Forbes stealth-edits article explaining ‘yes, the vaccine changes your DNA’

A Forbes article that takes aim at “anti-vaxxers” for claiming that the COVID-19 vaccine “changes your DNA” — arguing that technically it does and that’s a good thing — had its headline changed without explanation to emphasize that the vaccines “don’t alter your DNA.”

In a column published Monday that was originally titled, “Yes, The Vaccine Changes Your DNA. A Tiny Bit. That’s A Good Thing,” Steven Salzberg explains how a person’s immune system slightly alters their DNA after taking any vaccine, in the same way the body responds to any infection, like the common cold. Salzberg is a computational biologist and computer scientist with Johns Hopkins University and co-founder of the influenza virus sequencing project.

However, sometime after publication, the article’s headline was changed to, “Covid Vaccines Don’t Alter Your DNA – They Help Choose Cells To Strengthen Your Immune Response.”

After releasing this article today, Forbes scrubbed it and changed the headline. pic.twitter.com/SWn4T0ac1l

— Echo Chamber (@echo_chamberz) November 30, 2021