We came across this message on the ‘Healing the Divide” Telegram channel:

The post from Healing the Divide founder Iris Koh, a group that has a known stance against Covid-19 vaccination claims that it’s fine to inject formaldehyde into people but it is not okay to breathe the compound in.

Formaldehyde in the Covid-19 vaccine?

According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), some vaccines contain the substance formaldehyde to “inactivate viruses” and “detoxify bacterial toxins” so that they don’t cause disease. Excessive exposure to formaldehyde can cause cancer, but the formaldehyde contained in certain vaccines is diluted during production to an amount “so small compared to the concentration that occurs naturally in the body that it does not pose a safety concern.”

The FDA notes that the highest risk for exposure to formaldehyde comes from inhaling it, and that this occurs more frequently “in people who routinely use formaldehyde in their jobs”. According to the FDA, “there is no evidence linking cancer to infrequent exposure to tiny amounts of formaldehyde via injection as occurs with vaccines.”

While the claim that the Covid-19 vaccine contains formaldehyde is true, the subsequent claim that formaldehyde can be injected in people but cannot be breathed in is false and misleading, lacking context. Although it may sound ominous, formaldehyde in the amounts found in vaccines is not dangerous.  Formaldehyde can be toxic to humans when inhaled in much larger amounts than those found in vaccines, which usually only happens to those working in industries where they are exposed to large amounts of it over a period of years.