Anti-Vaxxers are Hoping to Make A Killing Off Their Sperm
Spoiler: It’s not worth much.
Content warning: racism and bodily fluids
As vaccine hesitancy persists, anti-vaxxers — mostly men — are coming up with creative takes about the future value of their sperm.
And while sperm banks have told me requests for “unvaccinated sperm” are hardly common, they have received some.
The topic is a community response to misinformation alleging that Covid-19 vaccines cause potentially life-long infertility, a conspiracy theory entertained by influential anti-vaccine activists including Sherri Tenpenny and Christine Northrup. Both are among a dozen people reportedly responsible for two-thirds of anti-vaccine content on social media during a two-week period earlier this year.
Children of (Very Eager) Men
Earlier this summer, a meme about “unvaccinated sperm” reached the front page of r/nonewnormal, a since-quarantined conspiracy theory subreddit of 81 thousand users.
Widespread online mockery and vote brigading at the expense of subreddit members that occurred following the post brought to light a growing belief within the anti-vaccine community: That sperm from unvaccinated men — and potentially eggs from unvaccinated women — could soon be a commodity.
Much like similar discussions on Telegram, only some comments on the post read like they’re joking. “Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but vax-free females will be in far higher demand than men,” one read.
Other commenters made claims such as “the term unvaccinated sperm will soon be redundant” and “beta male sheep will distill it and inject it in a desperate attempt to have one last brief, flaccid erection.” One user urged that “females that get vaxxed should preserve some eggs beforehand”.
One user even claimed to be using his status as an antivax jizz machine (I paraphrase) has got him “cleaning up” on Tinder.
When it comes to the value of “unvaccinated sperm,” personal anecdotes seem to be a little more genuine every time the topic pops up.
In one major anti-vaccine Telegram channel where skepticism is harder to find than enthusiasm, a stock image of a line graph ending in a sharp ascent and the description “The price of unvaccinated sperm” has been viewed over 300,000 times.
As could be expected from a conversation involving both the topics of selective reproduction and anti-vaccine conspiracies, openly racist accounts were quick to weigh in.
“Have to make sure sperm is used only on White women. No mongrels.” Someone weighed in. Another voiced concern for those in the chat not taking the issue seriously, saying “I wouldn’t laugh. The white race is about to be extinct if blacks have their way”. A Neo-Nazi account with a Sonnenrade as a display picture simply said “Too the moon! [sic]”.
In Canada, messaging about “Unvaxxed sperm” has even made it to protest signage.
Rumours of Infertility Have Been Greatly Exaggerated
Infertility conspiracy theories can go hand-in-hand with false concepts of vaccine spread through sexual intercourse or insemination. Reddit and Telegram users have cited a variety of reasons why unvaccinated sperm would reign supreme as the most valued reproductive fluid of the afterscape, but concerns about fertility are, by far, the most commonly aired grievance. Anti-vaccine Telegram channels are full of users sharing articles from dubious blogs, vlogs, and social media posts citing misinterpreted and seemingly false studies.
Some members of the online anti-vaccine community have also cited Tinder’s new feature of optionally displaying vaccinations as evidence of a conspiracy involving population control through sexually transmitted vaccines.
Doctor Jaime Shamonki is the Chief Medical Officer of Generate Life Sciences, the parent company of California Cryobank, one of the largest sperm cryobanks in North America. She shared some insight into their studies pertaining to Covid-19 vaccines and sperm:
“We ran a preliminary study with some of the sperm vials and demonstrated that there was no difference in semen parameters before or after infection, or before or after vaccination.”
California Cryobank’s studies are consistent with others studying mRNA vaccines and fertility. “There are plenty of studies that show no effect of the vaccine on fertility (male or female). This is scientifically perfectly consistent with what we understand about the mRNA vaccine,” Shamonki clarified. “I’m not sure how people are even drawing this conclusion.”
Supply Exceeds Demand
In private networks created for sperm donor matching, posts specifically requesting donors who had not taken the vaccine are rare. A California couple using the Just a Baby smartphone app to find a sperm donor who were willing to speak to me anonymously said that although they settled on accepting sperm from donors regardless of their vaccination records, they were initially only open to donors who had not taken a Covid vaccine due to concerns about what they considered to be a lack of long-term studies on vaccinated patients.
A frequent U.S. sperm donor who runs a fertility blog said that although it was unexpected, he did receive one request from one prospective recipient who was searching for donors who had not taken a Covid-19 vaccine.
Co-ParentMatch.com, a service helping to pair sperm donors and recipients since 2007, confirmed that requests for vaccinated sperm were not onlyuncommon from their user base, but that to their knowledge, “no members have stated anything in their personal profiles”.
When asked if she could see any possibility of requests for sperm from unvaccinated donors becoming more frequent for California Cryobank, Doctor Shamonki said “Not meaningfully so”.
Canadian sperm banks aren’t seeing a demand either. Canada Cryobank is both a sperm bank and a Health Canada registered importer/distributor of donor sperm and donor eggs. Dr. Julia Szeptycki, the director of Canada Cryobank confirmed a scarcity of requests for unvaccinated donors: “Since speaking, we have had one inquiry, specifically seeking unvaccinated status. This is not the common request. Given the recent immunization history of vaccinations, the social discussions surrounding this topic may largely represent personal opinions and not fact.”
If anyone in the anti-vaccine community really is on to anything about sperm from unvaccinated donors being worth “more than gold”, it sure hasn’t become the norm yet
An International Export
The United States is the largest exporter of sperm for artificial insemination by a large margin, making its vaccine rates potentially more impactful in the world of artificial insemination. U.S. exported sperm donation is especially important for Canada, as reproductive materials are illegal to sell.
An organizer of a Canadian network for pairing Canadian donors and recipients emphasized that specific cities, including Ottawa, have a particularly glaring donor shortage.
Despite targeted education campaigns and early widespread availability, vaccination rates in many states have largely plateaued. Currently, only 50% of the United States’ population is fully vaccinated against Covid-19. Reasons for hesitancy among United States’ residents aren’t only due to misinformation about the vaccine, but also a lack of trust in government-run programs and the lack of opportunity to miss work for vaccination appointments.
Even if a demand for sperm from unvaccinated donors drastically increased, a large pool of eligible anti-vaxxers would ensure that it doesn’t become a commodity in the near future.
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