Vaccination and magnetism in Belgium? An expert’s explanations

Published on : 07/01/2021 – 4:11 PM

Most of these videos showing phones, forks, or magnets being held alone on the arm are sleight of hand and the context is often unclear. In a previous episode of Info or Intox, we explained in particular that these videos had been popularized around the hashtag of the “Magnet Challenge”.

But other videos give much more precise and sourced indications. This is the case of a video filmed in Namur in Belgium, at the beginning of June, where a young woman returns to her place of vaccination, in Namur expo, to show what she thinks to be a magnetic reaction after having vaccinate. We detail what we know about this video in the episode above of Info or Intox.

Details of our investigation

The editorial staff of the Observers of France 24 contacted the doctor Dominique henrion of the Covid Namuroise unit, who confirmed that the scene was indeed authentic. He deplored not only that the medical staff did not know how to respond to this couple, but also explained that the couple had been particularly vehement and “in a protest process”.

In Namur, analyzes were carried out by the pharmacy and physics department of the city’s university. Jean-Michel Dogné, director of the pharmacy department, carried out tests on a dozen people, nurses and individuals, who claimed to have their arm magnetized.

The tests were carried out with two types of measuring device: a first device measuring a variation in the magnetic field, and a second device quantifying a magnetic field. In all cases, no variation or magnetic field was observed for all the cases studied, including the young woman from Namur, who also came to perform these tests.

Jean-Michel Dogné proposes a hypothesis as to the fact that objects can stick to the arm after the vaccine: a phenomenon of adhesion caused by an inflammatory reaction due to the vaccination temporarily modifying the structure of the skin by an excess of sebum or liquid .

To cancel this effect, the application of a powder of magnesium sulphate, contained in the talc, cancels the effect of adhesion for all objects sticking to the skin. Jean-Michel Dogné adds the possibility of a simple test to verify the magnetic effect or not: obtain a military compass in the trade, and stick it to his arm to check whether a magnetic field disturbs him or not.

According to Jean-Michel Dogné, this is a credible hypothesis, however, deserving of a more detailed study. For its part, the Federal Agency for Medicines and Health Products claims to have received notifications on similar cases, which “have been the subject of an assessment which is then encoded in the European database EudraVigilance”. cases do not allow, at this stage, to establish a link with the vaccination, according to our colleagues from RTBF.

The Department of Pharmacy and Physics of the University of Namur specified to the editorial staff of France 24 Observers that it was open to receiving anyone wishing to perform tests with calibrated devices to verify or not the magnetism.