Do the COVID Vaccines Contain Bioluminescent Markers to Track People?

No.

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On Monday, Newsmax White House correspondent Emerald Robinson, a regular source of false information, tweeted that the COVID-19 vaccines contain a “bioluminescent marker called luciferase so that you can be tracked.” The tweet was widely shared before being removed from Twitter for violating the platform’s guidelines. A screenshot of the now-deleted tweet continues to spread on social media, calling attention to Robinson, but not validating the claim.  

The claims that the COVID-19 vaccines contain luciferase and that the substance can be used to track people, is false. 

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  1. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    Emerald Robinson is absolutely out of her mind. This is yet another example.

    Honestly, Newsmax cleared my basement level expectations: I thought they’d double down on what she said.

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  2. CatoTheElder

    Luciferase is a commonly used means of “tagging” cells, proteins, and such for laboratory research purposes. It is NOT used in vaccines (though the research helping to produce the vaccines is a different story), nor is it included in vaccines for nefarious purposes. Anyone making or advancing this sort of claim is, sensu stricto, an idiot. Meaning they literally don’t know what they’re talking about, know nothing of consequence or use about the topic, and generally shouldn’t be listened to in seriousness on this or, quite possibly, any other matter.

    I disagree that it’s worth noting that Newsmax “distanced itself from Robinson’s claims”. That’s merely Newsmax trying to have it both ways. A responsible news organization would fire Robinson now if not sooner, with the most public denunciation possible of his ridiculous claims.

    Then again, the last really responsible news organization was The Daily Herald and Explainer of West Gothenburg, Kansas, run by a no-nonsense editor and publisher named Êrik Torvald Peterrsen. Known as “ET” or “Eternal Truth”, Peterrsen was resolute in publishing fair, honest, and trustworthy news items, and these only. Except for Page Eight. (His newspaper was a small publication; Page Eight was the back page.) On Page Eight, he ran an occasional column allegedly written by M. P. Cato (no relative) which was known for stretching the truth as far as could be done. The Daily Herald and Explainer was sold on Peterssen’s death to the publisher of the East Gothenburg Inquirer, which ran the DHE for a few months before closing shop and selling the press, supplies, etc., with the Inquirer becoming the only news source in Stockholm County. The Inquirer was once described as “more or less the direct opposite of the Daily Herald and Explainer in every conceivable way. Whereas Peterssen’s well-respected paper had a long-lasting and reliable relationship with the Truth, the Inquirer’s unofficial motto seems to be something like ‘Infidelity, prevarication, and incitement of emotion in every way, ‘cause that’s what sells.’ Peterrsen had his Page Eight; the Inquirer was nothing but a Page Eight.”

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    1. Avatar photo
      Dave T

      If this isn't a quote from Mark Twain, it's a fine facsimile of one! Keep up the good work hahaha

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      1. CatoTheElder

        I was inspired by the man! (And remain so.)

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  3. Avatar photo
    Victor Clairmont

    Conspiracie! They are everywhere!

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  4. David Shannon

    Well, what good are the vaccines if they DON’T track people?

    Obviously just kidding. Awesome fact-checking work!

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  5. Avatar photo
    Trevor Reid

    Perhaps they should have chosen a better name than “Lucifer rays”

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  6. Avatar photo
    Steven Anderson

    This is the woman who claims to have brought down The Weekly Standard.

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  7. Avatar photo
    Octávio Lima

    And we are supposed to take these people seriously? Well, I cannot.

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    1. dlnevins

      I take them seriously - as threats. They aren't too stupid to breathe, alas, but they ARE too stupid to vote intelligently, and that's a huge problem.

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  8. Avatar photo
    Pat @ Tavi Hall

    Darn, glowing in the dark could've come in handy.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Char T

      And if it could be controlled? X-Men, in real life. Sort of.

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      1. dlnevins

        Previously these same people were claiming that the vaccine magnetized people. Cool! I WANT Magneto's powers!

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  9. Avatar photo
    Bill B

    What kind of morons believe this? This is trailer-park, inbred, crack-den, snake-handler stuff and I have a really hard time believing it's not being thrown out there by some bot farm in the Ukraine giving out Mencken Awards for over-estimating the American voter.

    I don't know that we should we even be fact checking it. Anyone who believes it is not going to be in the same dimension as The Dispatch.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Scarlette Tarte

      I have a hard time believing that people like this woman Emerald are not trolling people.

      Just to see the rubes fall for it.

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    2. Ingenero.lux

      You would be surprised. Not that I’ve seen (many) people on here who would buy into this, but I have heard highly intelligent people buy into arch weirdness from time to time. I wish it only involved meth monkeys and people claiming to have been abducted by Elvis, but stuff like this gets a strange reaction. Especially if you invoke Satan - people buy into very stupid theories if you say Satan was involved. “My local county’s fingerprint scanner is the Mark of the Beast!” “That daycare is run by a Satanic cult raping toddlers with knives!” “Hillary Clinton is sacrificing children to Satan!”

