[News] How safe are messenger RNA vaccines against COVID-19 and why they can shorten the duration of the pandemic

[#Steeven.™]

Science is trying to expand the information on COVID-19 vaccines to build more trust around them.

Therefore, they are talking more about vaccines with messenger RNA molecules, including those from the pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and Moderna, saying that they will not pose a risk of genetic alteration for those who receive them, as a growing number of viral messages misleadingly alert.

In recent weeks, warnings have increased against vaccines based on the use of messenger RNA molecules (mRNA) as they constitute a risk of modifications in the genome of the individuals to whom they are inoculated.

An interview with the lawyer and nurse Luis de Miguel has been broadcast on Facebook and Twitter, who warns that these vaccines are not intended to strengthen immunity but to "modify the genotype or phenotype of the human being."

In another interview widely disseminated on social networks, the biologist Fernando López-Mirones also warns that these vaccines could turn those who are applied into transgenic beings.

 

What does the data say?
The mRNA cannot alter the genome of the person receiving the vaccines because, once the immune response is generated within the body, the molecule degrades, as explained by the health authorities of the European Union and the United States and the Spanish Association of Vaccination.

During his interview on the Madridmarket.es internet portal, Luis de Miguel states that "these vaccines are not going to be products intended to stimulate immunity", but rather to "modify the phenotype or genotype of human beings".

De Miguel, who is presented as a lawyer - he is registered in the Census of Lawyers of the General Council of the Lawyers with the number 4,587 -, a nurse and member of the ACUS consumer association, refers to the set of genes of an individual (genotype) and the variations that genotype has undergone as a function of the environment (phenotype).

For his part, in an interview on the program "El mundo al rojo", on Madrid's regional television DistrictTV, López-Mirones affirms that these vaccines use "a technology that is extremely dangerous."

"The messenger RNA is supposed to disappear later, but it is supposed", comments this biologist and po[CENSORED]rizer specializing in nature documentaries, who adds: "If these instructions are perpetuated in our cells, they would make us transgenic ourselves".

 

Disappearance in a few days
Jaime Pérez, member of the board of directors of the Spanish Association of Vaccination (AEV), considers De Miguel's argument "totally false" and questions the credibility of López-Mirones, whom he describes as a "denier" due to his relativization of mortality caused by COVID-19.

"RNA cannot be integrated into our genetic material and it degrades in a few days," explains Pérez.

This point is also highlighted by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in an informative article published in English and Spanish on its website, updated to November 23.

The aforementioned agency, dependent on the US Department of Health, states that the new mRNA vaccines teach human cells to produce a protein, or a portion of it, that triggers an immune response within the body.

This immune response, which produces antibodies, is what protects against infection if the real virus enters the human body.

"Once our body created that portion of protein, the cell breaks down the instructions to get rid of them," the article clarifies.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) specifies in a statement about the start of its review of Moderna's vaccine that, once its function is fulfilled, "the person's immune system will treat this protein as foreign" and produce "natural defenses" against it .

 

Safety rules
In its article, the CDC indicates that it is likely that in the coming weeks some mRNA vaccines will become the first of its kind authorized against COVID-19 in the United States, adding that these preparations "are subjected to the same rigorous standards safety and effectiveness "than the rest.

The only vaccines that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will make available for use in the country "will be those that meet these standards," they emphasize.

On the other hand, the EMA began this Tuesday to evaluate the applications for the use of vaccines developed by both Moderna and Pfizer and BionNtech.

Faced with the misgivings expressed by De Miguel and López-Mirones about the lack of knowledge of the effects and results, Pérez recalls that Pfizer has notified that its data comes from an international phase 3 clinical trial, in which the vaccine it has been tested on 44,000 people.

It adds that these data will be reviewed by drug agencies and that the FDA plans to do so on December 10.

The CDC notes that while "there are still no approved mRNA vaccines in the United States," "scientists have been studying and working on them" for decades.

 

Big production in a short time.
One of the reasons that justify the use of this technology is the speed of production it allows.

"Interest in these vaccines increased because they can be developed in a laboratory, with materials that are readily available," adds the CDC article, which highlights that in this way "the procedure can be standardized and expanded so that the development of the vaccine is faster. "

Pérez stresses that mRNA technology will make it possible "to have millions of doses in record time", which would not have been achieved through traditional techniques, which would have taken at least two years to produce the vaccines.

"Saving a year with this pandemic is clear how positive it is," says the director of the AEV.

This speed in production and the existing scientific knowledge on these vaccines have also been highlighted by The New England Journal of Medicine in an article on March 30, the conclusions of which were cited by the Spanish Society of Primary Care Pharmacists (SEFAP).

The concurring arguments of the aforementioned health authorities, professional associations and scientific publications refute the fears expressed by those who warn without evidence of the risk of a genetic alteration induced by mRNA vaccines, whose technology has been studied for years and is subject to rigorous safety controls .