Fact Check: Video Shows NO Scientific Proof That Antibodies Produced By COVID-19 Vaccines Will Turn Deadly

Fact Check

  • by: Arthur Brice
Fact Check: Video Shows NO Scientific Proof That Antibodies Produced By COVID-19 Vaccines Will Turn Deadly Fact Check: Video Shows NO Scientific Proof That Antibodies Produced By COVID-19 Vaccines Will Turn Deadly Unproven Claim

Does a video by an anti-vaccine physician show conclusive scientific evidence that the antibodies produced by the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines will cause severe harm and even death if a vaccinated person is exposed to the COVID virus after inoculation? No, it does not: The claims by Dr. Sherri Tenpenny and other vaccine opponents lack rigorous scientific testing to prove their validity. The one scientific study Tenpenny cites as proof was limited in scope and it dealt with a previous coronavirus, not COVID-19. Furthermore, the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine has only been administered worldwide since December 2020, which is not long enough to make any long-term determinations. Most significantly, a leading infectious disease expert at the University of Oklahoma strongly refutes her claims and questions her qualifications to reach her conclusions.

The claim appeared in a video published by bitchute.com on February 9, 2021, titled "EXPLAINS HOW THE DEPOPULATION mRNA VACCINES WILL START WORKING IN 3-6 MONTHS [2021-07-07] - DR. SHER" (archived here) which opened:

Dr. Sherri Tenpenny Explains How the Depopulation Vaccine Will Work Over 3-6 Months



EXPLAINS HOW THE DEPOPULATION mRNA VACCINES WILL START WORKING IN 3-6 MONTHS [2021-07-07] - DR. SHERRI TENPENNY (VIDEO) REQUIRED VIEWING! Dr. Sherri Tenpenny gives VERY important information! Hyper-immune response in test animals for previous a...

To get a better understanding of Tenpenny's assertions, it is first helpful to look briefly at how vaccines trigger the immune system in general and what the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna mRNA vaccines are and how they work.

The World Health Organization explains how vaccines work:

Vaccines contain weakened or inactive parts of a particular organism (antigen) that triggers an immune response within the body. Newer vaccines contain the blueprint for producing antigens rather than the antigen itself. Regardless of whether the vaccine is made up of the antigen itself or the blueprint so that the body will produce the antigen, this weakened version will not cause the disease in the person receiving the vaccine, but it will prompt their immune system to respond much as it would have on its first reaction to the actual pathogen.

The Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines are novel because they are the first to use the blueprint to produce the antigen, rather than the weakened or inactive part of the actual organism against which immunity is being sought.

Here's how Healthline explains the process:

Both the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines consist of a piece of genetic material called mRNA. Simply put, mRNA provides the cells of your body with instructions on how to make proteins. ...

The mRNA in the COVID-19 vaccine contains instructions for making a viral protein called the spike protein. This is a protein that's found on the surface of the novel coronavirus. The virus uses it to attach to and enter a host cell in your body.

When you receive the vaccine, your body will recognize the spike protein as an invader. Because of this, it will produce antibodies to protect you against the coronavirus's spike protein.

After you receive your Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccine, the mRNA can enter the cells in your body. These cells begin to produce the spike protein, displaying it on their surface.

Cells from your immune system will notice these spike proteins and recognize them as foreign. Because of this, your immune system will begin building an immune response to the spike protein, which includes the production of antibodies.

If the antibodies produced by your immune system then come across the actual SARS-CoV-2 virus, they'll recognize it as an invader and will be able to destroy it before it causes you to become ill. In other words, your immune system will be primed and ready to fight off and neutralize the actual virus once you get the vaccine.

It is this type of spike-mediated vaccine that Tenpenny cites in her hour-long video presentation as potentially dangerous to anyone inoculated by the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech injections and then later exposed to the circulating COVID-19 virus. She cites a February 21, 2019, study titled "Anti-spike IgG causes severe acute lung injury by skewing macrophage responses during acute SARS-CoV infection."

Immunoglobulin G, called IgG, is one of the five antibodies in the body and the most abundant, as merckmanuals.com points out.

The National Cancer Institute says a macrophage is:

A type of white blood cell that surrounds and kills microorganisms, removes dead cells, and stimulates the action of other immune system cells.

Tenpenny cites the study, which involved testing on 16 Chinese rhesus macaque monkeys, in the video and in an article she posted December 28, 2020, on the Vaxxter web site.

But Tenpenny extrapolates too much from the study, which looked at severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS-CoV, which produced a pandemic in 2002 and 2003) and not SARS-CoV-2, commonly known as COVID-19. SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 are caused by different coronaviruses.

It wasn't until February 11, 2020, that the World Health Organization announced the official name for the virus as COVID-19. The authors of the study cited by Tenpenny state in the first sentence that the investigation looked into severe acute respiratory system (SARS-CoV). They did not mention SARS-CoV-2 because it likely did not exist then.

Tenpenny makes another extrapolation from the study that also may not be valid because the mechanism of action may be different for SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-19. She notes in the Vaxxter article:


The National Cancer Institute defines cytokines as:

A type of protein that is made by certain immune and non-immune cells and has an effect on the immune system. Some cytokines stimulate the immune system and others slow it down.

Prof. Timothy Brewer, a UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine infectious disease researcher who also treats COVID patients, told Lead Stories for a February 11, 2021, report that his literature search found no reports of a surge of lethal "cytokine storm" deaths caused by mRNA vaccines.

