Hypothetical Lasting Health Problems of mRNA Vaccine vs. Coronavirus

Which risk would you take?

Although the current vaccines for Covid-19 — Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna mRNA vaccines —have over 90% efficacy rate, they have no long-term medical history. So nobody knows if mRNA vaccines would pose any harm in the long-run. But we also don’t know the same about the novel coronavirus — SARS-CoV-2 — that causes Covid-19. So, let’s see what are the hypothetical possibilities for each scenario.

mRNA vaccine

1. Messenger RNA (mRNA)

Truly an innovative vaccine strategy, mRNA vaccines are easier to make compared to traditional vaccines. It also has a higher efficacy as mRNA vaccines make the host cells produce the protein, which is more stable than traditional vaccines that introduce the protein into the body.

But mRNA vaccines are new, lacking a long-term safety profile. Currently, clinical trials only have safety data for at least two months.

One argument supporting the long-term safety of mRNA vaccines is that mRNA genetic material is incredibly fragile, to the point where such vaccines have a strict storage condition at -20 to -80°C coldness. Indeed, at least in animal experiments, the mRNA in mRNA vaccines got degraded within 48 hours. As follows, the proteins (coded by the mRNA) only got produced and expressed for about 48 hours. So, common side effects of mRNA vaccines — such as fatigue, myalgia, or headache —only last for 1–2 days.

2. mRNA-induced protein production

But that’s just the mRNA. How about the proteins that the mRNA instructs the cell to make? In my previous article below, I mentioned two studies showing that the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 — which current Covid-19 vaccines use to induce immunity — has other roles besides cell infection. The spike protein alone — without the whole virion or its genome — has been shown to trigger irregular blood vessel growth in lab-cultured cells and cross the blood-brain barrier in mice.

However, these studies have their limitations (discussed in the article), making the study less translatable to humans, let alone mRNA vaccines. Plus, since mRNA-induced proteins only get expressed for about 48 hours, such results (from the two studies) shouldn’t last beyond a few days.

What if the mRNA-induced proteins linger for more than 48 hours? This is unlikely because, in the mice study, the spike protein’s half-life is less than 10 minutes. This means that for every 10 minutes, half of the spike proteins got degraded. Even if some of the spike proteins crossed the blood-brain barrier and entered the brain, most of them will get degraded. As the study authors found, “Radioactivity recovered from brain 30 min after the i.v. [intravenous] injection of I-S1 [spike protein] was mostly degraded. This indicates that I-S1 enters the BBB [blood-brain barrier] intact but is eventually degraded in the brain…”

Nonetheless, there’s a minute possibility that the spike proteins (induced by mRNA vaccines) have a half-life longer than that seen in the mice study. As a result, the spike proteins might linger in the body for a long time, causing blood vessel or brain complications months or years down the road. But this possibility is purely speculative and goes against current evidence.

3. Faulty vaccines

Due to human errors, mistakes in vaccine handling and distribution are bound to happen. Some people even deliberately did so to spoil the vaccines. So, by chance, one might receive a faulty vaccine. However, at least for mRNA vaccines, degraded mRNA or other substances would most likely not harm a person. But the protection against Covid-19 might be lost. Still, at this point, nobody knows how would a defective mRNA vaccine perform in the body, so it’s certainly a risk.

4. Post-vaccine autoimmunity

“Reports on autoimmune reactions after vaccination would constitute probably less than 0.01% of all vaccinations performed worldwide, although this rate may be biased by under-reporting,” stated the world-leading professor in autoimmune research, Yehuda Shoenfeld, MD, and co-workers.

People with autoimmune conditions or at risk for autoimmunity — e.g., a family history of autoimmune diseases, smoking habits, and improper hormone regulation— are at risk for post-vaccine autoimmunity. Thus, scientists have urged extra caution when vaccinating people with autoimmunity. However, the consensus is that, for people with autoimmunity, health risks from infections are greater than vaccines. And it’s advised to cease autoimmune medications for a while before vaccination, but further expert advice should be sought.

There’s also the risk of anaphylaxis — severe allergic reaction — within a few minutes of vaccination. Nearly 2 million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccine for Covid-19 have been administered, which resulted in 21 cases of anaphylaxis. Since anaphylaxis is treatable, nobody has died or acquired long-term health effects.

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SARS-CoV-2 or Covid-19

1. Spike protein

Let’s not forget that the novel coronavirus — SARS-CoV-2 — also has spike proteins. So, the possible long-term side effects of spike proteins from mRNA vaccines (discussed above) apply to SARS-CoV-2 too.

