An ultra-Orthodox Rabbi in Israel has made a bizarre claim that the coronavirus vaccine can turn people gay.
Daniel Asor told his followers in a video that he had serious concerns about the jab, however none of them are rooted in fact.
The Rabbi alleged 'any vaccine made using an embryonic substrate, and we have evidence of this, causes opposite tendencies', but didn't provide any evidence for his claims.
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"Vaccines are taken from an embryonic substrate, and they did that here, too, so...it can cause opposite tendencies," he added.
He also said the vaccine was a part of 'global malicious government' trying to 'establish a new world order'.
Rabbi Asor, again without evidence, suggested the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wanted coronavirus vaccine recipients to be microchipped.
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He said Netanyahu is working with 'an international cabal consisting of Bill Gates, the Freemasons and the Illuminati', who started the pandemic for population control, according to Queerty.
These allegations are not only unfounded, but they go against a direction from three of Israel's highest ranking rabbis in the ultra-orthodox world.
Rabbis Chaim Kanievsky, Gershon Edelstein and Shalom Cohen all said people should get the coronavirus vaccine if it is safe to do so.
Israel has rolled out the Covid-19 jab faster than most countries around the world. More than two million Israelis have already received the first round of vaccinations and 225,000 have had the second jab.
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The country is hoping to have administered vaccines to five million of its nine million citizens and reopen the economy by mid-March.
While Rabbi Asor's claims about the vaccine turning people gay is outrageous, he isn't the only religious figure that has raised concerns about the use of embryonic cells in the vaccine.
Three of Australia's leading religious figures called for a boycott on the coronavirus jab being sent to the country due to ethical reasons.
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Catholic Archbishop of Sydney Anthony Fisher, Anglican Archbishop of Sydney Glenn Davies and Greek Orthodox Archbishop of Australia Makarios Griniezakis highlighted their concerns back in August.
They signed a letter to Prime Minister Scott Morrison, asking him to abandon the plans to use the vaccine. Clearly that letter fell on deaf ears as the government has ordered tens of millions of doses of different vaccines.
Human embryonic kidney 293 cells, also known as HEK 293, are taken from an aborted female foetus and have been used in cell biology research for years.
Researchers tend to use these types of cells because they can reliably grow in laboratory settings. The biotechnology industry has been using them to produce therapeutic proteins and viruses for gene therapy. Because they're human cells they're also useful in seeing how proteins will react with the human body.
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