Researchers in the New England Journal of Medicine raise the possibility of an uncontrolled autoimmune response to the coronavirus spike protein that may last indefinitely
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Downstream effects of the antibodies that people produce against the coronavirus spike protein may lead to myocarditis and even neurological concerns, two veteran medical researchers have written in the top medical journal in the United States.
Our immune systems produce these antibodies in response to both vaccination and natural infection with Covid. However - though the researchers do not say so explicitly, possibly because doing so would be politically untenable - spike protein antibody levels are MUCH higher following vaccination than infection. Thus the downstream response to vaccination may be more severe.
The NEJM published the short paper Wednesday in its Basic Implications of Clinical Observations series. One of the writers is an oncologist and professor at Harvard Medical School; the other is a cancer researcher who has his own lab at the University of California, Davis.
(SOURCE: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMcibr2113694)
The spike protein sticks out of the coronavirus shell and binds to a crucial signaling mechanism on our cells called the ACE2 receptor, enabling the virus to infect those cells. The mRNA and DNA/AAV vaccines hijack our cells to make a version of the spike protein. Our immune systems then produce antibodies that will recognize and destroy the spike protein and thus defeat the coronavirus.
But the researchers explain that those spike protein antibodies may themselves produce a second wave of antibodies, called anti-idiotype antibodies or Ab2s. Those Ab2s may modulate the immune system’s initial response by binding with and destroying the first wave of antibodies.
Unfortunately, to do so, the Ab2s must contain structures very similar to the spike protein itself. If they are too similar, they can wind up binding to the same parts of our cells that the spike protein targets.
As the researchers explain:
Some of the resulting anti-idiotype (or “Ab2”) antibodies that are specific for Ab1 can structurally resemble that of the original antigens themselves. Thus, the Ab2 antigen-binding region can potentially represent an exact mirror image of the initial targeted antigen [NOTE: this means the spike protein] in the Ab1 response…
As a result of this mimicry, Ab2 antibodies also have the potential to bind the same receptor that the original antigen was targeting. Ab2 antibodies binding to the original receptor on normal cells therefore have the potential to mediate profound effects on the cell that could result in pathologic changes, particularly in the long term — long after the original antigen itself has disappeared. [Emphasis added.]
In other words, Ab2 antibodies may continue to damage our bodies long after we have cleared either Sars-Cov-2 itself or the spike proteins that the vaccines cause our cells to make.
To be clear, the researchers did not provide proof that these anti-idiotype antibodies are actually causing problems, or even that they exist. The paper merely presents a theory. But the writers believe it could explain the high incidence of myocarditis “after vaccine administration” and even “neurologic effects of SARS-COV-2 infection or vaccines.”
And what the researchers do not say, but what even the Centers for Disease Control acknowledges, is that vaccination produces much higher levels of anti-spike protein antibodies than natural infection.
“Completion of a primary vaccine series, especially with mRNA vaccines, typically leads to a more consistent, and higher-titer initial antibody response [than natural infection],” the CDC writes. (SOURCE: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-briefs/vaccine-induced-immunity.html)
A large Israeli study found spike protein antibody levels about four times as high in vaccinated as infected people. At the same time, vaccine-generated antibodies wane far more quickly, dropping up to 40 percent a month compared to 5 percent a month for naturally generated antibodies.
Are the high levels of vaccine-generated spike protein antibodies producing an equally robust response from Ab2 antibodies and causing a dangerous autoimmune cascade that can affect the heart and possibly other organs?
No one knows. But with non-Covid all-cause mortality rising in many countries where the mRNA vaccines were used heavily, it might be time to find out.
Especially since health authorities are now pushing booster shots, which produce even higher levels of spike protein antibodies in the people who get them.