Point of correction; the spike protein is the antigen that the immune system creates antibodies for. An antigen is any foreign substance that provokes an immune response.
I think you are correct that many people fear a vaccine that essentially manipulates their cells into producing a foreign protein using genetic technology. A lot of people don’t like any genetic technology at all. The anti-GMO food activists have been working long and hard to create public rejection of genetic technologies in the agricultural industry for decades. Probably lots of spillover from that.
I think many of the side effects are caused by the mRNA traveling via the bloodstream to other tissues or organs before attaching to cells and starting to make spike proteins, so the immune reaction responds to those sites which would be problematic in your heart or liver. The assumption that the mRNA would mostly remain near the injection site and result mostly in muscle soreness was in error or at least wildly optimistic.
The mRNA is limited in amount plus it’s super fragile, so it doesn’t last long in the body. The proteins it induces last about 3 weeks max (as does most any other protein in your body). They did numerous animal studies in mice and monkeys that showed that the vaccine products stayed mostly at the injection site and nearby lymph node. But people aren’t caged lab animals so things don’t always work the same as in the studies.
But until researchers have time to really dig into the Vaers data there is no way to tell if there are any associations with severe events within or among subgroups or demographics. Although the myocarditis seems to be more in the younger more active age groups. Better and increased circulation from higher activity levels might increase the chances of mRNA transport away from the injection site thus increasing the likelihood of adverse events. That’s my speculation at least.
This is why I prefer the Novavax approach of direct injection of GMO produced spike protein antigens rather than the mRNA induced production of antigens in our own cells that provokes our immune system to destroy our own cells. Things that could go wrong for $100, Alex.
I really appreciate your explanation. Thank you. I dont see why its so hard to get clear explanation without a) diving into details that most people (including me) dont have the background to follow, which is what most of the ‘new scientific studies’ seem to be, or b) getting into vax/anti-vax argument.
So some take-aways for me from this are
1) from a risk perspective, if you havent developed issues from the vax in the first three weeks afterwards, there really is no mechanism left in the body to cause side effects afterwards.
2) for younger or more active people, the risk if side effects may be higher just as a result of better circulation, so young healthy people maybe should not be vax’ed
3) in all cases, maybe you want to limit somehow the circulation in the vax area (dont work out right afterwards? etc)
4) wait for the Novavax approach to be available. Are they even talking about a date for that?