“Evidence has emerged that proves beyond a doubt that the Covid-19 virus was created by the same pharmaceutical giant that made billions from the sale of an experimental injection of Covid-19: Moderna.” This is how several Facebook posts begin, in different languages, accompanied by an accusatory title: “Biochemical evidence and official statistics confirm 100% that Moderna created Covid-19.” But do they confirm? The answer is negative and has already been verified by several fact checkers international sources, such as those of AFP or the Politifact website.

The research exists. What the authors of the article report is that during a search in Blast, a database of nucleotides (building blocks of nucleic acids, DNA and RNA) and whose purpose was to find a sequence of 12 nucleotides found in the spike protein of the Covid virus, they found something else. discovered a 19-nucleotide sequence found in a gene patented by Moderna, three years before the pandemic. Assuming this could happen by chance, the team also argued that “other possibilities should be considered.”

“We understood from the beginning that this similarity could be random and we stated this very prominently in the article,” said Bala Ambati, of the University of Oregon, the first researcher to sign the article, stressing, in statements to Politifact, that the only objective of the team is to move towards a deeper study. “We are not slandering people, companies or countries. And we don’t control social media, so we can’t vouch for it,” he added.

Within the scientific community, many voices were raised, questioning the article. One of them was Craig Wilen, professor of immunobiology at Yale School of Medicine: “This ‘study’ and ‘hypothesis’ are complete rubbish and are more of a conspiracy theory than evidence or research,” he told APF, considering that if the genome of the virus has about 30 thousand nucleotides, “The idea that a sequence overlap of 19 nucleotides proves anything is complete nonsense.”

Scott Kenney, a professor of virology at the Ohio State University College of Veterinary Medicine, thinks it’s more likely that the match happened naturally than that Moderna created the virus that caused a global pandemic.

Conclusion:

Fake. Although a study was actually carried out, the idea was not to blame individuals or companies for the creation of the Covid-19 virus, but to understand if the escape from the laboratory is a viable hypothesis for the appearance of the virus. On the other hand, the SARS-CoV-2 genome is about 30,000 nucleotides long. An overlap of a 19-nucleotide sequence proves nothing, American experts argue.

According to the Observer classification, this content is:

WRONG

In the Facebook rating system, this content is:

FAKE: The main content claims are factually inaccurate. This option typically matches “false” or “mostly false” ratings on fact-checking websites.

NOTE: This content was curated by The Observer as part of a fact-checking partnership with Facebook.