Claim: The Covid Vaccines contain graphene and will enable people to track you.

There’s so much to unpack in just this one sentence. Just looking at it sounds alarm bells and shouts “conspiracy madness”. People have claimed and denied that the vaccines contain graphene and that they pose a risk to our health since their release. The vaccines, not the graphene. Articles have been published disputing the statement above as complete rubbish. False, they all yell, and yet, look at the following.

In 2022, the European Parliament were asked to respond to the claim of graphene in vaccines. The basic gist of the request went as follows.

A recent investigation by Dr Ricardo Delgado Martin and the technical report by Dr Pablo Campra ‘Detection of graphene in COVID vaccines by micro-Raman spectroscopy’ claim that the COVID-19 vaccines contain graphene. As reported by CORDIS in 2018, a team of researchers has proven that graphene is able to convert electronic signals into signals in the terahertz range, with trillions of cycles per second. The silicon-based electronic components we use today generate clock speeds in the GHz range, where 1 GHz is equal to 1 000 million cycles per second. The scientists showed that graphene can convert signals with these frequencies into signals with frequencies that are thousands of times higher than those created by silicon. Graphene is therefore able to absorb radiation, meaning that, if contained in a vaccine, it would be highly toxic and harmful to human health.

For those who’d like to see the widely disputed research that claimed to have found graphene in the Pfizer vaccine, you can follow this link to read the paper on Research Gate.

So how would anyone set about proving or disproving this claim? Of course, we turn to published peer-reviewed data and research, as well as referencing claims made by the manufacturer, ingredient lists and any other sources we can find. Right off the bat, you can see how using information provided by a party involved in the claim to invalidate it is equivalent to quoting the Bible to prove God’s existence.

Here is an example of how typical fact checking works, provided by Health Feedback disputing the above claim making use of the usual sources. And that, dear reader, is exactly the point at which the wheels come off for the fact checker.

Accepting published research and current medical opinion as gospel. The latter is shaped by the former and disagreeing with it can, in normal times have dire consequences for scientists and medical professionals. In the heat of the pandemic, disputing anything relating to the official Covid narrative was terminal.

In 2023, published scientific research relating to certain topics, notably anything vaccine, Covid or pandemic related, is often selling you a narrative, and it isn’t simply the pharma companies trying to convince you of the safety of their products, it includes scientists who wish to prove the exact opposite. Both camps frequently produce research that is designed to promote a particular viewpoint, rather than further the pursuit of science.

Research, that on closer inspection, is shown for what it is. Data manipulated to achieve a desired outcome with control groups that can, at best, be described as compromised. Again, there are sinners on both sides of the aisle. The problem then, is where does this leave the fact checker, who usually has neither the resources or the knowledge to assess the validity of the papers and research they use to validate or invalidate a claim.

This is a complex and nuanced situation and it is easy to make the wrong call, which is essentially what every fact checker does. Based on what are assumed to be facts, we dispute a claim as false. Been there, got the T-Shirt.

Most fact checkers choose to observe or conform to the status quo. Events transpiring in real time that conflict with published lore are usually ignored. The issue is further complicated by the fact that it is often the institutions with a vested interest in maintaining a narrative that perform the checking. This clear conflict of interest should be sufficient reason for most to dismiss their opinions of of hand.

The net effect, in most instances, is to bury, or at least attempt to bury, claims that may in fact have a basis in truth.

Pandemic fact checking, particularly where it relates to the virus, public health and the vaccines, can in many instances rather be referred to as establishment propaganda. Want an example? Did you know there is an association that regulates members who provide fact checking? Bet you didn’t. Called the International Fact Checking Network (IFCN), they offer an extensive database of their members responses to pandemic claims.

Their Coronavirus page, from where you can access their database for the pandemic, boasts the following: 17000 fact checks in 110 countries in 40 languages. I decided to put the system to the test and entered the following text into their search box.

Vaccines do not prevent transmission

This was the response my search returned. The italics and emphasis below are added by the author to highlight just how wonderfully, when it chooses, science can dazzle with bullshit.

[Begin extract] Fact-checked by: Vistinomer

2021/04/19 | North Macedonia

FALSE: A Facebook post claims that vaccines do not protect, do not prevent coronavirus transmission and are experimental.

Explanation: Contrary to claims in the post, according to the World Health Organization, vaccination is a simple, safe, and effective way to protect people from harmful diseases before they come in contact with them. It is also incorrect to claim that vaccines do not prevent transmission. The well-established German epidemiological institute “Robert Koch” announced ten days ago that people vaccinated against the coronavirus are no longer transmitters of the virus. It is also incorrect to claim that vaccines are experimental. For vaccines that are approved by both the WHO and the national regulations of each country separately, their experimental phase is over and they are completely safe to use. [End extract]

You can see how quoting the World Health Organization to validate a claim about public health brings us back nicely to the Bible analogy. We knew, and have known, since the early release of the vaccines that they didn’t in fact prevent transmission. It was one of the primary reasons Medika petitioned aggressively against mandates. As far as “experimental status”, the vaccines definitely qualify.

Safety checking and trials were woefully inadequate, lacking proper controls and pushed through to accommodate panicking governments across the globe who sacrificed safety in exchange for expediency. mRNA is still in evaluation technology in the real world of medicine, and yes, you were unofficially “experimented” on. That is what happens when you participate in the largest global clinical trial ever undertaken.

So can we no longer trust the fact checker or were they acting in good faith on fraudulent information offered by the WHO, the Robert Koch Institute, governments and the vaccine companies? Was this real science or rushed science with flawed conclusions? All of the above or none or some? We don’t know, but time has allowed us to see through the lie. Not much use if you took the vaccine based on similar advice, only to discover later, you’d been misled.

Pity the Patient

It’s possibly the worst time in our societies history to be classified as a patient, and at some point in your life, that will apply to you, if it doesn’t yet. Over the course of the pandemic we were all considered patients, and in may aspects, we had the option of choice as far as treatments were concerned either removed, mandated or prescribed.

For those of us who tried to exercise critical thought and make informed choices with regards Covid treatments and vaccinations, we found ourselves mired in a pool of misinformation, fact-checking and the draconian public narrative. Nothing has changed. We still face this problem as we gradually emerge from three years of often self-inflicted viral misery, with society now fragmented by vaccine status and two very differing opinions on science.

So, dear patient, just where do you turn for help and advice. The truth is, I cannot tell you and anyone suggesting they have discovered the font of truth in 2023 should be avoided at all costs. Your best hope is to revert to good old fashioned critical thinking and apply it to as much information as you can find on a particular topic.

Oh, and if they’re trying to sell you something – RUN.

The post Fact Checking Vaccine Claims With Flawed Science: True appeared first on Medika Life.

Perhaps all we heard from the title and the take away is “I want it now.” When it comes to science and public health, that’s a mega problem. When do I want it? Now!

