The pharma companies would very much love it if we were still terrified of covid-19, and getting boosters every 3 months, in 130 years' time. IMO covid has already become the next contributory virus to the common cold.
Nursing home gets outbreak of terrible new disease with a death rate of 8%, but it turns out that it was a cold virus (OC43) all along.
It really is looking like the common cold virus can wreak havoc on the most very vulnerable, but we know it is relatively benign for the healthy. Covid-19 is looking similar. While there are clear suggestions that it was a nasty disease in winter 2019/2020, we could well have reached the point where it is barely any different to the common cold -- but we're treating it like a deadly disease anyway, with massive disruptions to healthcare, education and everyday life.
Seems to me it is the subsequent bacterial/fungal infection that is the true cause of death. And often acquired in-hospital or care facility. Any respiratory virus increases susceptibility. Some more than others. Stay out of the hospital if at all possible.
The true cause of death is the immune system becoming disrupted and attacking the body -- but, yes, on the journey to that point it is likely that there are co-infections that complicate matters.
Why do you say unknown quantity of antigen? Surely the adeno viral vector is 1 spike protein per viral particle, and the mRNA is possibly more than 1 antigen per LNP, depending on how stable the LNP is for multiple translations, but nevertheless would be a fixed number of spike proteins per LNP??
Each adenovirus vector particle or length of mRNA makes multiple spike proteins -- it is an instruction for the cell, and the cell will keep on making more and more until the mRNA degrades or the cell is destroyed by the immune system.
Thus the quantity of spike produced is dependent on:
How effectively the body fights off the adenovirus vector or mRNA particle before it gets to enter a cell (as they'll be recognised as foreign bodies). This is very dependent on how much exposure the body has had to various 'foreign' aspects of the vaccine (prior adenovirus exposure or the various surface molecules on the mRNA nanoparticle).
How effectively each 'infected' cell makes spike proteins. It won't make them for long -- soon enough the mRNA will degrade or the cell will be destroyed by the immune system.
In addition, the actual immune response depends on how well the spike proteins produced stimulate the immune system. This depends on the state of the immune system at that time (it is why we include adjuvants in many vaccines -- these stimulate the immune system to be more effective).
The above factors will result in rather large variability in the amount of antigen produced and then the scale of the immune response.
When normal vaccines are injected there's a known quantity of antigen only leaving the state of the immune system as the major dependency on the scale of the immune response. For the viral vector and mRNA vaccines the amount of antigen produced is highly variable, and thus the eventual scale of the immune response.
The equivalent for a normal vaccine is to just randomly change the amount of antigen injected -- as though the doctor just has a look in their bad and uses the first syringe they find and fill it with as much vaccine as they fancy using that time.
The surprising thing is that for the covid vaccines there's not really been much study into the quantity of spike protein produced, where it is made and where it ends up.
Sorry too complicated for my small brain. I have just 1 question, on average how many spike proteins are produced as a result of multiple translations of the LNP, which according to Pfizer degrades rapidly? Similar question for A-Z vaccine. Apologies for not having the time to do your reply justice.
I don't know. I don't think this information has been released (I've not seen it anywhere). Presumably the vaccine developers know, but that's a presumption.
The LNP degrades rapidly outside of the cell, but once it gets into a cell there are questions about how long the mRNA itself survives. Theoretically it could be somewhere between 15 minutes and a week or so -- You'd think this would be very important information, but I've not seen it expressed anywhere.
I'd guess that it would probably survive for a few hours up to a day or so, but that's a guess. At the same time the production of spike protein marks the cell out as 'infected' and so it becomes destroyed by the immune system. I'd be surprised if any spike protein producing cells at all survived for more than a day or so (even if they'd stopped producing spike proteins by that point).
We do know the characteristics of cellular mechanisms (ribosomes) that produce proteins, and can guess that each transcription of mRNA to spike protein would take about 5 minutes, but each mRNA can have multiple ribosomes transcribing at concurrently -- the number depends on the available ribosome density and this is uncertain. I'd guess it would be at least 10's of thousands of spike proteins per minute per cell.
