Support Bill HB1169 is not aimed at vaccinating cattle with mRNA jabs

By: Vivek J
May 11 2023

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Context

A video shared on Facebook claims that governments in North America are planning to inject cows with mRNA vaccines, using them as a new delivery system to get people who refused to get COVID-19 shots vaccinated. The same video has been extensively shared on TikTok. The speaker in the video says that governments are using people’s food to vaccinate them without consent. It was further noted that “people can no longer call themselves purebloods if they ate the meat or drink milk from these mRNA jabbed cattle.” 

This video cites House Bill HB 1169 and says it was presented by a lawyer named Tom Renz, an attorney known for making unwarranted claims about COVID-19 vaccines. There is no basis for the allegations made in this video, and the information shared in it is false. 

In Fact

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) has announced that “there are no current mRNA vaccines licensed for use in beef cattle in the United States. Cattle farmers and ranchers do vaccinate cattle to treat and prevent many diseases, but presently none of these vaccines include mRNA technology.” An article on DTN Progressive Farmer’s website quoted the Animal Health Institute and noted that “mRNA animal vaccines are one to five years away, and they are not to be confused with RNA technologies already in use.”

Logically Facts has previously debunked similar narratives on mRNA vaccines being administered into food and livestock. In that fact check, it has been noted, citing a Nebraska Medicine and the National Library of Medicine publication, that “mRNA is broken down quickly by normal body processes and leaves the body; therefore, there is fairly no chance of mRNA vaccine entering the human body after consuming meat from farm animals.”

William Wepsala, a Public Affairs Specialist at the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA-APHIS), told Logically Facts that "USDA has not approved and does not have any vaccines under trial to vaccinate livestock for COVID-19 and there are no licensed mRNA vaccines for COVID-19 in animals. Additionally, there are no mRNA vaccines being used in cattle in the United States. There are four licensed mRNA vaccines for swine, felines, and canines, but those vaccines have numerous biological differences compared to the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines used in humans. Any vaccine must be thoroughly demonstrated as pure, safe, potent, and effective to receive a license from USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS)." He further told us that, "there is no requirement or mandate that producers vaccinate their livestock for any disease. It is a personal and business decision left up to the producer and will remain that way."

We found that the bill cited in the video, HB 1169, was introduced in the Missouri House to address the concept of human genes being affected by food consumption. This bill introduced by Missouri’s Republican State Representative Holly Jones does not mention mRNA anywhere. The bill, however, wanted food products to have labels of vaccines and all Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) foods. According to the latest update on the Missouri House website, the motion to pass this bill has failed. 

This bill was not introduced by an attorney named Tom Renz. However, Thomas Renz was mentioned as a witness supporting this bill. He has previously claimed that COVID-19 vaccines are more harmful than the virus itself. The Seattle Times has also noted that “anti-vaccine groups, conspiracy theory enthusiasts, and far-right media have embraced him, and his best-known client, the group America’s Frontline Doctors, calls him part of a Legal Eagle Dream Team.”

The content of the purported bill shown in the video is an abstract from a reprint of a study titled “An oral vaccine for SARS-CoV-2 RBD mRNA-bovine milk-derived exosomes induces a neutralizing antibody response in vivo.” We did not find any of this in the original bill, as seen on the House of Missouri website, and this study was about oral vaccines for humans and not for animals. Thus, it is evident that the purported abstract of bill HB1169 shown in the video is not the one introduced in Missouri. 

The Verdict

A video claims governments plan to inject cattle with mRNA vaccines so that unvaccinated people receive the vaccine by consuming meat and milk from animals. However, no animal mRNA vaccines have been approved, and there is no evidence mRNA can transfer to people through this method. Further, the contents of the bill HB 1169, which has now failed the motion to pass, have nothing to do with vaccinating people. This claim is not based on facts and is conspiratorial. Therefore, we have marked it as false.