Many tangible conspiracy theories about the world and modern life have been developed and discussed to this day. But now we will talk about a campaign caused by a conspiracy theory that does not quite carry this ‘tangible’ adjective: Anti-vaccine. Although the opposition to vaccination, which has emerged in every epidemic we have overcome with vaccines for centuries, sometimes touches on debatable points, the advocated ones do not generally coincide with science and logic. Opponents, who also attack the vaccines we use for COVID-19 today, know no bounds in looking for a reason to blame.
Numerous invalid claims have been made to date for vaccines produced for COVID-19, especially those produced with mRNA technology. A claim that came to the fore on Twitter today was so big that one would give up. Vaccine opponents translated the statement on the BioNTech site with Google Translate and blamed the vaccines for the wrongly translated parts. Conspiracy theorists based on a mistranslation claimed that BioNTech was conducting biological experiments on Turkey and Africa.
Shared conspiracy theory ‘evidence’
prof. Dr. Cenk Kıraklı pointed to the borderless opposition to vaccination with the photos he shared on Twitter today. One of the photos is the original from BioNTech’s site; While there was an English explanation, the other one had a Turkish explanation presented as ‘evidence’ by anti-vaccine people. We know how absurd mistakes Google Translate can make, especially when translating long sentences with conjunctions, and these wrong translations often go no further than comedy material on the internet. However, a wrong translation seems to have been taken too seriously by some this time.
The original description on the site talks about the testing processes applied to the BioNTech vaccine as well as to other vaccines. It is mentioned that many countries including Turkey, USA, Germany, Brazil, Argentina and South Africa participated in the phase studies. In the erroneous Turkish translation, at the end of some explanations, “Turkey and Africa. “There is a missing sentence. While this sentence actually proves that Google Translate still isn’t a perfect translator, vaccine opponents have handled it differently.
BioNTech’s original statement:
“This global study plans has enrolled approximately 44,000 participants aged 12 years and older from a diverse population, including ethnic minorities, as well as high risk population in approximately 154 clinical investigational sites around the world, including study sites in Germany, US , Argentina, Brazil, Turkey and South Africa. The trial is designed as a 1:1 vaccine candidate to placebo, randomized, observer blinded study to obtain safety, immune response and efficacy data needed for regulatory review. “
- The part of the ‘Evidence’, which is the largest proof and which was separated by Translate causing mistranslation, is marked in bold. Only this part is translated as “154 clinical research centers worldwide, including study sites in Germany, USA, Argentina, Brazil, Turkey and South Africa”.
Incorrect translation of Google Translate:
These global study plans enroll approximately 44,000 participants from the population aged 12 years and older at approximately 154 clinical trial sites worldwide, including study sites in Germany, USA, Argentina, Brazil. , Turkey and South Africa. The trial was designed as a 1:1 vaccine candidate in a placebo, randomized, observer-blind study to obtain safety, immune response, and efficacy data needed for regulatory review. (It is actually a great success to make something out of these sentences, even if it is wrong.)
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