Aerofarms leafy greens do not contain a Covid vaccine

Commercial greens produced by Aerofarms do not contain Covid-19 vaccines

(Reuters) - Vertical farms operator Aerofarms grew protein-producing plants for research on Covid-19 therapies in 2021 in a research facility separate from its retail vegetables. Posts online, however, have misrepresented the company’s work to falsely claim its commercial leafy greens sold at Whole Foods and other businesses contain a Covid-19 vaccine.

“Are Whole Foods customers being (vaccine emoji)’d with the C19 mRNA shot via food products without their customer’s knowledge or consent?,” reads the superimposed text viewable at the beginning of the clip showing photographs of Aerofarms greens.

Examples are viewable on Instagram (here) (here )

The clip features an extract of a 2021 video (here ), in which David Rosenberg, co-founder and CEO of AeroFarms says the company was working “on very specific therapeutic solutions and vaccine boosters as well as creating a platform to produce proteins for protein-based vaccine solutions.” 

“There is absolutely no connection to the food that we sell to Whole Foods or anywhere else to a vaccine,” Marc Oshima, co-founder and chief marketing officer at AeroFarms, told Reuters.

In the clip, Rosenberg referred to research involving Aerofarms plants creating ACE-2 proteins, Oshima said. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania developed an experimental chewing gum that used these proteins to serve as a trap for coronavirus particles in saliva (here).

Reuters reported on the research, which was published in the journal Molecular Therapy in November 2021

(here)

Oshima added that this research concluded in 2021 and that it “took place at one of our R&D farms and not at any of our commercial farms.”

AeroFarms website lists the company’s commercial and Research and Development farms as different facilities (www.aerofarms.com/farms/)

“We have not done any research linked to edible vaccines,” he told Reuters.

Further reading about research on edible vaccines and its challenges are viewable (here) ((here).

VERDICT

False. Commercial greens produced by Aerofarms do not contain COVID-19 vaccines, a spokesperson for the company told Reuters. A clip circulating misrepresents separate research related to an experimental COVID-19 therapeutic, not an edible vaccine.