Introduction
In this post and the ones that follow I will try to accomplish several goals. I have been fielding a lot of requests to comment on misinformation about COVID-19. This misinformation falls into several categories, so the first thing I will do is to detail each one of these, explain why they are not true, and give the correct information. It will be impossible to respond to all the misinformation out there, because it proliferates sort of like weeds in a garden. A second goal of these posts will be to discuss how misinformation proliferates, primarily on social media. The third goal will be to provide some reliable sources of information that can always be trusted. Here goes!
Misinformation about vaccines
Vaccine Misinformation 1. The new vaccines (mRNA vaccines) are not true vaccines because they cause the body to make components of the virus rather than making fragments of the virus in a lab. mRNA vaccines are gene therapy and permanemtly alter your DNA.
First lets talk about the definition of a vaccine. A vaccine is anything that causes immunity to a disease other than being infected with the disease itself.
There can be many ways to do this. One way is to make a weakened form of the virus or bacteria and actually infect people with it. This is called a live attenuated vaccine. Measles vaccine and smallpox vaccine are examples of this. A more common method today is to use a piece of the virus or bacteria that cannot reproduce, so it can’t cause infection. This is called an inactivated vaccine. The inactivated piece of virus or bacterium causes the immune system to make antibodies against the fragment of the virus or bacterium. This allows the immune system to immediately recognize infection with the live virus or bacterium and destroy it before it becomes established in the body.
The old way to make inactivated vaccines required being able to grow the virus in the lab, figure out which part would stimulate the immune system, make lots of copies of that part, and then inject it into people. This was a very time consuming process. The shortest time to develop a vaccine like this was the mumps vaccine, and that took 10 years.
New technology allows us to quickly figure out the entire genetic sequence of the virus. The coronavirus, SARS-COV-2, happens to have a sequence of only RNA, not DNA. In a normal cell, RNA is a “messenger” from the DNA in the nucleus of the cell. The RNA actually makes the proteins that the cell needs. The RNA from SARS-COV-2 takes over the cell machinery and makes viral proteins and more viral RNA that assemble themselves into thousands of new virus particles. The cell eventually ruptures and dies, releasing the thousands of virus particles that go on to infect other cells and repeat the process.
The genius of the messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines is to use the way the virus RNA makes proteins against it. By injecting only a piece of viral RNA, the muscle cells near the injection site take up the RNA and make thousands of copies of one of the virus proteins, called the spike protein. Since the whole viral RNA is not there, the whole virus can’t be made and no cells can be infected. The immune system makes antibodies against the spike protein made by those muscle cells. Instead of the laborious and time consuming process of making pieces of viral protein in a lab, the body does all the work using the fragment of viral RNA to make the protein that causes immunity. The DNA in the cell is never touched or altered, so this is not gene therapy. Furthermore, the fragment of viral RNA used in the mRNA vaccines is very unstable and falls apart soon after it causes the muscle cells to make copies of the spike protein.
Thus, by the definition of a vaccine mRNA vaccines are true vaccines. They cannot cause infection. They never affect DNA, so therefore are not gene therapy. They fall apart in a few hours. They have been shown to be very safe and effective at creating immunity and preventing illness from COVID-19.
Vaccine Misinformation 2. mRNA vaccines insert nano-computers into your body that can track you
This is probably a misunderstanding of the fact the the mRNA vaccine is enclosed in a little lipid (fat) particle to keep it from being immediately degraded by the body’s enzymes. These little fat globules are very small, so they are called nano particles. There are no computers, nano or otherwise in the mRNA vaccines.
Vaccine Misinformation 3. mRNA vaccines cause infertility
mRNA vaccines are only absorbed by muscle cells near the injection site. They do not circulate in the bloodstream and cannot possibly affect any part of the reproductive system in men or women.
Vaccine Misinformation 4. Covid-19 is a mild disease and side effects from vaccine are worse than the disease.
Eighty percent of people who get COVID-19 have relatively mild symptoms or no symptoms and recover completely. That leaves 20% (two out of every 10 people) who get serious disease many requiring hospitalization. Even if the overall death rate is only 1%, that is 10 times the death rate from influenza. At this point in the pandemic, COVID-19 is the leading cause of death in the United States. Serious side effects from the COVID vaccines are extremely rare. About 1 person in a million gets a severe allergic reaction called anaphylaxis. This always occurs in the first 20 minutes after administering the vaccine and is easily treated with an epinephrine shot. Mild symptoms are common including pain at the injection site, low grade fever, muscle aches, and fatigue. These almost always disappear within 24 to 48 hours.
COVID-19 is a serious, life threatening disease for two out of 10 people that get it. Vaccine side effects are common but mild and self-limited. Serious side effects are very rare and easily treated.
In the next post I will discuss misinformation about mask wearing, the origin of the virus, as well as a few common miscellaneous pieces of misinformation.