Quote:
Originally Posted by OLD BOY
I think the major concern is with the RNA vaccines, like Phizer. I am satisfied that the immediate short term effects are minimal, and in most non-existent, but the issue relates to the longer term impacts, particularly given that this is a completely different kind of vaccine which involves injection of the virus’ DNA.
The testing of the vaccination over less than a year will not reveal longer term side-effects, whereas over the normal period of 10 years or so, testing is more likely to pick this up.
The vaccination could be completely safe - safer in fact than older style vaccines - but the point is, we don’t know that. Even with the rigour that has been deployed before, vaccines have had to be withdrawn urgently due to longer term effects that were not known when the vaccine was released. The SARS vaccine, which induced narcolepsy in a significant number of recipients, is a case in point.
It is for these reasons that I would only be prepared to take the Oxford AstraZenica vaccine at the present time, which I believe to be the safer, more conventional inoculation. We have ample supplies of that coming on stream, fortunately.
|
The active part of the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines is the mRNA which tends to have a pretty short half life in cells. The mRNA gets in, spike proteins are translated and the mRNA degrades. We're talking hours here so it's pretty impressive that such a short lived vaccine works at all! If there are long term effects, these are more likely to come from the spike protein itself and, if that's the case, then we are in deep trouble when it comes to COVID vaccine design as so many are spike protein based.
The Oxford/AZ vaccine is similar but uses DNA which in transcribed into mRNA in the cell which in turn is translated in to spike proteins so they are quite similar. I wouldn't call the Oxford/AZ vaccine traditional either to be honest.
I think if people want a traditional 'inject me with dead virus or bits of dead virus' type vaccines, the only candidates out there are the Chinese Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines or the Indian Bharat Biotech one. Alternatively, I guess people can wait for the Novavax or GSK/Sanofi vaccine to come through but, by all accounts, the initial results don't look promising.