A new study finds a lot of Americans believe COVID vaccine myths that have been proven false. People who think they know a lot about the vaccines are more likely to hold misperceptions than others.
According to Katherine Ognyanova, an associate professor of communication at the Rutgers University School of Communication and Information, the COVID States Project survey found 37% of Americans who believe multiple false claims thought they were very knowledgeable about vaccines, compared to 16% of those who held no misperceptions.
She said people were asked about four false stories that have spread online: COVID vaccines alter people’s DNA, they contain microchips that can track you, they contain lung tissue from aborted fetuses and they can cause infertility.
About 16% of people believe at least one of those are true. About 46% were not sure about at least one of those statements.
The survey found 5% of respondents thought vaccines contained microchips, 7% said vaccines used aborted fetal cells, 8% believed vaccines could alter human DNA and 10% were concerned that vaccines could cause infertility.
Ognyanova was most surprised by a third of the people who believe in a false statement also acknowledged that the world’s leading medical experts and scientists had debunked those claims.
The survey also found 21% of respondents indicated they knew the claims were false but were still not sure.
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