A friend on an email group I’m on asked my friend and co-author Charley Hooper the following question about the COVID-19 vaccines:
Are you sure that the vaccine won’t mess with our genes?
Charley allowed me to share his answer:
No, I’m not 100% sure. But I’m one minus epsilon (a very small number) sure.
Biological reason:
I’m not an expert in this area. This is from my reading…RNA is a notoriously fragile molecule. Delivering mRNA successfully to the cells inside our bodies and ensuring that enzymes within our cells do not degrade it are key challenges in vaccine development. Chemical modifications during the manufacturing process can significantly improve the stability of mRNA vaccines. Encapsulating mRNA in lipid nanoparticles is one way to ensure that a vaccine can successfully enter cells and deliver the mRNA into the cytoplasm.
mRNA does not linger in our cells for long. Once it has passed its instructions to the protein-making machinery in our cells, enzymes called ribonucleases (RNases) degrade the mRNA. mRNA dies a quick death once in human cells.
It is not possible for mRNA to move into the nucleus of a cell as it lacks the signals that would allow it to enter this compartment. This means that RNA cannot integrate into the DNA of the vaccinated cell. There is no risk of long-term genetic changes with mRNA vaccines.Clinical reason:
Moderna’s Phase 3 clinical trial of its COVID-19 vaccine enrolled 30,420. We haven’t seen any genetic damage to these participants. Ditto for Pfizer and BioNTech’s trial that enrolled 43,448 participants. How have we not seen any genetic damage in over 70,000 closely monitored individuals?
Economic reason:
Why would a company market a vaccine that could mess up the genetics of its customers? I shudder to think of the lawsuits. This goes against everything I’ve learned from spending the last three decades in the pharmaceutical industry.
Genetic reason:
If the vaccines do alter human DNA, what is the result? To make us healthier, stronger, smarter, more beautiful? That would be extremely difficult to accomplish. To make us mutants? If the vaccines do alter our DNA, I think it’s virtually certain that the alterations would be harmful and perhaps fatal. Who other than an extreme environmentalist or a mass murderer would want this? However, these vaccines were developed by drug companies, not mass murderers. There’s no group of people that I know of that had both a motive for such a crime and the ability to perpetrate it.
Insider information reason:
Have we heard of large numbers of employees at Moderna, Pfizer, and BioNTech avoiding the new vaccines? No.
READER COMMENTS
Mb
Jan 25 2021 at 10:07pm
I would say there is no known way for the vaccine to alter one’s DNA, for the reasons specified above. I would add a caveat, viruses can cause cancer by altering your DNA (e.g. HPV). they get around all those reasons above.
IVV
Jan 26 2021 at 3:55pm
Yes, HPV can invade cell nuclei, but HPV is itself a DNA virus, not mRNA.
MB
Jan 26 2021 at 6:03pm
HPV is a well known example, there are RNA viruses that cause cancer. You also have many viruses in you right now, most won’t cause any illness, some may be with you forever. Can one of those viruses pick up the vaccine and shuttle it into the nucleus? How about someone with HepC and having the HepC virus incorporate the vaccine? There is so much we don’t know about something like this (not to mention biology in general at this level), that I find the certainty expressed to be funny.
But some people just believe in science
Mark Z
Jan 26 2021 at 2:06pm
Yep, sounds right. Maybe the concern is that viruses can use reverse transcriptase to integrate their own (RNA) genomes into human cells’ genomes, so maybe RNA from a vaccine might accidentally get reverse-transcribed into a cell’s genome. But viruses smuggle their RNA into the nucleus with the help of specialized proteins. ‘Naked’ RNA, as Charley notes, cannot enter the nucleus.
Tony De Angelis
Jan 27 2021 at 12:00am
There is a lot of well thought out info in this article. However, the reasons listed are very arguable and, in my estimation, not complete or accurate.
Charley Hooper
Jan 28 2021 at 11:27am
Can you point to what you think is incomplete or inaccurate?
kathleen7546
Jan 27 2021 at 1:46am
Dr. Lee Meritt in an interview with Alex Newman at TheNewAmerican.com states that CoVid is 90+ percent survivable. And there are available/easily found, safe treatments. With these two conditions medicine simply does bother with a vaccine. Why the hype/hurry/panic. What is actually in the shot?? I read that Bill Gates is banned from 3 African nations after his tetnus vaccine significantly lowered birth rates. It included something to interfere with pregnancy. Successfully so
Charley Hooper
Jan 28 2021 at 11:25am
Medicine does not bother with a vaccine when there’s little risk from a disease. When there’s little risk, a vaccine doesn’t make medical or financial sense.
That’s not the case with COVID-19. There have been over two million deaths globally and economies everywhere are suffering.
That’s why vaccines are so important in this situation.
Comments are closed.