On 28 July 2021, the podcast War Room: Pandemic, hosted by Steve Bannon, published this
video interview with molecular biologist Robert Malone, a former researcher at the Salk Institute. The video was widely shared on social media platforms, receiving more than 25,000 interactions on Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, and Twitter (see examples
here,
here,
here, and
here)
Both Bannon and Malone have previously spread
misinformation on
COVID-19 vaccines. In November 2020, Twitter
permanently suspended Bannon after he suggested that certain U.S. officials like Anthony Fauci should be beheaded, violating the platform’s policies against the “glorification of violence”.
YouTube later removed the podcast’s channel in January 2021 for violating the platform’s policies on misinformation.
During the interview, one of the primary claims made by Malone is that COVID-19 vaccination will make SARS-CoV-2 more dangerous due to a mechanism called
antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE). ADE occurs when antibodies don’t block a virus from infecting cells, but instead improve its ability to infect cells. This phenomenon increases the risk that individuals with preexisting antibodies from previous natural infection or vaccination develop more severe disease when exposed again to the virus.
Claims that COVID-19 vaccines would cause ADE started circulating on social media platforms early in the pandemic. Such claims are baseless and actually contradict scientific evidence, as we explain below.
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