevent infection in the first place.

Internal CDC correspondence¹¹ obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests also conclusively prove the reason for the change was simply to shut down arguments by “right-wing COVID-19 pandemic deniers” that “COVID-19 vaccines are not vaccines per CDC’s own definition.”

FDA Knew COVID Jabs Were Risky Territory

The FDA’s guidance for the human gene therapy products industry,¹² published in January 2020, also classified mRNA injections as gene therapy. Importantly, in this document the FDA stressed that gene therapy products that carry microRNA or cytokines can have “unknown pleotropic effects, including altered expression of host (human) genes that could result in unpredictable and undesirable outcomes.”

While the COVID jab certainly produces undesirable outcomes, negative consequences were not unpredicted. Early on, a number of scientists who had looked into the shots’ mechanisms of action warned about the possibility of severe adverse outcomes, including impairment of the immune system, neurological dysfunction and cancer. Today, a wide array of data and statistics prove those early concerns were valid.

Risk-Benefit Analysis Decimates Safety Claims

For example, a risk-benefit analysis¹³ looking at the impact of booster mandates for university students concluded that between 22,000 and 30,000 previously uninfected adults (aged 18 to 29) must be boosted to prevent one COVID-19 hospitalization.

Meanwhile, for each hospitalization prevented, the jab will cause 18 to 98 serious adverse events, including 1.7 to 3 “booster-associated myocarditis cases in males, and 1,373 to 3,234 cases of grade ≥3 reactogenicity which interferes with daily activities.” According to the authors, mandating a third COVID shot for university students will result in “a net expected harm.”