On September 8, OAN’s Real America aired perhaps the strangest of all anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, postulating that aborted fetal cells in common childhood vaccines are responsible for transgender teenagers.

“Anti-vax” troll and guest host Alex Stein summed up Dr. Ben Tapper’s argument: “There are two cultures of aborted fetal cells, one male and one female, and these aborted fetal cells are used in different vaccines. … Ben theorizes that sometimes, putting an opposite-gender aborted fetal cell culture in a young child, as their body and cerebral cortex are developing the fastest, is what is causing the gender dysphoria in teenagers.”

Tapper is an anti-vaccine chiropractor who, in 2021, was named one of the “Disinformation Dozen” for his outsized contribution to COVID-19 disinformation online. Tapper’s big idea, which he admitted was mere “speculation,” is not supported by any scientific evidence. While several vaccines are developed with cell strains originally grown from fetal tissue, vaccines do not contain fetal tissue -- and there’s simply no evidence that vaccinations somehow cause gender dysphoria.

OAN has long been a clearinghouse for anti-trans misinformation and bigotry, full of malicious misgendering, transphobic misinformation about gender-affirming care, and deranged conspiracy theories. After the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, OAN also began spreading misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines, with a nonstop parade of unhinged allegations about or related to the vaccines. One OAN correspondent has filmed countless reports purporting to expose millions of deaths from the vaccines as part of the “rogue globalist government” plan to “depopulate the world” by 15% -- while he’s also encouraged liberals to get vaccinated, because, he says, the survival of the country depends on their deaths. 

OAN has even previously hosted a different anti-vaccine chiropractor, who claims that the COVID-19 vaccine is a “bioweapon” and also believes that “all vaccines are literal bullshit.” Perhaps chiropractors are the vanguard for OAN’s pivot from opposing COVID-19 vaccines to opposing all vaccines.