Multiplying all that out you'd get something in the region of billions of spike protein particles produced per cell. It might be more, or less -- there are lots of dependencies. I doubt that it is much less -- these numbers sound big but they're tiny molecules -- there always are lots of them.
No replication is necessary and it doesn't occur. Ribosomes just keep on attaching themselves to the start of the mRNA strand and zipping their way along to the end with the result being one protein per ribosome pass. This process keeps on going until the mRNA strand is destroyed by one of a number of mRNA degradation enzymes. That's the beauty of mRNA technology -- each mRNA strand can produce lots and lots of proteins.
As for SD -- I'd have thought it would be quite high. For example, if you inject a viral vector or mRNA vaccine the amount of nanoparticle/virus that survives long enough to actually get into cells and the length of time that the cells produces the protein will depend on the state of the immune system. As the immune system varies substantially by age you'd expect different levels of spike protein production by age.
I notice most experts suspect the profileration of spike protein as the main cause of adverse events (Malone is particularly keen on this), but isn't it much more likely that the LNP invading myocytes are much more likely to be the cause of the myocarditis, and the adeno viral vector particle is known to cause thrombosis if it gets into the bloodstream? Why the emphasis on spike protein?
The adenovirus vector is known to be a thrombosis risk -- it was almost criminal the way that early reports of thrombosis were denied by AZ and authorities as misinformation, when the mechanisms for thrombosis were understood.
Beyond that, IMO many of the vaccine side effects appear to be autoimmune related.
Thanks for that. A Joseph Mengele thought here: maybe this period of global EUA was a necessary trial of the inefficacy of gene-based vaccines for coronas? How else would we ever have found out?
A possible reason that the immune system doesn't invest too much firepower in long-term immunity to very mild respiratory viruses is that memory b and t cells are an inefficient use of resources, which are needed to bekept in reserve for more serious pathogens. We've always known that immunity to colds is "sloppy".
The immune system is complex and does things that millions of years of evolution says are efficient.
That's not to say that evolution is always 'right' -- for example, lifespans have increased massively over a short timescale (in evolution terms), resulting in the immune system needing to 'keep going' for longer than it needed to for most of our evolutionary timescales; indeed, evolution might have decided that there are advantages in killing off individuals once their utility to the tribe (etc) has gone (note that in humans this includes the 'passing-on of knowledge/wisdom', not just procreation and the provision of food). Also, evolution might 'decide' that it is efficient to kill-off individuals infected with certain diseases rather than keep them spreading the disease in the community. For these situations (and others) there is a need to move away from the solution that evolution has decided is optimal.
Nevertheless, when it comes to the immune system and disease it is best to be cautious, especially when you move away from solutions that are a simple equivalent to natural infection (eg, the nasal spray attenuated-virus influenza vaccine is seen by the immune system as being the same as a challenge with influenza virus, whereas injecting inactivated influenza-virus vaccine into muscle leads to a more complex immune response -- how does the immune system know to create mucosal IgA antibodies when it the 'infection' appears to warrant an IgG antibody response?)
In general, there is a fairly clear benefit from vaccination for diseases with high mortality rates; the benefit of vaccines to prevent 'nuisance' diseases (for that age group) is far less clear.
Well said. We should be humble in the knowledge that the immune system may never be fully understood by human beings. Perhaps, we need to go back to relying on a more co-operative interaction with nature instead of always trying to beat every pathogen over the head with a sledgehammer. Our hubris may be our downfall.
The problem of trying to explain evolutionary pressures to our immune system applying because of our modern longevity fails because there is no Darwinian selection after you have passed your reproductive years.
If the tribe can survive a serious problem (disease, famine, conflict etc) because of wisdom provided by elders, then evolution will select for elders to survive long enough to provide that wisdom. Ie, those tribes where 'elder wisdom' wasn't selected for would perish and the genes perish with them. The fact that the elders themselves aren't reproducing any more doesn't actually matter (only that youngsters have the potential to become wise elders).
You have raised the complex subject of cultural evolution's impact on Darwinian evolution. I was thinking more of the evolution of the natural immune system.
My point was that the evolution of the immune system could be influenced by effects at group level (I appreciate that Dawkins might disagree). It is a very powerful mechanism that can have effects beyond survival of the fittest individual.
