"Injecting it into your body" is probably where a lot of this confusion comes from. We ingest RNA and DNA all the time. Every bite of every hamburger you've ever eaten is packed with that animal's DNA, yet you've never grown horns or hooves. There's a reason for that.
A copy of your DNA is stored in every cell in your body. Your body has about 30,000,000,000,000 cells. Each cell has a cell membrane that prevents random things from entering the cell. Anything moving in or out of the cell requires some method of transport. Inside the cell is the cytoplasm, which is all the material that's inside the cell, but outside the nucleus. The nucleus is another membrane that separates the cell's cytoplasm from the DNA that's inside. Again, to cross that membrane, you need a transport mechanism.
Your body requires synthesis of proteins for survival. Each cell does this. To synthesize a protein, enzymes inside the cell nucleus unravel the DNA there and make a copy of the part that encodes for that protein. That copy is made by assembling some mRNA, which is then transported out of the nucleus and into the cytoplasm. In the cytoplasm, it encounters ribosomes, attaches to them, and the ribosomes then create the encoded protein. This is how the process works: a segment of DNA is transcribed by building mRNA. The mRNA doesn't do anything to the DNA. The two don't interact that way.
The mRNA vaccines are composed of an mRNA segment which encodes a protein found in SARS-CoV-2. It's a protein that sticks out of the surface and helps it cross cell membranes. The protein itself is harmless on its own, but your immune system will recognize it as foreign. The mRNA can't pass the cell membrane on its own, so it's enclosed in a lipid (fat) shell. When that shell encounters a cell, it merges into the cell membrane releasing the mRNA into the cytoplasm. Remember, there's no DNA in the cytoplasm. Once there, the mRNA encounters a ribosome and the ribosome dutifully produces the encoded protein. The immune system sees this happening and believes the body is under attack. Its response creates long term immunity.
So as you can see, at no time has the mRNA come into contact with any of your DNA. Nor can it. If it could, it wouldn't matter anyway as mRNA can't make changes to DNA. mRNA is simply the scratch paper used to transport instructions from the nucleus to the ribosomes. There's no danger of any modification because that would be the opposite of how your entire biological system operates.
That was very wordy.
Here’s where, hidden within all of your words, you are missing the boat.
I already know how mRNA works to provide a “recipe” normally “written from DNA” to ribosomes that “do the cooking” and produce the specific protein. I also am aware of the challenges faced over the past few decades with encapsulating the mRNA in a lipid (fat) envelope to prevent the immune system from destroying the alien mRNA on sight.
You see, I learned these things, more or less, from a rather well known Hungarian biochemist named Katalin Kariko (who just happens to be a Senior Vice President at BioNTech.
You see, this immune response is triggered when (B-cells, I think) encounter pieces of mRNA that don’t belong. The lipid enveloping the injected, modified mRNA acts as a sort of “disguise” that allows it to slip past your natural immune response long enough to program the ribosome to produce the needed protein, in this particular case, it is supposed to create a “spike protein” which, as you say, is a pretty identifiable part of the coronavirus, in fact, it is the possession of these spike proteins that give coronavirus’ their name.
This particular protein is not natural to humans. As you also correctly state, the usual process is derived from copying the individuals DNA to produce a protein that the DNA specifies. The DNA does not have this spike protein in its recipe book, and that is why the modified mRNA has to be injected in the first place, and why it has to be hidden from your immune system long enough to do its job.
The bigger purpose, of course, is to release enough of the newly created spike proteins to “train” your immune system to recognize and attack them as an invader in the event that they are encountered as part of the coronavirus itself.
The idea of having your own ribosomes create the spike protein, instead of using traditional immunization methods involving inactivated viral cells or some other training material, is to eliminate any risk of actually infecting a person unintentionally with a live virus. It’s actually a pretty brilliant theory.
My issue here, is simply that nobody knows exactly how well the spike protein itself will work in programming the immune system to respond to a viral infection that it has never been exposed to, and the fact that nobody knows how well the immune system will be able to differentiate between this protein and many other naturally occurring proteins within the body.
We don’t know the risks. Autoimmune diseases are a real threat, and, despite the politically sensitive nature of the statement, not all people are alike.
If you have managed to follow so far, maybe you’ll be the first to “get” this as well. In spite of the “experts” and “physicians who swooped down from their lofty perches to set me straight on this, the genetic material (mRNA) that’s being modified in order to coax your ribosomes into creating a spike protein that would not be created any other way, is intended to MODIFY your immune system response, and the intent is that this modification will be persistent. (That your immune system will permanently respond to a protein identified as a spike protein, by attacking it.)
You, and others here don’t approve of the term genetic modification that I have used in reference to this, but not one, no matter how long and wordy the response, has even attempted to refute the fact that this “vaccine” operates by using genetic material in an attempt to permanently change the way your immune system responds to a protein that is identifies as a spike protein, is, and can certainly be referred to as a genetic modification.
Once this change is made, there’s no undoing it.
Thank you, however for taking the time to sanctimoniously explain to me things that I already know.
-Hugh