Clinical Trials Usually Take Years.  Enter Operation Warp Speed

How long do or should clinical trials take – well, it depends – but often years. Science takes time. It demands rigor and objectivity. It’s not a “now” pursuit. It’s why so many potential medicines fail to advance through clinical stages to our medicine chests as physicians and patients work diligently to evaluate their safety, effectiveness and long-term risks in observational studies. 

For example, the research into drugs to reduce life-threatening high cholesterol spans decades.  Many think of the incredible drugs now available as generic, which fueled continued research. Few think of the game-changing Framingham Heart Study or the groundbreaking and Nobel Prize-level work of scientists Drs. Michael Brown and Joseph Goldstein. There is beauty to science.  In the famed Academy Award-winning movie The Agony and the Ecstasy with Charlton Heston, as Michelangelo and Rex Harrison playing Pope Julius II, Heston’s character is constantly asked by Harrison, when will the Sistine Chapel ceiling be completed.  The artist replies: “When it’s done.”  That’s science!

It’s possible that COVID threw science – the purity of the art of discovery to improve humanity’s lot – out with the peer-review bathwater.  Everyone is at fault in some way. Government agencies, elected officials, public health champions, media, and, yes, the public are all part of the now movement.  We all wanted a biomedical elixir to ward off the virus NOW! We have been conditioned to get what we want quickly.  We order online at Grub Hub or Amazon, and within hours – a day tops – a vehicle pulls up to our doorstep.  NOW!

Now, how about COVID? We expected salvation at warp speed.  Companies no longer wait to share data at peer-review forums or in top-notch journals.  When the public cries out, we send out a press release. We expect answers from pharma, the White House and CDC immediately. We moved to evaluate, approve and move to rally people to access the COVID vaccines a mere 13 months after trial initiation. The mRNA vaccine became the first FDA-approved COVID-19 vaccine on August 23, 2021.  That’s the equivalent of now when it comes to drug development.

It Takes Years to Develop a Vaccine – NOW?

In comparison, the usual vaccine development timeline is five to 10 years and sometimes longer to determine if a product is safe and efficacious in clinical trials, completes the required regulatory approval processes, and a manufacturer has a sufficient quantity of vaccine doses for public access.  COVID broke the previous record of four years set by the development of a mumps vaccine in the 1960s.

But there are reasons we were able to go fast. The infectious disease community is collaborative. There are previous models of engagement, We have technologies that enable us to screen options that didn’t exist in the 1960s. It’s impossible to compare apples to apples or oranges. The times have changed. Science can move faster; however, objectivity and peer review remain musts.

Don’t point the finger of blame at any one institution or segment of the process.  Everyone created and bought into this urge for now!  We were frightened for our survival, mental health and economies.  The White House was responding to public pressure.  Events changed rapidly, and so did the news flow.  Media leaped into the fray to bring out their wagons of consulting experts aboard, with varied opinions to keep eyes glued to screens. Researchers slept at lab benches to sustain the world – to ward off the – then-deadly pandemic. 

We cannot forget that while we criticize the scientific process and unknown long-term effects of these vaccines, the “power of now” drives decisions and actions.  We cannot forget that the ERs were filling up, and people were dying at the start of the pandemic.  We were scared, and fear ignited non-reflective action. Countless public health challenges were pressing – addiction, poverty, isolation and more. We needed a response. Sometimes the process is imperfect. Let’s not forget to evaluate how all this impacted science and apply the learnings in the future.

Tech as a Scientific Accelerator

Technology has become the gas pedal for science.  AI, AR, machine learning, and big data are all variations of the same concept, but technology does enable scientists to move rapidly. The urgency to offer hope tips the hat to companies being permitted to update the public via news releases and later share detailed information in a peer-review setting. Industry scientists yearn to help sustain lives. Everyone had good intentions. However, we need to find better balance and return to a culture that encourages objective reflection and third-party (even uncensored) pushback,

The Power of Now was geared to get us to think beyond the moment.  To consider who we are and our purpose in the world.  However, like most things, we commercialize good ideas. COVID left too many casualties – most important among them precious people and, yes – scientific exchange.  Now is a competitive advantage – often a first-to-market must.  However, science is a reflective task accelerated by technology. 

Let’s Open the Door to the Power of Options

The Power of Now has given way to the Power of Options, a concept shared by David Noble and Carol Kauffman in the recent issue of HBR. Scientists remain societal leaders.  Scientists are curious and explorers.  We must encourage scientists to create their life-saving magic in coordination with the checks and balances of their peer-review culture.

The post How COVID and the Power of Now Killed Scientific Peer Review appeared first on Medika Life.

There are more than one hundred ways an RNA molecule can be chemically modified after it is synthesized. The functions of many of these modifications, collectively referred to as the epitranscriptome, are largely unknown.

Here’s the problem with medicine and our genome. We are toddlers, tinkering with a system we barely understand. In much the same way as anyone capable of reading can consume a book on calculus, comprehending what actually stands in the book is another endeavor entirely. We’ve opened the book on the human genome and with our basic comprehension and reading skills we now feel we are qualified to fiddle around with the building blocks of life.

Nothing could be more irresponsible.

Our limited knowledge, coupled with a voracious appetite for exploration and profit, has opened Pandora’s box, and there is no putting the genie back. The pandemic, origins aside, was the key to propelling mRNA technology into the world. Tech that companies like Moderna and others had invested billions of dollars in developing. In point of fact, Moderna’s entire business structure, worth billions, was built on the hopes of mRNA succeeding.

Until the pandemic struck, things looked bleak for both Moderna and mRNA. the treatment had encountered numerous hurdles, no the least of which was the CDC, who restricted the use of untested mRNA technology in trials to end of life patients. If you’re at deaths door, risk becomes irrelevant. Delivery mechanisms (a substance to carry the mRNA into the cell) were another aspect no one in the industry had been able to resolve. Yet, suddenly in 2020, miraculously, a working mRNA Covid treatment was developed in record time.

Not just one, but two, a product from Moderna and another from Pfizer/Biontech. Now call me skeptical, but I have a really hard time believing in miracles, no matter how much money you throw at something. It turns out the miracles came at a heavy price, and unfortunately there does not seem to be a ceiling to this price, as more and more patients report an ever increasing number of side effects from the mRNA vaccines.

As icing on the cake, late last year Moderna conveniently announced an mRNA treatment for heart conditions, the irony of which cannot have been lost on hundreds of thousands of people who’ve suffered heart damage from the first round of mRNA “approved” treatments. You cannot make this up and watching the narrative unfold over the last three years has been nothing short of jaw dropping.

mRNA, in this authors opinion, holds massive promise, possibly 20 years down the line, as a tool to effectively combat diseases like cancer on a genetic level. Why 20 years? Well it is going to take us that long to truly grasp the far reaching implications of tampering with our bodies internal clock. Twenty years of cautious science, uncovering dependencies between systems and how all the dots connect. Right now, we can barely crawl, and yet we are attempting to run. It is costing people their lives.

