Ask A Genius 1591: mRNA Vaccines, DNA Reprogramming Myths, and New Year’s Gym Closures
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner
Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2026/01/01
How do you feel about the gym being closed on New Year’s?
Rick Rosner tears into anti-vax claims that COVID vaccines “reprogram” DNA, calling it grift from scammers, grifters, and de-licensed doctors selling fear as medicine, and explains that mRNA never enters the nucleus: it briefly directs protein production, then is degraded. He notes SARS-CoV-2 also replicates in the cytoplasm and does not integrate into the genome, so the DNA panic is incoherent. Jacobsen then pivots to holiday gym closures. Rosner describes home workouts with bands, an ab roller, and his SoloFlex, once beside his desk at Jimmy Kimmel Live!before Tony Barbieri dismantled it. He tracks obsessive workout averages and blames OCD.
Rick Rosner: The anti-vaxxers. Actually, now that I’m saying this out loud, it sounds like an argument I’ve probably heard before—maybe even made before. Anyway, the anti-vaxxers—the really dumb ones, at least—claim that what’s in the vaccine somehow reprograms your DNA in a bad way, permanently. And then you have the scammers, the grifters, and the doctors who’ve lost their licenses—many of them—insisting that vaccines cause permanent changes to your DNA, which, A, is complete horse shit.
And B, the mRNA vaccines only interact temporarily with RNA and protein production inside individual cells. The mRNA never enters the nucleus, never touches DNA, and is broken down quickly. Nothing permanent happens.
But here’s what really gets me. Even if you accept their framing, why does nobody point out that COVID itself also does not alter your DNA? SARS-CoV-2 is an RNA virus. It replicates in the cytoplasm. It does not integrate into human DNA either. So the vaccine does not affect your DNA, and neither does COVID. Both use cellular machinery to make proteins. Neither reprograms your genome.
What the fuck? The claim makes no sense. None of it makes sense. The vaccine does not do anything at the DNA level that COVID does—because neither of them does anything to your DNA. So anyway, now that I’ve said it, I realize it’s not exactly a persuasive argument for idiots. Rotten tomatoes.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How do you feel about the gym being closed on New Year’s?
Rosner: That’s what they do. There are certain days when I have to make my own fun—Christmas, New Year’s, Thanksgiving.
Sometimes we’re traveling and staying in a hotel, or sometimes we’re on a ship where the gym doesn’t close. But when we’re at home, I have to work out there. There used to be a gym nearby where I could pay to use it. There was one gym that stayed open on Christmas, but that place got torn down. So now I rely on what I’ve got: my rubber bands, my ab roller.
My butt blaster and my Universal. And if I really get desperate, I have my SoloFlex.
Jacobsen: What is the SoloFlex?
Rosner: Back in 1983, it was this really cool, cutting-edge home gym. The original version used flexible poles—each pole had a certain resistance, and you pulled them down through a pulley system. I don’t have that version. I have a different model that uses thick rubber components. They’re not exactly rubber bands, but heavy, stretchy rubber pieces that you pull against.
I’m looking at one right now. They’re about ten inches long, four inches wide, with a hole on each end. You load them into the machine, the machine pulls on them, and different sizes give you different levels of resistance.
I had it next to my desk at Jimmy Kimmel Live! for eight years, until Tony Barbieri was sufficiently annoyed by the presence of workout equipment and dismantled it. I don’t know why it bothered him so much, but fine.
So I took it home rather than have him throw it away piece by piece, which he probably would have done.
I’m currently raising the average number of times I’ve worked out per day since January 20, 1991, to five. Right now, I’m at 4.828 times a day. Lifetime average is 2.944 times a day.
That works out to just under three workouts a day since birth, which is ridiculous—but I have OCD.
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