SAV: We Assure Public that Amount of DNA in Vaccines Complies with Standards

Bratislava, 4 September (TASR) - Representatives of the Biomedical Centre of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (BMC SAV) and the authors of the mRNA analysis of COVID-19 vaccines assured the public at a press conference on Thursday that the amount of residual DNA in the vaccines corresponds to the norms, reiterating that unscientific and fabricated statements about vaccine threats are a dangerous source of public fear-mongering that can have serious consequences for public health. "Based on our comprehensive analysis as well as the most up-to-date knowledge, we can unequivocally assure the public that the amount of residual DNA in mRNA vaccines is within standards. Moreover, this DNA is fragmented, it is not found in vaccines as a whole, but is broken into small pieces," said BMC SAV head Silvia Pastorekova, stressing that there is no credible scientific or medical evidence that this residual DNA alters the human genome. Pastorekova explained that the vaccines analysed came from official warehouses certified by the State Institute for Drug Control, including nine batches of Pfizer/BioNTech-Comirnaty and six batches of Moderna-Spikevax. "Eleven of the batches analysed were the same as those of interest to Government Proxy Peter Kotlar and came from the same source," she added. The BMC SAV head explained that the quantity, quality and origin of the residual DNA in the batches supplied were determined during the analysis. "When we started this analysis based on commissioning, we decided from the beginning that we wouldn't be satisfied with one method, but would want to use a number of mutually independent and complementary methods in order to obtain reliable and credible results, and to be absolutely confident that our data are trustworthy," she noted. Pastorekova added that all the methods used showed that the amount of residual DNA in all the batches analysed was below the internationally established limit of 10 nanograms per vaccine dose. am/mcs