It can also have effects to reduce individual survival -- eg, in many animals the sick individuals (even of reproductive age) move away from the pack/group/herd to die. This will decrease their chance of survival, but could increase the chances of the collective group to survive.
I wish Stephen Jay Gould was still alive to argue your corner. We have all been "dawkanised". Though I would have thought that the controversy about natural herd immunity would have given Dawkins second thoughts. Surely that must prove that there must be something to group selection.
Have you explored the possibility that some of the myocarditis adverse events may be caused by the failure to aspirate the mRNA vaccination properly, causing intravenous injection, which results in the LNPs transfecting the myocytes of the heart. This could also explain the anecdotal reports of sportsmen collapsing on the sports fields: they could have an increased risk of this because of their well-developed vasculature at the vaccination site.
It certainly is a potential issue. It is exactly the sort of thing that should be identified in large clinical trials. With risk of sounding repetitive, I've no idea why the mass rollout of the vaccines wasn't accompanied by extensive record keeping so that such issues could have been identified.
Why would you need a large RCT when you could just mandate aspiration worldwide and see what happens to myocarditis rates? In fact, we've already had a small RCT (not strictly) between Denmark that aspirates and Norway that doesn't. Norway had 2.4x the myocarditis rates. Convinces me, but then I'm easily convinced.
Sure, the pharma companies have got the information 'for free' because of regional differences in approach -- but at the expense of rather too many people developing ill-health.
Or we could just add a Mengele clause, which says we could harm a small proportion of the population, it it's for the greater good. Sorry, joking, bad taste I know..
There is an issue in that all prior attempts to make a coronavirus vaccine via a nasal spray were unsuccessful. Similarly, attempts to use inactivated or attenuated virus via injection were unsuccessful -- that's why they developed gene-based vaccines. Of course, we've now found out that they're also far less successful than was thought -- which would almost certainly have resulted in them failing clinical trials if they'd had the usual duration.
He talks about the 'mucosal' immune system controlled by the gut, and the immune suppression that occurs to ensure that we don't treat everything we eat as pathogenic. Being a disease of the airways, OC43 will encounter the mucosal system, and will likely be treated by a system being deliberately suppressed. Antibodies are produced to prevent severe disease, but a desensitisation to the pathogen seems to take place. He believes that this is why the boosters are now failing in ever decreasing timescales: the immune response is being sensitised. Lots of antibodies, but lots of infection.
Yes. I was going to write about that theory in this post but left it out for brevity. Robert gives a very good talk in that video and I recommend people listen to it.
To summarise it, we tolerate all sorts of respiratory and gut infections because otherwise we'd start to over-react to food, pollen, etc. Food allergies, hayfever and similar seem to be signs of this failing to work (slightly).
There are questions regarding what will happen as a consequence of vaccination -- we've now trained the body to have a substantial immunological reaction to the covid spike protein (vaccines) while at the same time the mucosal immune system is training itself to tolerate covid infection and not get 'too worked up' by it.
I've no idea what the end results will be, but I'm looking out for a range of autoimmune conditions.
Oh no, this isn't going to drag on for 130 years plus is it!? Interesting info though, thanks!
https://nakedemperor.substack.com/
The pharma companies would very much love it if we were still terrified of covid-19, and getting boosters every 3 months, in 130 years' time. IMO covid has already become the next contributory virus to the common cold.
Another great thought provoking read , thanks Bartram
https://www.deseret.com/coronavirus/2022/1/24/22894814/covid-19-vaccine-how-long-will-it-exist
Thhis was the big debate between Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould.
Imagine if someone said this in early 2020 and people understood it, rather than fearmongering for 2 years? What a travesty
I knew Fauci is old, but he was doing gain of function in the late 1800s? That can't be true, can it?
😂 maybe he's a vampire
did you see the study in the Nursing home in Washington where they thought it was Sars but it was a common CV from some years back?
That's interesting -- got a link?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2095096/
That's really fascinating -- got it all, really.
Nursing home gets outbreak of terrible new disease with a death rate of 8%, but it turns out that it was a cold virus (OC43) all along.