Altering the human genetic code

Strictly speaking, mRNA vaccines, if they adhere to their licensing protocols, cannot interact with human DNA. DNA based Covid vaccines can, so if you’re worried about having your DNA changed, vaccines from Janssen and others are of far more concern. mRNA cannot alter DNA as far as we know and based on our current understanding of cellular traffic. If you have time and the inclination, an article I wrote in 2021 explains the flow of traffic inside a human cell and like any traffic system, there are rules. RNA affecting DNA is a no-no.

That being said, there are very few hard and fast rules in nature that aren’t, on occasion, broken. Spillage occurs, much like a drunk driver who accidentally ends-up driving against oncoming traffic. So can mRNA do this? It is possible. However unlikely, the contamination of DNA cannot be ruled out. If your goal was to alter our DNA, you would rather opt for a DNA-based vaccine.

mRNA can however effect changes within our bodies on a cellular level, and in many ways, this poses far more risk than DNA manipulation. How? Well, take for instance the Covid vaccines, designed to interact with our ACE2 receptors, receptors that the SARS-COV2 virus targets. It turns out that certain organs within our bodies are more susceptible to having these receptors activated. The testes are a perfect example and reduced semen motility after inoculation with Pfizer BNT162b2 has now been clinically proven as a side effect.

What we don’t know about mRNA therapy

Rather than espousing the risks carried by an unproven medical technology at a cellular and genetic level, I’ve opted for listing a few of the unknowns. Possible effects and interactions with mRNA, other medicines and more. It’s possibly worth mentioning at this point that I believe the technology has huge potential, both for medical advances against disease and for exploitation.

Lets start with mRNA and HIV therapies. This group was not represented in the mRNA Covid clinical trials and we have no idea of the potential interactions between the two therapies or how mRNA will impact HIV in the host. There is prior knowledge of the flu vaccine, for example, waking up HIV and exposing it to the immune system; but it has been unclear whether that was only happening in flu-specific T cells, a known place where HIV hides. Now new evidence suggests mRNA has the ability to wake latent HIV.

mRNA and it’s effects on nursing mothers and infants was completely ignored in the original trials, despite this group being an established part of a vaccine cohort in trials. We know now that mothers can pass the spike protein through their breast milk to the nursing infant.

A growing body of evidence now suggests that there is in fact a large degree of risk to nursing infants from the mRNA vaccine, risk that in some instances results in cardiac related damage or death and new research just published in Jama now recommends mothers do not breastfeed for two days after receiving the mRNA vaccines. This is what they discovered.

Of 11 lactating individuals enrolled, trace amounts of BNT162b2 and mRNA-1273 COVID-19 mRNA vaccines were detected in 7 breast milk samples from 5 different participants at various times up to 45 hours postvaccination.

Sadly, too late for most mothers, many coerced into the vaccine. We have no idea what the long term medical implications are for the infant, and yet, President Biden and the CDC website still suggests vaccinating 6 month old children, effectively doubling their exposure.

The impact of mRNA on a fetus is also largely unknown, yet we still recommend pregnant mothers be vaccinated, showing no regard for the safety of the fetus. Some emerging data suggests a dramatic increase in stillbirths and miscarriages, where causality is ascribed to lockdowns and lack of access to proper medical care, while an overwhelming spate of recently published research suggest no short term dangers exist to the fetus.

Again, none of this research was done prior to the mRNA being administered in 2020, it is all post 2021. Did we simply get lucky, telling pregnant women there was no risk, when in point of fact, we had no idea? Time will tell.

The untested impact of mRNA on Cancers. Cancer patients were underrepresented in the original Covid trials. While some may argue that as most of Moderna’s work done on mRNA leading up to the so called Covid “vaccine” was based around developing cancer treatments, mRNA poses no risk to this group, the opposite may in fact be true. Cancer cells are responsive to mRNA therapy. What we don’t know is if mRNA therapy intended for a different target, say Covid, will awaken dormant cancel cells.

• New research shows patients with hematologic (cancers of the blood) malignancies appear less likely than those with solid tumors to have detectable immune responses and this extends to patients undergoing chemo.
• This paper in Nature on Cytokine release syndrome in a patient with colorectal cancer after vaccination with BNT162b2

Children as young as six months are the latest guinea pigs in the global clinical trial underway for mRNA technology. Ethically and morally inexcusable and sanctioned by the FDA, CDC and President Biden, you are told it is safe to inject your children with the Covid “vaccines” when in point of fact, we have absolutely no idea about the long term impacts and the trials used to justify the treatments in children are nothing short of laughable and will serve as an embarrassment to science and medicine for generations to come.

Adverse events, and the unknown. With a list of Serious Adverse Events (SAE’s) as long as your arm, all the Covid vaccines, including and especially those utilizing mRNA, came with risks, most of which were down played. Damage to your heart, Myocarditis and Pericarditis (for which Moderna conveniently had another mRNA therapy in the pipeline, released recently), blood clotting, Bells Palsy, the list goes on and on. While we are rapidly discovering the many unknown short term side effects for some of mRNA therapy, we still have no idea of the long term SAE’s. Two questions arise.

Are these effects, both immediate and long term, the result of the mRNA based delivery or the actual spike protein generated by the treatment. Only time and honest research will answer this question satisfactorily and it is one that must be put to bed as new flu shots, cancer treatments and more are rolled out on the back of mRNA technology. All regard for long term, established safety protocols have been thrown out the window.

Unintended consequences and the complex interactions of cellular based medicines on an organism as complex as the human body cannot be calculated, accounted for or anticipated, at least not yet. We have gaps in our knowledge on a biological level and only a minimal understanding of the toys we are tinkering with. if we have no qualms enforcing this on pregnant women, that in itself should give us pause for thought.

The risks for cancer patients in remission is another topic of debate, after recent reports that mRNA has triggered latent cancer cells to resume growth.

What we are discovering about mRNA Covid Therapies, post treatment

A recent study from Cleveland Clinic highlighted a fear that has been raised by a few medical outliers who chose to speak out against the “vaccination regimen” at risk of professional ridicule. Focusing on the bivalent vaccine, it reported a worrying trend. With every successive booster, the patients risk of contracting Covid actually increased.

The risk of COVID-19 varied by the number of COVID-19 vaccine doses previously received. The higher the number of vaccines previously received, the higher the risk of contracting COVID-19 (graph below)

You can view the full results of the Cleveland Clinic study by following this link. Now while there may be certain problems with this study pertaining to their cohort, their findings are substantiated by findings from two other studies.

Breasts Cancers seem to be on the upswing. Evidence continues to emerge about axillary lymphadenopathy following COVID-19 vaccination and it is now a recommendation that women undergo a breast screening, post vaccination. It is known that the Pfizer vaccine can cause swelling of lymph nodes, often suggestive of breast cancer. However, any enlargement of lymph nodes can potentially indicate cancer, so this symptom should not be ignored.

