A post appeared on Solutions Skin and Health Clinic's Facebook page on Sunday night claiming "overwhelming evidence" about vaccinated people "shedding spike proteins". It was signed off by owner Sharon Holland and had received 112 replies, most of them strongly supportive, before Ms Holland turned off the comments.

A shorter version of the same message is displayed at the entrance to the clinic.

On Tuesday night Ms Holland removed the Facebook page and changed the business' Google listing to "permanently closed", but the clinic itself remains open.

Ms Holland's stance prompted a warning from the Australian Traditional Medicine Society that naturopaths must "stay within their scope of practice" and drew the ire of the country's leading immunology expert.

Eminent immunologist weighs in

False claims about the dangers of spike proteins in COVID-19 vaccines have been spreading on social media since June, with posts claiming they could damage organs or cause infertility.

Australia's preeminent immunologist Professor Peter Doherty told The Standard the theories were "nuts" and showed "a total lack of understanding of biology".

Professor Doherty, who won a Nobel Prize for research describing how the immune system combats viruses, said he was disturbed people might take the misinformation seriously.

"There's no evidence that the vaccine spike protein has caused any problem for anybody, but there's the most appalling crap out there about it getting into the ovaries and making women infertile," he said.

He said there were huge differences between the spike protein on the novel coronavirus and the spike protein produced by the vaccine.

"The spike protein is the protein on the surface of the virus that has the crown on it, that's why it's called corona-virus

"A particular part of that spike protein attaches to the ace-2 molecule on the surface of our cells and it's that attachment that allows the COV-2 virus to get into our cells and start the process of infection and multiplication. So the spike protein is what gets the virus into our cells.

"The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have what's called a messenger RNA, or mRNA, to make that spike protein. But once they've gone into a cell, they can't multiply and infect other cells in our body, and they can't infect anybody else.

"There's no chance that anybody who has had the vaccine is going to transmit the spike protein to anybody, and anyway the spike protein you've got to worry about is the spike protein on the coronavirus."

Asked where she was getting her information, Ms Holland pointed to Clive Palmer's anti-vaccination pamphlets, statements by virologist Dr Robert Malone, and Pfizer's clinical trial protocols.

Mr Palmer has waged a multi-million dollar campaign against lockdowns and vaccines, including claims that 210 Australians have died from COVID-19 vaccinations. His claims were assailed by scientists and auditors as dangerous misinformation "riddled with falsehoods" that was "an unacceptable threat to the health of Australians.

Dr Malone, who spent his early career researching mRNA technology, has been widely criticised by the global scientific community for producing and promoting COVID-19 misinformation, including several academic studies that were rejected by scientific journals. He has been the key promoter of the false spike protein claims.

While Ms Holland declined to be interviewed, she told The Standard she had "done months of research" into the vaccine issue. But experts said the Pfizer documents she cited as a basis for her unease found "no specific safety concerns".

Professor Doherty agreed, saying the COVID-19 vaccines had been tested in "at least as many people as you would normally have in a clinical trial and the data is all there".

In her Facebook post Ms Holland also called the vaccines "experimental treatments" that had "only been given provisional approval by the TGA".

In a statement, the Therapeutic Goods Administration said Ms Holland's concerns showed a misunderstanding of the TGA approval process.

"The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA)... rigorously assesses COVID-19 vaccines for safety, quality and effectiveness before they can be provisionally approved in Australia," a spokesperson said.

"This involves comprehensive review of clinical trial data, toxicology, chemistry, manufacturing, quality, risk management and other information by a large team of scientific and clinical experts. Advice is then sought from an independent expert committee before a regulatory decision is made.

"The TGA will only provisionally approve a COVID-19 vaccine once this thorough assessment is complete."

The spokesperson said the guidelines for provisional approval were just as stringent as the rules for the standard registration process and it was incorrect to think provisionally approved medicines were less safe.