It really is looking like the common cold virus can wreak havoc on the most very vulnerable, but we know it is relatively benign for the healthy. Covid-19 is looking similar. While there are clear suggestions that it was a nasty disease in winter 2019/2020, we could well have reached the point where it is barely any different to the common cold -- but we're treating it like a deadly disease anyway, with massive disruptions to healthcare, education and everyday life.
I found that in early 2020. Was puzzled when i shared it with colleagues but got no response. And still today...
The dreaded PCR again. What stopped this triggering the Great Panic ala 2020?
Seems to me it is the subsequent bacterial/fungal infection that is the true cause of death. And often acquired in-hospital or care facility. Any respiratory virus increases susceptibility. Some more than others. Stay out of the hospital if at all possible.
The true cause of death is the immune system becoming disrupted and attacking the body -- but, yes, on the journey to that point it is likely that there are co-infections that complicate matters.
Everyone knows that the deadlier thing out there is the DNA... RNA is just fun. So all these "virus" are just to keep us entertained and distracted.
The combination of spermatozoon DNA with an egg DNA will kill the animal no matter what.
No amount of drugs, surgeries, amputations, DNA techniques, mRNA mambo-jambo jabs can avoid the power that the DNA possess to kill the Host.
Why do you say unknown quantity of antigen? Surely the adeno viral vector is 1 spike protein per viral particle, and the mRNA is possibly more than 1 antigen per LNP, depending on how stable the LNP is for multiple translations, but nevertheless would be a fixed number of spike proteins per LNP??
Each adenovirus vector particle or length of mRNA makes multiple spike proteins -- it is an instruction for the cell, and the cell will keep on making more and more until the mRNA degrades or the cell is destroyed by the immune system.
Thus the quantity of spike produced is dependent on:
How effectively the body fights off the adenovirus vector or mRNA particle before it gets to enter a cell (as they'll be recognised as foreign bodies). This is very dependent on how much exposure the body has had to various 'foreign' aspects of the vaccine (prior adenovirus exposure or the various surface molecules on the mRNA nanoparticle).
How effectively each 'infected' cell makes spike proteins. It won't make them for long -- soon enough the mRNA will degrade or the cell will be destroyed by the immune system.
In addition, the actual immune response depends on how well the spike proteins produced stimulate the immune system. This depends on the state of the immune system at that time (it is why we include adjuvants in many vaccines -- these stimulate the immune system to be more effective).
The above factors will result in rather large variability in the amount of antigen produced and then the scale of the immune response.
When normal vaccines are injected there's a known quantity of antigen only leaving the state of the immune system as the major dependency on the scale of the immune response. For the viral vector and mRNA vaccines the amount of antigen produced is highly variable, and thus the eventual scale of the immune response.
The equivalent for a normal vaccine is to just randomly change the amount of antigen injected -- as though the doctor just has a look in their bad and uses the first syringe they find and fill it with as much vaccine as they fancy using that time.
The surprising thing is that for the covid vaccines there's not really been much study into the quantity of spike protein produced, where it is made and where it ends up.
Sorry too complicated for my small brain. I have just 1 question, on average how many spike proteins are produced as a result of multiple translations of the LNP, which according to Pfizer degrades rapidly? Similar question for A-Z vaccine. Apologies for not having the time to do your reply justice.
I don't know. I don't think this information has been released (I've not seen it anywhere). Presumably the vaccine developers know, but that's a presumption.
The LNP degrades rapidly outside of the cell, but once it gets into a cell there are questions about how long the mRNA itself survives. Theoretically it could be somewhere between 15 minutes and a week or so -- You'd think this would be very important information, but I've not seen it expressed anywhere.
I'd guess that it would probably survive for a few hours up to a day or so, but that's a guess. At the same time the production of spike protein marks the cell out as 'infected' and so it becomes destroyed by the immune system. I'd be surprised if any spike protein producing cells at all survived for more than a day or so (even if they'd stopped producing spike proteins by that point).
We do know the characteristics of cellular mechanisms (ribosomes) that produce proteins, and can guess that each transcription of mRNA to spike protein would take about 5 minutes, but each mRNA can have multiple ribosomes transcribing at concurrently -- the number depends on the available ribosome density and this is uncertain. I'd guess it would be at least 10's of thousands of spike proteins per minute per cell.