Brewer said cytokine storms have been a problem for a few COVID patients in the late stages of the disease who suffer more from the immune system over-reaction than from the damage done by the virus. Steroids like dexamethasone have proven effective in quelling the reaction, he said.

Tenpenny also uses data from studies on previous coronaviruses to surmise that the same phenomena will occur with the COVID-19 vaccinations, leading to antibody derived enhancement, or ADE:


However, when the spike protein antibody (anti-S-IgG) engages with the Fac receptor on the surface of the cytomembrane, the "door opens" and allows the complex to enter host cells. And, if the Fab fragments of the antibody are only weakly bound to the surface of the pathogenic protein, the antibody acts like a Trojan horse. The loosely bound protein material "escapes" from the end of the Fab fragments, it highjacks that reverse transcriptase enzyme system and begins to replicate, enhancing the infection rather than stopping it.

This is the process of how antibody derived enhancement, or ADE, works. It's like having an "on button" on a replicator but no "off button." As the mRNA replicates, more and more non-neutralizing antibody is produced, leading to accelerated autoimmune diseases, primarily affecting the lungs, liver and kidneys.

But a February 4, 2021, report by the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia says this cannot happen:

mRNA is made and used in protein production in all cells of our bodies. As such, cells have mechanisms in place to ensure that no protein is made in quantities greater than needed. One way this happens is that mRNA has a "poly(A) tail." In the cytoplasm, this tail ensures mRNA decay. As the mRNA is used to make proteins in the cell, the length of the poly(A) tail decreases, until it is too short for the mRNA to continue being used as a protein blueprint. Once this happens, the mRNA breaks down and is removed as cellular debris. This process limits how long mRNA remains in the cytoplasm -- and, therefore, how much protein is produced.

Many scientists and health experts strongly dispute Tenpenny's assertions. Dr. Douglas Drevets, an infectious disease specialist at the Oklahoma University Health Sciences Center, is one of them. He told Lead Stories in a February 18, 2021, email:

[S]he really does not understand how the mRNA vaccines work. For example, she states that after injection, the mRNA replicates - which it does not - and that we make an antibody against the mRNA - which we do not, and that anti-spike protein antibodies will bind to the lung and damage it - which they do not.

Tenpenny says people who receive the vaccine will start to get sick anywhere from 42 days to 12 or 14 months after being inoculated and then coming in contact with the COVID-19 virus: "Re-exposure leads to starting the process."

Not so, Drevets says:

She claims myriad deadly side effects will occur within a few months of taking the vaccine due to these side effects, but she ignores the fact that by her explanation similar processes would have happened with natural infection and antibody production against the SARS-2-CoV and this really is not found.

He also questioned why she should be believed:

Lastly, her description of her training and background in no way qualifies [her] to speak with authority on such subjects.

Tenpenny's website says she holds a Doctor of Osteopathy with advanced training in holistic medicine

Lead Stories previously cited Devets in a February 14, 2021 report, explaining that the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccines are not gene therapy and don't revise human genetic codes.

Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, acknowledges that some vaccines can have consequential side effects, such as paralysis. But he said in a Jan 28, 2021 podcast:

The good news about these terrible side effects is that they all occur within six weeks of a dose. That's why it is that the FDA, the Food and Drug Administration, insisted that each of these vaccines be studied for at least two months after the last dose, knowing that there's not been a serious side effect in history that hasn't occurred within weeks of getting the dose, within six weeks of getting the dose.

Vaccine Emergency Use Authorization Review Memorandums to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on November 20, 2020, for Pfizer-BioNTech and November 30, 2020 for Moderna found no serious adverse events (SAE), including death.

Federal Drug Administration spokeswoman Alison Hunt confirmed to Lead Stories in a February 11, 2021 report that the vaccines underwent rigorous examination:

FDA has determined that the totality of the available data provides clear evidence that both vaccines may be effective in preventing COVID-19 and support that the known and potential benefits outweigh the known and potential risks of the vaccine's use in millions of people, including healthy individuals.

A February 15, 2021, report by Lead Stories disproved reports that the vaccines are causing sudden deaths in young and middle-aged people.

Tenpenny says she is opposed to all vaccines, not just the ones for COVID-19, and dismisses all preventive measures:

the myth of the mask, the myth of social distancing, the allowing of contact tracing, which is legalized spying right out of the Nazi German brown shirt ... movement. ...

If we can't get people to refuse to wear a mask, they're never going to refuse the rest of it.

She blames health officials, saying they are trying to subjugate the public:

They have been able to put together the ultimate plan for their ultimte agenda, which is genocide, depopulation, making us into slaves through the transhuman movement and ... social credit system.

The Washington Post reported on January 18, 2021, that her medical practice, the Tenpenny Integrative Medical Center, received $72,000 in 2020 from the federal government's Paycheck Protection Program, which was instituted in response to the financial crisis brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The New York Times said the Tenpenny Integrative Medical Center was one of "six organizations that have challenged the safety of vaccines and made claims that scientists have called false" and "received loans that collectively added up to more than $1.1 million, according to data from the Small Business Administration, which manages the program."

The Post also noted that:

A popular page run by Tenpenny was banned from Facebook in December for spreading misinformation, although she still has tens of thousands of followers on Instagram

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  Arthur Brice

Arthur Brice is a fact checker at Lead Stories. He has been a journalist for more than 40 years, nearly 30 of them in newspapers. Brice was a national desk editor and reporter at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution for nearly 20 years. Previously, he was political editor at The Tampa Tribune and also worked for three other Florida newspapers. He spent 11 Years as an executive editor and executive producer at CNN. 

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