08/31/2021
I wrote this in response to someone who was having difficulty making a choice to get the Covid-19 vaccination and voicing his fear about all the responses from other people regarding his fear to get it. This of course stems from the generation of disinformation and lack of knowledge which I hope to end.
I am in the medical field, and I would personally like to understand what your fears are? I would like to educate you and anyone else who has similar concerns that the vaccination propaganda has done more to hurt us, and it is unfathomable to me how people who know nothing about medicine or even science continue to spread this misinformation. This to me, is very unfortunate, especially since much of it was created as a political stand instead of a true health concern. Now it is important to present the facts rather than to attack someone’s fear and hopefully what I am presenting will help you make up your own mind.
Conventional vaccines usually contain inactivated disease-causing organisms or proteins made by the pathogen (antigens), which work by mimicking the infectious agent. They stimulate the body’s immune response, so it is primed to respond more rapidly and effectively if exposed to the infectious agent in the future. You inherit an immune system from your mother but that is only temporary. During the last 3 months of pregnancy, antibodies from mothers are passed to their unborn babies through the placenta.
This type of immunity is called passive immunity because the baby has been given antibodies rather than making them itself.
Antibodies are special proteins the immune system produces to help protect the body against bacteria and viruses.
The amount and type of antibodies passed to the baby depends on the mother's immunity.
Immunity in newborn babies is only temporary and starts to decrease after the first few weeks or months.
Breast milk also contains antibodies, which means that babies who are breastfed have passive immunity for longer.
Premature babies are at higher risk of developing an illness because their immune systems are not as strong, and they haven't had as many antibodies passed to them.
As newborn immunity is only temporary, children are vaccinated when a baby is 2 months old. This applies to babies who are either premature or full-term.
These vaccines stimulate your own bodies immune system to fight infection should you be exposed a pathogen. The standard of care is most children will have received all of their vaccinations before they turn two years of age. This includes vaccinations against Hepatitis B, Chickenpox, Diphtheria, Hemophilus Influenza type B, Hepatitis A, Measles, Mumps, Pertussis, Pneumococcal, Polio, Rotavirus, Rubella and Tetanus. And the influenza vaccine is given yearly. This has prevented and even eliminated diseases in civilized Countries. Vaccination is one of the major success stories of modern medicine, greatly reducing the incidence of infectious diseases such as measles, and eradicating others, such as smallpox.
Conventional vaccine approaches have not been as effective against rapidly evolving pathogens like influenza or emerging disease threats such as the Ebola or Zika viruses. RNA based vaccines could have an impact in these areas due to their shorter manufacturing times and greater effectiveness. Beyond infectious diseases, RNA vaccines have potential as novel therapeutic options for major diseases such as cancer.
It is important to recognize two of the vaccines against Covid-19 are based on a well-studied yet often unknown methodology which utilizes Messenger RNA, or mRNA, which is genetic material that tells your body how to make proteins. You inherit this from your parents. However, your innate, or inherited immune system does not prepare your body to defend itself against certain diseases. This is the premise behind vaccinations and the RNA vaccines have many benefits and even an exciting future in potentially treating disease and even cancer.
Summary
o Unlike a normal vaccine, RNA vaccines work by introducing an mRNA sequence (the molecule which tells cells what to build) which is coded for a disease specific antigen, once produced within the body, the antigen is recognized by the immune system, preparing it to fight the real thing
o RNA vaccines are faster and cheaper to produce than traditional vaccines, and a RNA based vaccine is also safer for the patient, as they are not produced using infectious elements
o Production of RNA vaccines is laboratory based, and the process could be standardized and scaled, allowing quick responses to large outbreaks and epidemics
o Most current research is into RNA vaccines for infectious diseases and cancer, for which there are several early-stage clinical trials, there is also some early research into the potential of RNA vaccines for allergies
What are RNA vaccines and how do they work?
RNA vaccines use a different approach that takes advantage of the process that cells use to make proteins: cells use DNA as the template to make messenger RNA (mRNA) molecules, which are then translated to build proteins. An RNA vaccine consists of an mRNA strand that codes for a disease-specific antigen. Once the mRNA strand in the vaccine is inside the body’s cells, the cells use the genetic information to produce the antigen. This antigen is then displayed on the cell surface, where it is recognized by the immune system.
How are RNA vaccines produced and administered?
A major advantage of RNA vaccines is that RNA can be produced in the laboratory from a DNA template using readily available materials, less expensively and faster than conventional vaccine production, which can require the use of chicken eggs or other mammalian cells.
RNA vaccines can be delivered using a number of methods: via needle-syringe injections or needle-free into the skin; via injection into the blood, muscle, lymph node or directly into organs; or via a nasal spray. The optimal route for vaccine delivery is not yet known. The exact manufacturing and delivery process of RNA vaccines can vary depending on the type.
Types of RNA vaccine
Non-replicating mRNA
The simplest type of RNA vaccine, an mRNA strand is packaged and delivered to the body, where it is taken up by the body’s cells to make the antigen.
In vivo self-replicating mRNA
The pathogen-mRNA strand is packaged with additional RNA strands that ensure it will be copied once the vaccine is inside a cell. This means that greater quantities of the antigen are made from a smaller amount of vaccine, helping to ensure a more robust immune response.
In vitro dendritic cell non-replicating mRNA vaccine
Dendritic cells are immune cells that can present antigens on their cell surface to other types of immune cells to help stimulate an immune response. These cells are extracted from the patient’s blood, transfected with the RNA vaccine, then given back to the patient to stimulate an immune reaction.
Benefits
Benefits of mRNA vaccines over conventional approaches are1:
o Safety: RNA vaccines are not made with pathogen particles or inactivated pathogen, so are non-infectious. RNA does not integrate itself into the host genome and the RNA strand in the vaccine is degraded once the protein is made.
o Efficacy: early clinical trial results indicate that these vaccines generate a reliable immune response and are well-tolerated by healthy individuals, with few side effects.
o Production: vaccines can be produced more rapidly in the laboratory in a process that can be standardized, which improves responsiveness to emerging outbreaks.
Important challenges
The methods to make mRNA vaccines can be very effective. However, there are technical challenges to overcome to ensure these vaccines work appropriately:
o Unintended effects: the mRNA strand in the vaccine may elicit an unintended immune reaction. To minimize this the mRNA vaccine sequences are designed to mimic those produced by mammalian cells.
o Delivery: delivering the vaccine effectively to cells is challenging since free RNA in the body is quickly broken down. To help achieve delivery, the RNA strand is incorporated into a larger molecule to help stabilize it and/or packaged into particles or liposomes.
o Storage: many RNA vaccines, like conventional vaccines, need to be frozen or refrigerated. Work is ongoing to reliably produce vaccines that can be stored outside the cold chain, since these will be much more suitable for use in countries with limited or no refrigeration facilities.
Cancer vaccines
Cancer vaccines are a form of immunotherapy, where the vaccine triggers the immune system into targeting the cancer. Both dendritic cell vaccines and personalized cancer vaccines, where the RNA sequence in the vaccine is designed to code for cancer-specific antigens, are being explored. Over 50 clinical trials are listed on clinicaltrials.gov for RNA vaccines in several cancers, including blood cancers, melanoma, glioblastoma (brain cancer) and prostate cancer.