Multiplying all that out you'd get something in the region of billions of spike protein particles produced per cell. It might be more, or less -- there are lots of dependencies. I doubt that it is much less -- these numbers sound big but they're tiny molecules -- there always are lots of them.
Thanks that was very informative. Tens of thousands? Surely not, wouldn't that imply replication?
No replication is necessary and it doesn't occur. Ribosomes just keep on attaching themselves to the start of the mRNA strand and zipping their way along to the end with the result being one protein per ribosome pass. This process keeps on going until the mRNA strand is destroyed by one of a number of mRNA degradation enzymes. That's the beauty of mRNA technology -- each mRNA strand can produce lots and lots of proteins.
Surely the vaccine companies would know these figures, and the standard deviation would not be too high?
Perhaps. They've not told us.
As for SD -- I'd have thought it would be quite high. For example, if you inject a viral vector or mRNA vaccine the amount of nanoparticle/virus that survives long enough to actually get into cells and the length of time that the cells produces the protein will depend on the state of the immune system. As the immune system varies substantially by age you'd expect different levels of spike protein production by age.
I notice most experts suspect the profileration of spike protein as the main cause of adverse events (Malone is particularly keen on this), but isn't it much more likely that the LNP invading myocytes are much more likely to be the cause of the myocarditis, and the adeno viral vector particle is known to cause thrombosis if it gets into the bloodstream? Why the emphasis on spike protein?
I'm not sure.
The adenovirus vector is known to be a thrombosis risk -- it was almost criminal the way that early reports of thrombosis were denied by AZ and authorities as misinformation, when the mechanisms for thrombosis were understood.
Beyond that, IMO many of the vaccine side effects appear to be autoimmune related.
Thanks for that. A Joseph Mengele thought here: maybe this period of global EUA was a necessary trial of the inefficacy of gene-based vaccines for coronas? How else would we ever have found out?
The is a huge corporate grift. The transfer of wealth to the obscenely rich is transparent.
A possible reason that the immune system doesn't invest too much firepower in long-term immunity to very mild respiratory viruses is that memory b and t cells are an inefficient use of resources, which are needed to bekept in reserve for more serious pathogens. We've always known that immunity to colds is "sloppy".
This might be relevant, yes.
The immune system is complex and does things that millions of years of evolution says are efficient.
That's not to say that evolution is always 'right' -- for example, lifespans have increased massively over a short timescale (in evolution terms), resulting in the immune system needing to 'keep going' for longer than it needed to for most of our evolutionary timescales; indeed, evolution might have decided that there are advantages in killing off individuals once their utility to the tribe (etc) has gone (note that in humans this includes the 'passing-on of knowledge/wisdom', not just procreation and the provision of food). Also, evolution might 'decide' that it is efficient to kill-off individuals infected with certain diseases rather than keep them spreading the disease in the community. For these situations (and others) there is a need to move away from the solution that evolution has decided is optimal.
Nevertheless, when it comes to the immune system and disease it is best to be cautious, especially when you move away from solutions that are a simple equivalent to natural infection (eg, the nasal spray attenuated-virus influenza vaccine is seen by the immune system as being the same as a challenge with influenza virus, whereas injecting inactivated influenza-virus vaccine into muscle leads to a more complex immune response -- how does the immune system know to create mucosal IgA antibodies when it the 'infection' appears to warrant an IgG antibody response?)
In general, there is a fairly clear benefit from vaccination for diseases with high mortality rates; the benefit of vaccines to prevent 'nuisance' diseases (for that age group) is far less clear.
Well said. We should be humble in the knowledge that the immune system may never be fully understood by human beings. Perhaps, we need to go back to relying on a more co-operative interaction with nature instead of always trying to beat every pathogen over the head with a sledgehammer. Our hubris may be our downfall.
The problem of trying to explain evolutionary pressures to our immune system applying because of our modern longevity fails because there is no Darwinian selection after you have passed your reproductive years.
That's incorrect.
