The COVID-19 vaccine does not replace male sperm with spike protein

Could COVID-19 vaccines force men to forgo fatherhood? A Facebook post suggests as much, saying the shots make sperm disappear. The Jan. 20 post claims, with a video of a slideshow presentation by Dr. Arne Burkhardt, a German pathologist, that the "spike protein from the covid vaccine has entirely replaced their sperm."  

The Facebook post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

Burkhardt died May 30, 2023, according to the Mediziner und Wissenschaftler für Gesundheit, Freiheit und Demokratie, or Doctors and Scientists for Health, Freedom and Democracy, a group of researchers and physicians that have criticized COVID-19 pandemic restrictions and the vaccine.

In the presentation, Burkhardt, whose past comments about COVID-19 vaccines have been widely debunked in fact checks by several news outlets, shows slides that he says show how a vaccinated male’s sperm is replaced by the spike protein. The spike protein sits on the coronavirus’s molecular surface and is targeted by the immune response prompted by the vaccine. 

"Here you see a case where we show the testes, and you can see that in this 28-year-old man who had a healthy son and who died 140 days after injection, the spike protein is strongly expressed in the spermatogenic organ in the testes. And you can see there are almost no spermatocytes in here, but, and, it's strongly expression of spike protein in the spermatogenic tissue," Burkhardt says in the presentation, mangling the grammar. 

Afterward, he adds: "If I may make a personal comment, this is not a scientific comment. If I were a woman in fertile age, I would not plan a motherhood from a person, from a man who has been vaccinated."

The video was published Feb 20, 2023, on Rumble, a conservative-leaning video-sharing platform, and has appeared on Twitter and Instagram routinely since then. 

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Infectious disease experts say there is no evidence that the vaccine affects sperm or other elements of fertility for men or women. 

According to a 2022 analysis of global scientific research published in Vaccine, a peer-reviewed journal, "There is no scientific proof of any association between Covid-19 vaccines and fertility impairment in men or women."

A separate 2022 National Institutes of Health study showed that the "COVID-19 vaccination does not affect the chances of conceiving a child." The study, which involved more than 2,000 couples, "found no differences in the chances of conception if either male or female partner had been vaccinated, compared with unvaccinated couples."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still recommends the COVID-19 vaccine for people trying to become pregnant and their partners. 

We rate the claim that in vaccinated males, the spike protein from the COVID-19 vaccine has entirely replaced their sperm Pants on Fire!

PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.