This creates an ideal environment for misdiagnosis. Ensure your doctors and health providers know you’ve been recently vaccinated, but make sure you a properly screened and that the swellings are not merely dismissed out of hand because of your recent vaccination.

People with gastrointestinal conditions (GI) should be carefully monitored after vaccination for Covid 19, according to a paper published on PubMed entitled Gastrointestinal Complications of COVID-19 Vaccines. Their patient experienced post-vaccination acute diverticulitis and colon micro-perforation following a Moderna booster dose.

Sperm motility in men should be monitored in patients who have received multiple boosters and want to start a family. There appears to be a direct correlation in the reduction of sperm motility and the number of mRNA vaccines administered to a patient. Whilst recovery takes between 10 and 14 days after a second does, research does not exist for third, fourth or fifth doses. You can read the paper, entitled Covid-19 vaccination BNT162b2 temporarily impairs semen concentration and total motile count among semen donors here.

Of course, this above mentioned list of issues is in no way comprehensive, that would require nothing short of a book, but rather is provided to highlight certain ongoing issues.

Getting to the heart of mRNA’s problems

Sudden Death and the hashtag #DiedSuddenly follow you wherever you go on Twitter and other social media platforms. Cardiac related issues experienced by healthy teenagers and young adults are on the increase and many prove fatal. These incidents are matched by the number of videos of people of all ages dropping from an apparent stroke, most performing the same macabre contortions before collapsing to a mostly unknown fate.

To exacerbate mRNA’s headaches, it is being forcibly administered to patients without their consent in hospitals where the patient undergoes surgery. Some hospitals still refuse life saving medical interventions like organ transplants if the patient is not “vaccinated”. A global spike in excess deaths, up by hundreds of percentage points in some countries over the last two years also demands an explanation and vaccines are seen as the most likely culprit.

It would seem that even if mRNA survives it’s rocky introduction to humanity with no further serious long term adverse events, its reputation will have been seriously damaged, perhaps even irreparably. A little ironic justice metered out for the damage it has inflicted on the reputation of actual vaccines.

A spate of Happy Coincidences

If you believe in them. Personally, I don’t, but actually separating fact from fiction around mRNA’s sudden meteoric rise to fame is rapidly becoming an improbable task, as the tangled web surrounding it continues to become more complex. Rather than trying to unpick it, I’ve opted for listing a few interesting, and often overlooked, facts surrounding mRNA in the last three years and earlier.

1. The National Institute for Health (NIH) and Moderna developed the Moderna vaccine in partnership, with patent rights, US Patent Application No. 62/972,886 entitled 2019-nCoV Vaccine filed in June of 2020, residing with the NIH.
2. NIH, alongside the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious disease (NAIAD) and Moderna have researched coronaviruses, like MERS and SARS, for several years, and signed a contract in December of 2019 that stated “mRNA coronavirus vaccine candidates [are] developed and jointly owned” by the two parties.
3. Since 2015, the National Institute for Health (NIH) and the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious disease (NIAID), knowingly provided funding to a specific group of American scientists and their institutions and businesses to perform Gain of Function (GOF) research, despite a moratorium.
4. The publicly stated intent of these scientists, working under the auspices of Peter Daszak, Ph.D and EcoHealth Alliance, Inc was to develop a more infectious version of the coronavirus and to achieve their ends they chose a Chinese scientist working out of a laboratory in Wuhan, China.
5. EcoHealth Alliance is a non-profit group that has received millions of dollars of U.S. taxpayer funding to genetically manipulate coronaviruses with scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
6. During this period, Dr Anthony Fauci was director of NAIAD and Dr. Francis Collins director of the NIH. Jointly they controlled about 10 billion dollars of funding annually, placing them in a position to control and distort the public Covid narrative.
7. The same Peter Daszak of EcoHealth Alliance interfered on numerous occasions with investigations into the origin of the SARS-COV2 virus, creating a narrative contrary to a manufactured laboratory origin for the virus. For those with time and intent, the full list of EcoHealth Alliance emails released under Freedom of Information, can be found here.
8. Dr Fauci, in September of 2022 and only days away from retirement, as a parting gift to EcoHealth Alliance from the NAIAD, awarded a $653,392 grant to the company to analyze “the potential for future bat coronavirus emergence in Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam.” This despite the company’s failure to produce records pertaining to Wuhan and their involvement in the GOF research undertaken there on their behalf.

In closing, I have no compunctions about leaving you with my impressions of the duplicity of pharma, governments and regulatory bodies foisting unproven medical technology down our throats and sadly, there is no defense that can be raised by any of the parties involved that would excuse their actions.

Hindsight is offered in part to offer comfort to the those who are now being held accountable. It’s easy, they claim, to criticize now, after the facts. That, of course, is complete and utter nonsense. Anyone with a grain of common sense able to follow something to its logical conclusion knew months into the pandemic that we were being manipulated, cajoled, coerced and prepared for amass vaccination campaign. Everyone with an inkling of medical training knew that mRNA was a potential horror story waiting to unfold, and yet, here we are, two years later, recommending we now “get the kids”.

It is the betrayal by science, the community in general and the professionals who undertook oaths to protect their patients that is perhaps the most saddening part of the pandemic shambles. It is this betrayal that will impact medicine for generations to come. “Trust me, I’m a doctor,” the punchline to a pandemic joke coming soon to a stand-up venue near you.

Part 4 of the Covid Files. When is a vaccine not a vaccine?

The post The Covid Global Clinical Trials for mRNA. Thank You for Participating appeared first on Medika Life.

In response to the MEP’s question, if the Pfizer mRNA vaccine had ever been tested before its release to the general public on its ability to prevent Covid transmission, Ms. Small responded by admitting it hadn’t. If the comment is accurate, we must determine how this disclosure impacts trust in scientific exchange and public health.

“Regarding the question around did we know about stopping immunization before it entered the market…No., We have to really move at the speed of science to really understand what is taking place in the market.”

Small then continued to justify her answer and you can watch her full response above by forwarding the video to the timestamp of 15.31.

Roos then immediately took to social media at the conclusion of the hearing, questioning on what basis governments within the EU had justified Covid vaccine passports if the vaccine was unable to affect the transmissibility of the virus. The main reason that people were vaccinating to protect each other was based on a fiction.

From a medical perspective, this admission matters tremendously. If the vaccines offered little to no communal benefit of protection against the transmission of the virus, the justification for, for instance, vaccinating school children is questionable. The known risks of the vaccines and listed SAEs far outweigh the benefits to this population.

By extension, the same logic can be applied to young and healthy adults not at risk from any comorbidities. It would appear that the argument offered by Governments and Health bodies for the public to act in the interests of protecting their fellow citizens was nothing less than disingenuous. A fabrication designed to coerce public compliance, exposing yet another fundamental flaw in the global management of the Covid pandemic.