If the tribe can survive a serious problem (disease, famine, conflict etc) because of wisdom provided by elders, then evolution will select for elders to survive long enough to provide that wisdom. Ie, those tribes where 'elder wisdom' wasn't selected for would perish and the genes perish with them. The fact that the elders themselves aren't reproducing any more doesn't actually matter (only that youngsters have the potential to become wise elders).
You have raised the complex subject of cultural evolution's impact on Darwinian evolution. I was thinking more of the evolution of the natural immune system.
My point was that the evolution of the immune system could be influenced by effects at group level (I appreciate that Dawkins might disagree). It is a very powerful mechanism that can have effects beyond survival of the fittest individual.
It can also have effects to reduce individual survival -- eg, in many animals the sick individuals (even of reproductive age) move away from the pack/group/herd to die. This will decrease their chance of survival, but could increase the chances of the collective group to survive.
I wish Stephen Jay Gould was still alive to argue your corner. We have all been "dawkanised". Though I would have thought that the controversy about natural herd immunity would have given Dawkins second thoughts. Surely that must prove that there must be something to group selection.
Be very careful with this idea because Dawkins gets upset with any theory that proposes selection at the group level. I'm not qute sure why..
Have you explored the possibility that some of the myocarditis adverse events may be caused by the failure to aspirate the mRNA vaccination properly, causing intravenous injection, which results in the LNPs transfecting the myocytes of the heart. This could also explain the anecdotal reports of sportsmen collapsing on the sports fields: they could have an increased risk of this because of their well-developed vasculature at the vaccination site.
It certainly is a potential issue. It is exactly the sort of thing that should be identified in large clinical trials. With risk of sounding repetitive, I've no idea why the mass rollout of the vaccines wasn't accompanied by extensive record keeping so that such issues could have been identified.
Why would you need a large RCT when you could just mandate aspiration worldwide and see what happens to myocarditis rates? In fact, we've already had a small RCT (not strictly) between Denmark that aspirates and Norway that doesn't. Norway had 2.4x the myocarditis rates. Convinces me, but then I'm easily convinced.
Sure, the pharma companies have got the information 'for free' because of regional differences in approach -- but at the expense of rather too many people developing ill-health.
Are you not slightly persuaded Denmark/Norway comparison? This seems to me to be a red flag.
Would the FDA ever have sanctioned large scale trials without EUA?
Eventually, after lots of successful small scale trials.
Or we could just add a Mengele clause, which says we could harm a small proportion of the population, it it's for the greater good. Sorry, joking, bad taste I know..
Nasal spray may have been a better solution. And no reason to my knowledge of not using the gene-based vaccines.
There is an issue in that all prior attempts to make a coronavirus vaccine via a nasal spray were unsuccessful. Similarly, attempts to use inactivated or attenuated virus via injection were unsuccessful -- that's why they developed gene-based vaccines. Of course, we've now found out that they're also far less successful than was thought -- which would almost certainly have resulted in them failing clinical trials if they'd had the usual duration.
"Quite why the immune system prefers to take this approach to coronavirus (and some other upper respiratory tract infections) remains unanswered."
Perhaps we do know the answer to this. Take a look at this talk by Prof. Robert Clancy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPPnyzvO7J4
He talks about the 'mucosal' immune system controlled by the gut, and the immune suppression that occurs to ensure that we don't treat everything we eat as pathogenic. Being a disease of the airways, OC43 will encounter the mucosal system, and will likely be treated by a system being deliberately suppressed. Antibodies are produced to prevent severe disease, but a desensitisation to the pathogen seems to take place. He believes that this is why the boosters are now failing in ever decreasing timescales: the immune response is being sensitised. Lots of antibodies, but lots of infection.
Yes. I was going to write about that theory in this post but left it out for brevity. Robert gives a very good talk in that video and I recommend people listen to it.
To summarise it, we tolerate all sorts of respiratory and gut infections because otherwise we'd start to over-react to food, pollen, etc. Food allergies, hayfever and similar seem to be signs of this failing to work (slightly).
There are questions regarding what will happen as a consequence of vaccination -- we've now trained the body to have a substantial immunological reaction to the covid spike protein (vaccines) while at the same time the mucosal immune system is training itself to tolerate covid infection and not get 'too worked up' by it.
I've no idea what the end results will be, but I'm looking out for a range of autoimmune conditions.