      Those all were actual claims, by the way. And yes, all the little kids were fine with zero evidence of any mistreatment at all…and someone still went to jail. You would be surprised how credulous some people can be.

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      1. Avatar photo
        Mudskipper

        Yeah. We all know how much to trust someone with "lux" in his name. Get thee behind me, luciferase!

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        1. Ingenero.lux

          Hey! My glow’s just the pleasant gleam of electrons traveling faster than the speed of light in water!
          https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation

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          1. Avatar photo
            Bill B

            Witchery!

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  10. Alex DeLarge

    "It’s also important to emphasize that luciferase has nothing to do with Lucifer."

    Source?

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    1. Avatar photo
      Mudskipper

      As Ingenero.lux points out, luciferase was named by a scientist in 1885. In the 19th century, educated men took Latin and Greek and were very familiar with Greek and Roman mythology. Scientists had a penchant for using Latin and Greek words for naming things and to often make references to Latin and Greek mythology--the names of the planets are great example of this. So even without a having a source, it is entirely believable that Raphaël Dubois named a enzyme that produces light after the Latin term meaning "light-bearer." But if you want a source and will accept wikipedia, here is one:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luciferase

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      1. Avatar photo
        Scarlette Tarte

        Yes, always found it highly funny that Lucifer means "bringer of light" or "enlightenment".

        Because that would mean that being "enlightened" is evil. Which is what people who are religious actually believe.

        God forbade Adam and Eve to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Lucifer said "let me help you become enlightened".

        The idea that knowledge of anything is bad, is very much entrenched in religious doctrines. Martin Luther wrote that "reason is the enemy of faith". The fact that religion made he who brings the light into the bad guy, tells me all I needs to understand about religion.

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      2. CatoTheElder

        To continue with the ‘names of the planets’ theme for a moment: the Romans referred to Venus (obviously one of the brightest of the celestial bodies) as ‘Lucifer’, meaning ‘light-bringer’. This meaning long pre-dated the Christian adoption of the word as an occasional name of the devil, based largely on a stretch from a single Old Testament reference. Both ‘lux’ and ‘phos’ (Φως) and their cognates have been used by sciency sorts of folks for a very long time, with almost never any reference intended to the Evil One. [And the only reason I use ‘almost’ is simply because I cannot of course prove that no one has ever done so.]

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        1. Avatar photo
          Mudskipper

          A little known fact: up until 2012 (!) botanists were still required to write a description of a new species they were describing in Latin. I don't think most people realize how much Latin was the lingua franca of science in the past.

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          1. Avatar photo
            Scarlette Tarte

            Oh yeah, I had to take Greek and Latin for my undergrad degree in Zoology.

            Absolutely, it still very much is what makes up a lot of terms in science. Never could have made it thru most of my classes without it.

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          2. CatoTheElder

            Okay, now THAT’s a kinda cool fact I didn’t know. And perhaps why I naturally gravitated away from botany. That world is kinda…messed up.

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    2. Ingenero.lux

      You really think a French scientist in 1885 was naming these things after Satan? Modern Satanism wasn’t established until 1966, and even Aleister Crowley was only 10. The idea is beyond risible. It’s insane. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4871753/

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      1. Alex DeLarge

        So you think the Prince of Darkness didn't exist until 1966, and that you can verify what he was up to in 1885? I rate your claim as "unsupported" at best.

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        1. Ingenero.lux

          You really have no idea what you’re talking about. You might as well buy into the Q-anon space lasers and Satanic pedophile rings as believe this was named after Lucifer. Actual Satanists (meaning people who literally worship the Satan of the Bible) are almost non-existent today - the vast, vast majority are either Atheists or view Satan as a symbol. The latter were largely a product of the 60s, though there were followers of Aleister Crowley who took part in “Satanic Rituals” (see John Parsons), though they didn’t literally worship Lucifer. The idea of a non-Satanist (either someone who worships the literal Biblical Devil, a symbolic Devil, or a deity they name Lucifer but which doesn’t correspond to the biblical Devil, or a Leveyan Satanist, an Atheist who uses the devil imagery to rile people up or make political points) naming the stuff that makes fireflies light up after the Devil is beyond unlikely today, even more so in late 19th Century France. Really, moral panics (which run from the Knights Templar to the witch burnings to the 1980s and 90s Satanic Panic) and heavy metal musicians trying to sell albums to kids wanting to make their parents squirm are the main source of Satanic imagery these days, and the late 19th Century didn’t have Ozzy Osbourne. So, the very idea is an anachronism - Lucifer was the Devil then, meaning evil, no one was ironically or transgressively naming things after him, and actual Satan-worshipping cabals were conspiracy theories.

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            Dave T

            It isn't worth talking to Alex. He's pure troll.

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