The need for these products in the high-risk population is clear. Covid can kill and it is critical that public health institutions enjoy the trust of the public for the health system to function effectively. Otherwise, communication breaks down, creating chaos. To discover more truths and fictions relating to mRNA vaccines, read this piece.

The post Pfizer Confirms mRNA Vaccine Never Tested for Preventing COVID Transmission appeared first on Medika Life.

Before we dive in it is worth taking cognizance of the following. mRNA technology offers massive promise for the treatment of cancers, rare genetic diseases and yes, once perfected, even vaccines that can actually prevent diseases. If we can perfect these medicines, we could well see cancers and conditions like cystic fibrosis defeated. The technology is relatively cheap and can be genetically modified to accommodate an individual patient’s specific DNA. mRNA is in many ways, the Holy Grail of modern medicine.

The Covid mRNA treatments were however rushed to market, are fraught with serious adverse effects (SAE’s) and controversy, and it is my fervent hope that these products will not taint the potential of this life-sustaining technology. For those who want an honest appraisal of the technology, pre-Covid vaccine,, here is an excellent summation.

Fact

The mRNA treatments marketed by Moderna and Pfizer as vaccines are, in point of fact, not vaccines at all! They do have a beneficial protective effect as immunizations. They do not prevent the patient from developing Covid, the disease that results from infection by the SARS-COV2 virus. Anyone who argues this fact, has a poor understanding of what actual vaccines are and how they operate. At best, these treatments should be considered therapeutics.

Take for instance the Polio or Measles vaccine. Once administered, the patient is protected against these diseases. In fact, these vaccines work so well that we had almost completely obliterated these diseases, until, thanks to misinformation, parents decided to stop vaccinating their children. Now these diseases have once again gained a foothold across the globe.

The mRNA treatments or therapeutics offered no protection against infection and only offered middling to poor protection against developing serious Covid symptoms. They did, however, offer a lifeline to the aged and those with co-morbidities most at risk of dying from Covid by reducing severity. So no, referring to these treatments as vaccines is both wrong and disingenuous to vaccines in general. The mRNA treatments have neither stopped nor reduce transmission of the SARS-COV2 virus.

Comments made by well respected figures in the medical community, like Dr. Robert Amler, dean of New York Medical College School of Health Sciences and Practice and a former CDC chief medical office to Healthline are typical of the manipulation of words used to enforce the “vaccine” effect. His statement, made to Healthline in June of 2021 is below.

“Through vaccination, smallpox has been eradicated worldwide. Through vaccination, polio has been eliminated from the Western Hemisphere, Europe, and Oceania, with only a few pockets left in a few countries. And through mass vaccination, COVID-19 rates have declined dramatically in the second quarter of 2021,”

Yes, it is possible to build functional vaccines utilizing mRNA technology that adhere to our understanding of a vaccine, however we have yet to achieve this. Multiple mRNA based vaccine products are currently in development, you can find out more about these further into the article.

Fiction

mRNA vaccines contain trackers that allow the governments and other agencies to track you. There are no trackers built into the Covid treatments or any other vaccines, no RFID chips or nano-particles designed to emit specific frequencies that allow Big Brother to track your movements. No one is really that interested in what you do and if this technology existed (which it doesn’t) they could simply bundle it with your cornflakes. This is Orwellian nonsense that is put to rest with simple logic.

You couldn’t be personally identified from technology like this and no one is interested in tracking a random bunch of dots. Why bother when you already have a cellphone grafted onto your hand? It is the de facto method of monitoring your behavior. Consider that the next time you are posting pandemic disinformation on Twitter and Facebook from your cell.

Fact

Prior to 2020, mRNA treatments were reserved for use in “end of life” patients or in groups who, because of the advanced state of their medical conditions, stood to benefit from the treatments, despite unquantified risk. People who were terminally ill with cancers, for instance, could use the new and experimental treatments in the hopes of delaying the inevitable. This restriction was put in place by none other than the FDA, who considered the mRNA treatments untested and unsafe for use on the general population. However, the potential applications for mRNA technology promised much, warranting trials that were restricted to the aforementioned groups for safety reasons..

Fiction

The Covid treatments were developed to control the global population by slowly killing off billions across the planet. Even more insane than the tracker theory, the people who have bought into this fiction believe that Bill Gates and others have conspired to reduce the worlds population through the Covid treatments. This is of course a complete nonsense that again, a little common sense can disprove.

Any treatment that were to induce death on a scale that would affect our global population would decimate our health care systems and destroy work forces, economies and global trade, effectively bringing our current civilization to a standstill. Individuals seeking power and wealth on large scale require a functional society to achieve their goals. No one is this stupid.

Deaths and reported serious adverse events (SAE’s) arising from the vaccine, although numbering well into the millions, are a drop in the global population ocean and are the result of poorly trialed medicines being released to the general public, rather than a nefarious attempt to destroy mankind.

Fact

India refused to purchase either of the Covid mRNA treatments. The reason? The Indian government, in a prescient moment of brilliance, decided that the indemnity required by both Pfizer and Moderna against any and all claims arising from the use of their ” Covid vaccines” was beyond the pale of acceptability. This ‘blanket immunity” sought by both Pfizer and Moderna from purchasing governments was a prerequisite for supply. India rightly declined.

As an interesting aside, in August of this year India’s drug regulator approved Gennova’s mRNA Covid vaccine (locally produced) for restricted use in emergency situations in adults.

Fiction

Covid Vaccines have proven mRNA treatments are safe and well tolerated. Absolutely not! Here’s why. There is no long term data yet on the effect of the mRNA treatments administered for Covid and varying results from different data collected from various clinical trials over the last year and a half further muddy the waters. Some seem to indicate substantial levels of SAE’s and little reduction in mortality rates from Covid, while others suggest the treatments were effective.

It will take another three to four years and far more intense scrutiny of data to ascertain how safe these treatments were. In addition, the Covid mRNA treatments utilized a very specific mechanism of action (MOA) to deliver the SARS-COV2 spike protein. Many of the other mRNA treatments in development rely on different MOA’s to deliver their payload, most untested in a clinical setting. In vitro and animal studies often do not translate in vivo with human subjects and initial success can be met with later failure.

An excellent example in point is the Cystic Fibrosis trial run by Translate Bio for their mRNA prospect MRT5005. Phase I results in 2019 indicated promising results from a single dosage and yet, increased dosages failed to show any improvement in lung function in a small trial concluded in 2021. An expensive fail and a return to the drawing board.

Fact

Lactating mothers were not included in the original Covid trials run for the mRNA treatments. Despite this, healthcare professionals still advised lactating mothers that there was no risk to either themselves or their child and healthcare bodies (Government or otherwise) underwrote the stance. This bears repeating. Advice relating to the safety of nursing babies and mRNA treatments was based on assumptions, not one shred of clinical evidence. This advice is still in place and can be described as nothing short of criminal.