Plus, SARS-CoV-2 has its genome intact that codes for other viral proteins — with unknown long-term health effects. If anything, long-term side effects from the coronavirus (spike protein and entire viral genome) are more worrying than mRNA vaccines (spike protein and fragile mRNA).

2. Long-Covid

Covid-19 — the disease SARS-CoV-2 causes— has killed over two million people thus far. Even in survivors, a post-Covid-19 syndrome known as long-Covid happens about 10-30% of the time. Long-Covid symptoms include fatigue, shortness of breath, myalgia, cognitive difficulties, heart palpitations, and headache that last up to six months and counting. We shouldn't be surprised if long-Covid lasts for years. Its relative disease, the SARS outbreak in 2003 could cause lung and bone damage lasting up to 15 years.

3. Asymptomatic lung abnormalities

SARS-CoV-2 causes mild or no (asymptomatic) symptoms about 80% of the time, requiring no hospital care. Even mild Covid-19, however, can lead to long-Covid. Apparently, even asymptomatic infection may cause some level of organ damage.

Studies performing chest CT scans have revealed lung abnormalities in asymptomatic persons infected with SARS-CoV-2. Although such lung abnormalities were less severe than the symptomatics and may heal on their own, nobody is quite sure of its long-term consequences. After all, there’s a lesser incentive to study more or less healthy people.

4. SARS-CoV-2 genomic integration

A pre-print study discovered that SARS-CoV-2 genes could get integrated into the human genome, which can be read and transcribed into new proteins. “We describe evidence that SARS-CoV-2 RNAs can be reverse transcribed in human cells by reverse transcriptase (RT) from LINE-1 elements or by HIV-1 RT, and that these DNA sequences can be integrated into the cell genome and subsequently be transcribed,” the study authors wrote. “This novel feature of SARS-CoV-2 infection may explain why patients can continue to produce viral RNA after recovery and suggest a new aspect of RNA virus replication.”

However, this pre-print is not without flaws (discussed in this article). For one, the study was done in lab settings involving cell culturing, so results may not readily translate to animals or humans. Nonetheless, if the results apply, the long-term health consequences of such SARS-CoV-2 genomic integration into human cells are unknown.

But this concern may not be as alarming as it sounds. The study only found that the nucleocapsid gene of SARS-CoV-2 got integrated into the human genome; it’s not the whole genome, so SARS-CoV-2 can’t reactivate itself and becomes infectious again, at least not in this manner.

5. Parkinson’s disease

Around 1940–1950 after the 1918 influenza pandemic, there was a sharp rise in incidences of Parkinson’s disease — a movement disorder due to dopamine neurodegeneration in the brain — which declined and returned to baseline in the following decades.

Certain infections increase the risk of neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s via various mechanisms. For example, infections could increase systemic inflammation in the body, which, if unresolved, could damage neurons in the long-run. Some infections are also capable of invading and directly injuring the brain.

At least three cases of Covid-19-induced parkinsonism — symptoms of Parkinson’s disease — have happened. While one of them healed naturally, the other two required dopamine treatment — used to treat Parkinson’s disease— to recover. As a result, some scientists have suggested a possible silent wave of neurodegenerative diseases following this pandemic, although some have debated the idea. So, the long-term neurological health risks of Covid-19 or SARS-CoV-2 are unclear.

6. Unknown SARS-CoV-2 evolution

Nearly a year into the Covid-19 pandemic, announced March 2020, we have seen three problematic mutations in SARS-CoV-2 that changed its behavior slightly. These mutations are D614G, N501Y, and E484K. Reinfections from these mutants have happened, which means we cannot rely on immunity achieved from natural infections to guarantee life-long protection. However, since vaccines stimulate stronger immunization than natural infections, vaccines would lower the risks of future SARS-CoV-2 reinfections.

Moreover, the E484K mutant can evade human antibodies, at least in lab settings, raising concerns for vaccine efficacy. But Covid-19 vaccines would most likely still be effective since they induce T-cell immunity — in addition to B-cell antibodies — that the E484K mutant can’t escape.

Who knows what SARS-CoV-2 mutants will emerge if we let the coronavirus run rampant in human populations. Even animals susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 — such as minks — have to be monitored. Viral evolution accelerates in a different species, which led to the slaughter of millions of minks a few months ago — to prevent the possible evolution of an unknown entity. Another SARS-CoV-3 or coronavirus pandemic is the last thing we want.

Image by rawpixel.com

This article was originally published here.