Agence France-Presse is an international news agency headquartered in Paris, France.
Summary
· The sales pitch that sperm from uninoculated men will be in high demand -- and therefore fetch top dollar -- stems from the widely debunked conspiracy theory that Covid-19 jabs cause mass infertility
Washington. A fugitive Chinese billionaire plans to auction
"unvaccinated sperm" on an online platform rife with misinformation
-- a sale that vaccine skeptics bill optimistically as a chance to buy the
"next Bitcoin."
The sales pitch that sperm from
uninoculated men will be in high demand -- and therefore fetch top dollar --
stems from the widely debunked conspiracy theory that Covid-19 jabs cause mass
infertility.
Guo Wengui, a tycoon exiled in the
United States who was recently arrested for alleged fraud, is putting that
pitch to the test with his much-hyped auction slated for June on the fringe
platform Gettr.
"Sperm and eggs from our fellow
fighters will be auctioned on our Gettr platform between June 1 and June
6," Guo said in a livestream in February.
The tycoon, a cult-like figure who
is wanted in China and closely tied to Donald Trump's former political advisor
Steve Bannon, claimed to have already stored nearly 6,000 eggs and a "few
million sperm" from unvaccinated supporters.
"We will auction off the best
sperm and eggs, including of course my own sperm," he said, adding that
trading will be allowed in digital currencies and be open to all races and
ethnicities.
It remains unclear whether the
auction will go ahead following the arrest earlier this month of Guo, who faces
federal charges that he defrauded thousands of online followers of some $1
billion.
But the planned sale has generated
buzz on Gettr, where the tycoon's supporters have hailed it as a "new era
for humanity."
"Giving unvaccinated sperms or
eggs not only is an honorable way to gain wealth, but also will save the future
of humanity," said a Gettr post that endorsed Guo.
The post featured a photo with a
hand-scrawled message: "Unvaxxed sperm is the next Bitcoin."
'Pure bloods'
"This auction plays off a
broader false narrative that Covid-19 vaccines have harmed fertility,"
John Gregory, health editor at the watchdog NewsGuard, told AFP.
"Anti-vaccine misinformers
pushed that claim even in the face of an abundance of medical studies showing
that the vaccines don't hurt male or female fertility."
Guo, who goes by other names
including Miles Guo, himself is an adherent to the false claim.
The New Federal State of China, an
anti-Chinese Communist Party lobby group created by Guo, has also repeatedly
made unfounded statements such as "vaccines are a bioweapon."
Guo's aides are tight-lipped about
the auction. When asked about it this week, a NFSC spokeswoman told AFP to
expect a response within 10 minutes, but did not reply and stopped responding
to reminders.
Gettr, a right-wing social media
company which the US media said was initially bankrolled by Guo, did not
respond when asked whether it would allow the auction.
In his livestream, Guo vowed to make
struggling Gettr the first global platform to trade sperm and eggs from
unvaccinated people.
He pledged to use "scientific
methods" for verification and said a letter from an attorney will be
required to confirm that the traders are unvaccinated, without giving further
details on testing or storage.
But some Gettr staff have expressed
skepticism about turning the platform into such a marketplace, noting hurdles
including legal restrictions on the sale of semen in other countries, Rolling
Stone magazine reported.
If Gettr were to proceed, the
platform will likely tap into the "pure bloods," a shadowy global
movement spawned by vaccine misinformation.
Wrongly asserting that Covid-19
vaccines "contaminate" the body, adherents of the movement use online
forums to seek out blood, sperm and even breast milk from unvaccinated donors.
Profit from falsehoods
The online chatter appears to have
fueled a belief among vaccine skeptics that the sperm represents a lucrative
financial opportunity.
"The real money is in
unvaccinated sperm," said a post on Gettr.
"It's the new white gold,"
it added, using the hashtag "unvaccinated and proud."
In another sign of interest,
"unvaccinated sperm available" mugs and t-shirts have gone on sale on
Amazon and eBay.
Indonesia's health ministry in
February rejected a fabricated article shared on Facebook and Twitter that said
the sperm of unvaccinated men "will be highly valuable in the
future," AFP factcheckers reported.
Another social media user suggested
that if a "sperm bank for the unvaccinated" ever opened, he could get
rich.
"It's only a 'precious
commodity' if a person has bought into the false narrative that Covid-19
vaccination harms fertility," Gregory said.
"This auction fits with an
established pattern where anti-vaccine misinformers sell products to profit from
their false claims."
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