You can argue lactating mothers had a choice, but sadly, in most instances this wasn’t true as they risked losing their jobs, access to government buildings and basic services without a valid vaccine card. Not even naturally acquired immunity was considered. Forced coercion to ensure compliance. We are still engaging in this reprehensible practice.

Doctors from the WHO publicly encouraged breastfeeding women to get vaccinated, despite any scientific evidence to suggest the mRNA vaccines were safe for the babies of lactating mothers. Some of this medically and scientifically unfounded advice still can be found on the WHO website. Here is an example in point from Dr Soumya Swaminathan.

Even UNICEF engages in the this reckless advice, claiming to base their advice on the SAGE working group. You can view the UNICEF page here.

This advice exists on the CDC webpage. “CDC recommends COVID-19 vaccines for everyone ages 6 months and older, including people who are pregnant, breastfeeding, trying to get pregnant now, or might become pregnant in the future and getting boosters, if eligible.”

More worrying, is that on the same page, the CDC confirms that it in fact has no data on which to make any assumptions relating to the safety of breastfed infants. Here is the exact text, lifted directly from the page. Bold text added by author.

“Clinical trials for the COVID-19 vaccines currently used in the United States did not include people who were breastfeeding. Therefore, there are limited data (actually a nice way of saying zero data) available on the

• Safety of COVID-19 vaccines in people who are breastfeeding
• Effects of vaccination on the breastfed baby
• Effects on milk production or excretion”

This raises two serious questions. What other Covid advice has the CDC decided to issue without supporting data and how, in a sane world, is anyone supposed to trust a healthcare institution that is so glib with human life?

A growing body of evidence now suggests that there is in fact a large degree of risk to nursing infants from the mRNA vaccine, risk that in some instances results in cardiac related damage or death and new research just published in Jama now recommends mothers do not breastfeed for two days after receiving the mRNA vaccines. This is what they discovered.

Of 11 lactating individuals enrolled, trace amounts of BNT162b2 and mRNA-1273 COVID-19 mRNA vaccines were detected in 7 breast milk samples from 5 different participants at various times up to 45 hours postvaccination.

Fiction

Receiving the mRNA vaccines protects you against getting Covid. If you do contract Covid after you’ve been jabbed, even numerous times, it is a “breakthrough infection”. Horse twaddle. At no point have either company suggested the mRNA treatments would prevent infection. This false perception of the so called “vaccines” is in large part due to people’s understanding of how a vaccine works and may very well be why the terminology was used to describe these therapeutics. Words have power.

Even main stream media did little to dispel this falsehood, a falsehood still believed by many patients. The mRNA treatments and all other Covid “vaccines” will not prevent you contracting Covid. They merely reduce the risk of you developing serious symptoms.

Fact

We do not know yet what the long-term effects of mRNA treatments will be. In a real-world scenario, treatments classed as vaccines are required to undergo rigorous trials over the duration of five years or more to allow for the development of unforeseen side effects. We do know that expectant mothers who received the mRNA treatments while pregnant passed on the mRNA spike protein to their children in utero. There is also irrefutable evidence that children conceived of vaccinated parents will, in most instances, carry the mRNA instruction.

Again, according to information offered by the CDC

“A recent small study found that at 6 months old, the majority (57%) of infants born to pregnant people who were vaccinated during pregnancy had detectable antibodies against COVID-19, compared to 8% of infants born to pregnant people who had COVID-19 during pregnancy.”

Fiction

mRNA technology used in these vaccines is new and untested. This is patently untrue. Most people are not aware that interest and development in mRNA medicines stretches back three decades. In 1990, University of Pennsylvania scientist Katalin Karikó suggested using mRNA as an alternative to DNA-based gene therapy. Despite serious challenges in the field Karikó forged ahead anyway and, with her colleague Drew Weissman, made a game-changing discovery in 2005.

The researchers replaced one of mRNA’s four chemical building blocks, a nucleoside called uridine, with a slightly modified nucleoside called pseudo-uridine. Amazingly, the modified mRNA evaded immune sensors, one of the greatest hurdles faced by mRNA introduced into the human body. (Immunity 2005, DOI: 10.1016/j.immuni.2005.06.008).

“We submitted that for a patent, and that was the birth of therapeutic RNA,”

Drew Weissman

There is some truth in the fact that no mRNA products have been adequately trialed but the technology is well established and companies have invested billions into developing the technology. It is only a question of time until mRNA medicines abound in the industry.

Fact

By 2018, mRNA’s potential had spurred several major vaccine collaborations: The U.S. government and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation invested in Moderna’s mRNA vaccine programs for diseases caused by viruses like Zika and HIV; Sanofi partnered with Translate Bio to develop infectious disease mRNA vaccines; and Pfizer in August of 2018 teamed up with BioNTech to develop mRNA flu vaccines.

Fact or Fiction?

Its okay to mix and match vaccines for boosters and second shots. Again, I call fiction. From a risk perspective (SAE’s) this is horrendous advice. Each Covid vaccine, including the mRNA vaccines comes with a very long and specific list of Serious Adverse Effects, and some were only discovered after the products were approved for Emergency Use. Some of these SAE’s overlap, but many are specific to an individual manufacturer.

If, for arguments sake, you’ve received a shot of Moderna and not experienced any adverse reactions, then it is relatively safe to assume your system can tolerate that particular treatment. Why then, on God’s green earth, would you stretch your luck and try another manufacturers product, effectively doubling your risk of suffering an SAE? Try three and you’ve just trebled your risk.

There is no data on the correlation between the use of different vaccines and the increased risk of suffering adverse events. When no data exists, ALWAYS err on the side of caution, an established principal the medical industry left by the wayside when the pandemic hit.

Fact

In 2020, prior to COVID-19 vaccine rollout, the Brighton Collaboration created a priority list, endorsed by the World Health Organization, of potential adverse events relevant to COVID-19 vaccines. This list was then adapted by this study to evaluate serious adverse events of special interest observed in mRNA COVID-19 vaccine trials. The list was based upon the specific vaccine platform, adverse events associated with prior vaccines in general, theoretical associations based upon animal models and COVID-19-specific immunopathogenesis. The resultant stats are shown below and the SAE’s are listed in the image below.

Pfizer and Moderna mRNA COVID-19 vaccines were associated with an excess risk of serious adverse events of special interest of 10.1 and 15.1 per 10,000 vaccinated over placebo baselines of 17.6 and 42.2 (95 % CI −0.4 to 20.6 and −3.6 to 33.8), respectively. Combined, the mRNA vaccines were associated with an excess risk of serious adverse events of special interest of 12.5 per 10,000 vaccinated (95 % CI 2.1 to 22.9); risk ratio 1.43 (95 % CI 1.07 to 1.92). The Pfizer trial exhibited a 36 % higher risk of serious adverse events in the vaccine group; risk difference 18.0 per 10,000 vaccinated (95 % CI 1.2 to 34.9); risk ratio 1.36 (95 % CI 1.02 to 1.83). The Moderna trial exhibited a 6 % higher risk of serious adverse events in the vaccine group: risk difference 7.1 per 10,000 (95 % CI –23.2 to 37.4); risk ratio 1.06 (95 % CI 0.84 to 1.33). Combined, there was a 16 % higher risk of serious adverse events in mRNA vaccine recipients: risk difference 13.2 (95 % CI −3.2 to 29.6); risk ratio 1.16 (95 % CI 0.97 to 1.39).

