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.