Anti-vaccine sentiment has infected almost every part of America in the wake of the Covid pandemic – from academia to politics.
But the anti-vax movement now appears to have infiltrated the world of online sperm donation, where wannabe mothers are seeking samples from men who refused to take the Covid shot.
Jonathan David Rinaldi, nicknamed “The Sperminator,” was a prolific donor for many years the Facebook group Sperm Donation USA, the largest sperm donation group in America.
But after seeing a “huge increase” in requests for sperm from unvaccinated donors, he broke off and started his own splinter group exclusively for the anti-vax group.
Women searching for ‘unvaccinated sperm donors’ specify ‘no Covid vaxx’ on their posts and seek a baby-making partner
Jonathan David Rinaldi, also known as the ‘sperminator’, was a donor to the Facebook group Sperm Donation USA for many years before starting his own Facebook group for unvaccinated sperm donors
The group has almost 250 members and has helped many people successfully start a family. Members range from young professionals, gay couples to single women from both the US and UK. Most offer their sperm for free.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has repeatedly stated that there is no evidence that Covid-19 vaccines affect fertility and studies involving tens of millions of people have shown the shot to be safe.
But Mr. Rinaldi, 44, is one of millions Americans who are gripped by the theory that the Covid vaccines somehow damage the reproductive system.
“I don’t trust big government and big pharmaceuticals, I don’t trust them, and I don’t need to inject myself with things that I don’t even know what they are,” Mr Rinaldi told DailyMail.com.
Users of Mr Rinaldi’s group are sharing this false idea, with posts linking the Covid shot to sperm death and other vaccine-related misinformation.
Cryos, one of America’s largest sperm banks, told DailyMail.com that there are “very few customers asking for information about unvaccinated donors.”
But anecdotally, DailyMail.com has seen new interest in unvaccinated sperm donors on Facebook groups in the US.
Women searching for ‘unvaccinated sperm donors’ specify ‘no Covid vax’ on their posts and are looking for a baby-making partner.
Another post in the Sperm Donation USA Facebook group from August 2021
And men identify themselves with terms like “unvaccinated male (sperm not modified by mRNA).”
One woman posted a photo of her positive pregnancy test after a sperm donation from an unvaccinated sperm donor with the caption: “Another ‘farm raised’, ‘non-pharma raised’ baby on the way!”
As a child, Mr. Rinaldi received the MMR, polio and chickenpox vaccines. When he had his first child, he began to question the need for vaccinations.
‘I’ve had no flu shots, no Covid injections. Nothing since I was a baby,” he said.
“My best friend growing up wasn’t vaccinated at all. And he is perfectly fine and healthy,” Mr Rinaldi said.
‘When I had my first child, I started reading the leaflets and the ingredients. And when the school started saying my son had to have them… I really don’t like the government telling me what to do, so that made me think and do the opposite.”
A woman posted in the Facebook group Sperm Donation USA in July 2021 looking for unvaccinated sperm donors. ‘AI’ refers to artificial insemination, in which a donor delivers his sperm into a cup or sends it to a recipient
Unvaccinated sperm donors offer their services in the unvaccinated splinter group
A man who was conceived through sperm donation offers to be a sperm donor in the splinter group on Facebook. Like others in the group, he believes the Covid vaccine will alter sperm
Mr Rinaldi, from Forest Hills, New York, first started donating sperm when a lesbian friend of his asked him to help her conceive a child.
He now has three children with his ex-partner and 16 others were conceived through sperm donation.
In a “perfect world,” the women he donates sperm to would also not have been vaccinated, he said.
‘But the reality is that not everyone believes in that. Not everyone is trained,” he said. “I would love it if no one got vaccinated.”
One woman to whom Rinaldi was considering donating his sperm had gotten both of her Covid shots and was thinking about getting her booster.
“And I was like, ‘Listen, if you get the booster, I’m not doing this for you. It’s bad enough, you have two.’
In December 2020, a discredited German epidemiologist floated a theory that the Covid vaccines could cause women’s bodies to shed a protein linked to the placenta, making them infertile.
The theory spread like wildfire on social media.
He thought this because the genetic code of the placental protein, called syncytin-1, bears a hint of similarity to the genetic code of the spike protein in Covid-19.
His argument was that if the vaccines cause our bodies to produce antibodies to protect us from Covid, they can also make antibodies to reject the placenta.
This theory was quickly disproven in clinical trials and continues to be disproved in real time as more and more fully vaccinated women become pregnant.
A study published last year among more than 2,000 women aged 21 to 45 and their partners found that vaccination against Covid-19 did not affect either partner’s chance of pregnancy.
In 2020, Cryos conducted a scientific study to investigate whether the Covid virus can be transmitted between sexual partners.
“It is reassuring that Cryos’ research shows that the infection cannot be transmitted through semen,” the report said.
One study found that Covid-19 infection may be linked to a decline in fertility in men for up to 60 days after infection.
Fever from any illness has been linked in the past to a short-term drop in sperm count.
“There is absolutely no reason to be concerned about fertility with the Covid-19 vaccine,” said Dr. Lanny Wilson, chairman of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Avalon University School of Medicine in Youngstown, Ohio, adding emphasizes that vaccines ‘do not cause infertility and that they do not affect fertility in any way.’