We all probably regard the claim of microchipped Covid-19 vaccines as a mere conspiracy theory, but are there good reasons to believe this is practically possible? I know next to nothing about microchips or how the Covid-19 vaccine syringe needles are crafted, but this 2020 web article explores if this conspiracy theory has any merit at all:
If you are familiar with microchip technology, let’s see your take on this.
It is laughable absurd (in my opinion).
I do understand people are concerned about being tracked. But those same people walk around with a smart phone, which really is tracking them.
Its laughable, but I don’t think its absurd. To me, it’s not absurd because it appears possible to insert chips into people via injections. Its laughable to me because there is no evidence to support it, but conspiracy theorists keep pushing it as if it had.
Same here, but some people are unnecessarily paranoid and vocal about their paranoia too.
I think there are conspiracy theories about Big Tech too
I do not know the science behind microchips, so can’t say much there. My husband just pointed out you’d also need something along with the microchip to serve as a power source to be able to transmit a signal, like a micro transistor, or something. Neither of us know the state of the technology now however, to know if that is possible. They’d need to be small enough to fit through the needle of the syringe. I imagine that microchips would also exponentially increase the cost of the vaccine, though, so would also be highly impractical.
These conspiracy theories seem to arise, in part, from people not understanding the difference between a microchip and an nanoparticle. Nanoparticles are now used in some of the vaccines as a carrier. But those are just polymers and lipids, etc, not microchips or anything with computing or signaling capabilities. Nanoparticles are delivery vehicles made by chemists and materials scientists, not computer/data scientists. The nanoparticles are specifically designed to protect the vaccine components, such as the mRNA, to protect the mRNA from being degraded and to allow the mRNA to be taken up by the cells that will then be able to produce the protein that the immune system will recognize, so the vaccine will work. Without the carrier (perhaps nanoparticle) the mRNA would be destroyed extracellularly, before it could do its job, and would never enter a cell, and not get a chance to be translated into protein.
Here’s an article describing the state of the art for microchip technology from 2 years ago, so it doesn’t seem like it would be advanced enough yet for what the conspiracy theories claim about the current COVID vaccine
Yes, it might be possible to insert chips that way. But you would probably be doing it differently from the way you inject vaccines. And you would not be using pharmaceutical companies to develop it.
The people pushing this idea associate Bill Gates with Big Tech. That’s part of what drives this nonsense.
No. You can have passive RFID tags, that use the reader’s radio waves to power the return signal. I’d suspect that they’d have range limitations however. Even an active chips might be possible, if it could find a way to use bodily chemical processes to power the chip.
There has been discussion of the technical possibility of this, and it does not seem possible with current technology.
More fantastical about this is the regulatory possibility and pragmatic feasibility (rather: impossibility and infeasibility). Knowing how the process of drug and vaccine development, manufacturing and approval works, it would just be impossible to sneak a secret ingredient into a vaccine. Impossible with a grand conspiracy that involves several branches of the US government, thousands of scientists at several pharma companies that would be risking hundreds of billions of dollars profit to do something flat out illegal and unethical, and suppliers and manufacturers, all of which would be risking their own livelihood to pull this off.
Keeping it secret would require no whistleblowers among thousands of disconnected people who have never met each other and have different agendas. And for what? What would they all gain out of it? All it would do is add risk to the process, in a highly risk adverse industry.
No, I don’t buy it at all. Even if the technology did exist, this particular conspiracy sounds even worse than the conspiracy theories that the Moon Landing was faked.
Well I think its possible to use a pharmaceutical company for this, but no sensible one would risk its reputation to enact a plot that is extremely unlikely to succeed.
My thoughts exactly. That’s why I reject it. Its extremely improbable due to all the constraints mentioned.
While passive RFIDs are well known in a lot of industries, the antenna size required is much larger than could fit in an injectable chip.
In terms of powering a chip from the body. There are certainly was of doing this, but I’m not aware of any ways that would work on a microscopic chip, and provide enough power to actually transmit.
I’m not an expert, but I’ve had a chance to interact closely with companies that work in these areas, and I’ve never even heard of anyone really considering something like this.
Has this been done before? Can this sort of chip be inserted via injection and used for tracking in the manner claimed by conspiracy theorist?
I believe that pet micro-chips are passive (“no battery, no power required”), and are the size of a grain of rice. Whether this can be disguised as a purported ‘vaccine’ injection, or miniaturised further, I don’t know. But it would appear to be close enough to worry a paranoid layman – especially if they think the conspiracy may have access to more advanced technology than is publicly available.
Body-powered chips are pure speculation on my part (at least as far as I know).
Injectable chips are possible – see above.
The closest to ‘reality’ I suspect you could get is (i) a bit of further miniaturisation, (ii) find some excuse to inject it into your hand, & (iii) put the sensors into door-knobs, to guarantee close proximity to the chip.
But then conspiracy theories don’t need to be realistic – just close enough that it seems possible if either (i) you don’t think about the details too hard, or (ii) you’re sufficiently paranoid that you think the conspiracy has undisclosed capabilities that will bridge any reality-gap.
I appreciate your comments Tim. It appears the chip-in-vaccine conspiracy has a glimmer of possibility, but it is extremely improbable that any such injectable chip would pass through the intense vetting of Covid-19 vaccines without detection.
The vaccines have been shipped to other countries, some of whom are in a sort of cold war with the US. These countries on getting their shipments would most likely take apart some sample vaccines, analyze the constituents for any national security threat, and make reports if any are found. This hasn’t happened, lending some support to the absence of any chips in the vaccines.
In the end it remains a baseless conspiracy. All the theorists is talk, offering no evidence to show this happened.
I think it originated with Bill Gates talking about using “digital certificates” to track who has had a vaccine in his Ted Talk that warned about a pandemic back in 2015. The conspiracy theorists turned that into “microchip”, obviously not realizing they already use digital certificates (such as to verify their operating system), and that they have nothing to do with anything on a person’s body. Then Bill Gates was funding some research for a special dye to put in vaccines, so that in countries where vaccine records can’t feasibly be kept, they’d be able to see that someone has had a particular vaccine. Good idea, but it’s not been tested in humans yet, and it isn’t a microchip. Conflate those two stories, and you have yourself a conspiracy theory. Then add in the OB who said the vaccines would have heavy metals that would turn you into a 5G antenna and that the mRNA vaccines would alter your DNA… how on earth that person became a doctor, I don’t know. 
The microchips they use in pets, which are passive, use a pretty good sized needle. You’d certainly notice if you were injected with one of those. The Covid needle is tiny, and the doses come in multi-dose vials. But try telling a conspiracy theorist any of that, and you’ll get nowhere.
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