Fiction

The mRNA treatments will make you sterile. If you believe this, it probably wouldn’t be the greatest loss to mankind if we were spared your prodigy. Here is a link to children currently being born globally. If you assume that as we require nine months to bake a baby, then it is fair to assume that by now more than 50% of these expectant mothers would have been inoculated prior to doing the deed. This would result in plummeting birth rates. Data suggests exactly the opposite, no doubt still as a result of extended lockdowns.

You only need to sit and watch the number of births climbing by the thousands every minute to appreciate that no, we probably haven’t all been sterilized. The UN estimates that around 385,000 babies are born each day around the world (140 million a year). Most of these children will carry some form of natural immunity to Covid. The mother may have had the disease and acquired natural immunity and/or have been vaccinated.

During the Pfizer vaccine tests, 23 women volunteers involved in the study became pregnant, and the only one who suffered a pregnancy loss had not received the actual vaccine, but a placebo. That is conclusive proof that the spike protein used does not affect fertility in women.

Fact

Aside from the Covid treatments, no other mRNA treatments have been approved or fully licensed by the FDA or other regulatory bodies. The AZD8601 EPICCURE Clinical trials run jointly by Moderna and AstraZeneca serve as an excellent example of the caution with which regulators views these treatments and just how long properly conducted clinical trials take. In 2012/13 Moderna injected mRNA encoding a protein called vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) directly into the hearts of mice.

Scientists had long suspected that VEGF could repair heart tissue damaged during a heart attack, but VEGF proteins don’t stick around long enough, so simply injecting the proteins doesn’t work. The VEGF-encoding mRNA, however, hung about in cells, making enough of the protein to improve the animals’ survival and health after a heart attack (Nat. Biotechnol. 2013, DOI: 10.1038/nbt.2682).

A collaboration with AstraZeneca followed on these results in 2013 that included a $240 million investment. After replicating the VEGF experiment in mice and pigs, AstraZeneca launched a study to test the therapy in people who recently had heart attacks. How far has the treatment come since then? Nearly ten years later you can view the results from Phase II of the EPICURE trials run in 2021 here and learn more about AZD8601’s journey in an excellent summary from Nature.

Fiction

The COVID-19 vaccine enters your cells and changes your DNA. Biologically this is impossible. Cells enjoy very specific traffic flow and you can read more about this in an article I wrote months ago explaining exactly how the flow of traffic works in cells and why RNA cannot influence DNA. The messenger RNA from the two Covid vaccines does enter cells, but not the nucleus of the cells where DNA resides. The mRNA instructs the cell to make protein to stimulate the immune system and do not affect your DNA.

Fact

The mRNA genie is truly “out of the bottle” now, with Moderna boasting more than 24 new vaccines and treatments in the pipeline for targeting genetic diseases, influenza, HIV, heart disease, and cancer. BioNTech is even more ambitious with 32 products in their pipeline. You can view the full range and scope of their development by following the link.

Fiction

Covid vaccines, including mRNA vaccines, provide better protection against Covid than natural infection. This is a highly controversial statement and one that even CDC’s Dr. Anthony Fauci cannot in good conscience repeat as he is on record, prior to the pandemic, stating that no medical vaccines can offer better protection than naturally acquired immunity. I call this out as fiction and believe that most in the medical community support this opinion.

As to claims that you are safer getting the vaccine than risking contracting Covid, I would also question the statistics backing up this statement. Very few healthy people who did not exhibit comorbidities actually died from Covid. In fact, the number was so low it almost statistically insignificant. Again, risk matters in health and for a healthy individual to risk the far higher odds of SAE’s from a vaccine, mRNA or other, makes no sense. Elderly populations and those patients exhibiting co-morbidities could easily justify this risk equation.

Fact

Reported efficacy of the mRNA vaccines was misrepresented, most probably to intentionally encourage people to be vaccinated. Why do I say this? For the following simple reason.

The original trials revealed that a person was 95% ‘less likely’ to catch the autumn 2020 variant of COVID-19. This is known in medical speak as “relative risk reduction”, but to know the true value of any treatment one needs to understand for that person, by how much is their individual risk reduced by the intervention – that is, the “absolute individual risk reduction”. This is where the medical industry (pharma in particular) took absolute advantage of a trusting public and even pulled the wool over the eyes of doctors who probably should have known better, but chose to trust their regulatory bodies and the general media.

That was a huge mistake. The concept is complicated to explain and this pre-print article by Dr. Aseem Malhotra does the job admirably. For those of you who prefer to read on here, he explains it as follows.

It turns out that the trial results suggest that the vaccine was only preventing a person from having a symptomatic positive test, and the absolute risk reduction for this was 0.84% (0.88% reduced to 0.04%). In other words, if 10 000 people had been vaccinated and 10 000 had not, for every 10 000 people vaccinated in trial 4 would have tested positive with symptoms compared to 88 who were unvaccinated. Even in the unvaccinated group, 9912 of the 10 000 (over 99%) would not have tested positive during the trial period.

Another way of expressing this is that you would need to vaccinate 119 people to prevent one such symptomatic positive test. Hardly protection. This absolute risk reduction figure (0.84%) is extremely important for doctors and patients to know but how many of them were told this when they received the shot?

Contrary to popular belief, what the trial did not show was any statistically significant reduction in serious illness or COVID-19 mortality from the vaccine over the 6-month period of the trial, but the actual numbers of deaths (attributed to COVID-19) are still important to note. There were only two deaths from COVID-19 in the placebo group and one death from COVID-19 in the vaccine group. Looking at all-cause mortality over a longer period, there were actually slightly more deaths in the vaccine group (19 deaths) than in the placebo group (17 deaths).

Also of note was the extremely low rate of COVID-19 illness classed as severe in the placebo group (nine severe cases out of 21 686 subjects, 0.04%), reflecting a very low risk of severe illness even in regions chosen for the trial because of perceived high prevalence of infection.

Fiction

We’ll end on an absolute favorite of mine, simply for the brazenness of the claim. The mRNA vaccines make you magnetic, and thus more susceptible to the influence of 5G cell towers. Speaking from personal experience, I live in an area with terrible cell coverage and was looking forward to the boost in my phone’s reception. Sadly, post vaccine, I still get a terrible connection. Must be my tinfoil hat blocking the signal!

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The post Ten mRNA Facts You Probably Didn’t Know About and Ten Nonsenses appeared first on Medika Life.

It is critical that this oversight be completely divested of any interests within the pharmaceutical industry, beyond the reach of lobbyists and political influence. Not, you’ll readily agree, an easy ask in the world we currently occupy. Two things need to occur, preferably globally, to ensure our survival as a species is not compromised by the never-ending quest for profits and industry glory. We need to create the oversight and pharma needs to be forced into legal compliance.

And these things need to happen soon!

Where does the danger lie?

Contrary to the populist nonsense circulating on social media and right-wing conspiracy websites, mRNA vaccines don’t pose a risk to our DNA. At least not yet. The current slew of mRNA vaccines is unable to engage the mechanisms required to alter our DNA. It’s a complex topic which I’ve tried to simplify in another article you can reference here if it’s of interest.

That isn’t to say, however, that all future development of mRNA technology will obey the same delivery paths or mechanisms of action, but for now, the mRNA vaccines, in their current forms, cannot interact with your DNA. You can happily get vaccinated without the risk of growing a tail.

The real danger currently lies with another branch of pharma that is going to be at the forefront of new medicines for a while to come as we rage an ongoing war against our most deadly enemy. The virus.

I am, of course referring to antivirals. drugs that are designed to deliver their payloads to and engage with our genetic machinery. While these medicines, take for instance the antivirals developed for AIDS, can be hugely effective and lifesaving, they pose a very real risk of interfering negatively with our genetic code, or DNA. Not all antivirals have this ability, but many do and many newer drugs undoubtedly will.

Not only our DNA is at risk here. Antivirals work by mutating the DNA of the virus they’re designed to attack. The risk exists that resulting mutations can create drug-resistant new strains or variants of a virus, and some experts believe insufficient data exist on drugs like Merck’s new antiviral to combat Covid, Molnupiravir, to allow the drug to be released into the market. The UK has recently approved the drug for use.

Currently, we have to accept the assurances of the pharmaceutical companies, the same companies that develop these drugs, that the treatments are, in fact, safe.

Read that sentence again. There is no world in which that statement makes logical, sane sense or fosters an environment of trust and transparency. We don’t self-police well and if you don’t understand why then drop by your local police precinct and ask them to explain it to you. We simply cannot be trusted, and when the stakes are as high as they are in the world of big pharma, even independent bodies struggle to maintain any autonomy.

What about Federal and Government bodies

Doesn’t the FDA look out for our safety, you ask? Technically, yes, however their admirable mission statements and what actually occurs in practice, are two totally different realities. Woefully understaffed departments, political pressure, pharma lobbyists, and staff, many of whom owe their training and loyalty to large pharma companies, having served as interns or former employees, oversee clinical trials and approval processes, all contributing to potential breakdowns in safety protocols.

The recent scandal involving a whistleblower and the falsification and fabrication of results from a company engaged in submitting Covid vaccine data highlights the problem. Complaints around possible breaches in protocols designed to protect the public are often simply ignored. Lack of resources and manpower are usually assigned the blame and this instance was no exception.

Despite this, systems like the FDA still offer the public a certain level of protection and if they fail, as callous as it may sound, a worst-case scenario results in a few hundred deaths. Until now, that is. Treatments that can affect our DNA work differently. They operate silently and can take years, even decades before we are faced with the consequences. Genetic mutations may be passed on to descendants rather than affecting the patient directly.

Without wanting to sound melodramatic, the biggest challenge we will face in the coming decades will be ensuring the integrity of our human DNA. The reason is simple.

Antiviral medications work. There are very few effective mechanisms to combat viruses and antivirals are one of our best hopes to interfere with the virus’s interaction with our cells. Now, mRNA technology has also entered the fray, and will, undoubtedly stray into the world of DNA before long. It’s a sensible place to go if you’re looking to cure all that ails humanity.

While targetted DNA treatments may benefit the patient of the future, we need to ensure now that in our haste to produce profits, we don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Oversight is required.

If not governments, where do we turn?

Does the World Health Organization (WHO) still hold enough credibility globally to be entrusted with a task like this? It’s a difficult question to answer. They botched the Covid response spectacularly, erring on the side of cautious statements when they could have closed the whole planet down in days, buying us time to contain the virus.

They failed to address flawed policies on aerosolized particles when presented with new evidence that contradicted 50-year-old flawed science, evidence that affected how the virus was being distributed. The list goes on, and yet, what other option are we left with?

Only the WHO is placed in a position to engage globally with all pharmaceutical companies. New treatments in development or undergoing clinical trials that target our DNA or may, in any remote fashion, risk contaminating our DNA, would require full WHO approval prior to having a license granted for taking the treatment to market.

It’s by no means a clean or perfect solution, but it would offer a starting point. A place that we could look to and say with confidence, we are doing something to ensure we don’t accidentally self-destruct as a species. A hugely embarrassing and eminently avoidable scenario, but only if we take action to avoid it.

Don’t blame the Tech

Our levels of technology are expanding exponentially, allowing us a deeper and more complex understanding of diseases and viruses on a cellular level. Nanotechnology enables us to deliver microscopic particles to cells, that even five years ago, were only pipe dreams, dreamt by molecular biologists with a vision of what the future might hold. The wonders that await us in the next decade could very well change the face of medicine forever.

Eradication of cancer and other genetic conditions are now real possibilities thanks to technologies like mRNA treatments. Antivirals may very well finally achieve the unthinkable, a world free of influenza. It’s heady times for the industry, exciting times and times for great fortunes to be made, gambled, and lost. Therein lies the biggest danger.

It is not technology, in and of itself, that poses the risk, but rather what we choose to do with it, and given our history as a species, we know we cannot leave that to chance.

The post Does Pharma Need Independent DNA Oversight? appeared first on Medika Life.

The Houston Methodist Hospital System made national news for being the first to require its staff to be vaccinated against Covid-19. The response was a mixed bag of support and public pushback. While many understand the benefit of vaccinated healthcare workers in a hospital setting, others felt uncomfortable with an employer mandate.

CEO Dr. Marc Bloom hopes to create the safest environment as possible for patient care. Increasing the number of vaccinated workers reduces the risk of spreading the infection from health providers to patients.

Hospital staff vaccinations create a safe environment for patient care. He stated, “When we choose to be vaccinated against COVID-19, we are prioritizing safety by helping stop the spread of this deadly virus and keeping our patients, visitors, and colleagues safe.”

Mandatory vaccination is a bold move but one backed by scientific evidence. A CDC report showed the messenger RNA vaccines are 90 percent effective at preventing COVID-19 infections in healthcare workers and first responders.

The CDC published updated information on vaccination’s safety and efficacy in healthcare workers in the March 29th Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. This update analyzed Covid-19 vaccines in a real-world setting. The findings showed the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna were 90 percent effective at preventing COVID-19 infections among healthcare personnel, first responders, and other essential frontline workers.

So far, 89% of the hospital employees are vaccinated. The Houston hospital gave out $500 bonuses to those who received their Covid-19 vaccines. Hospital administrators were required to begin the vaccine process in the middle of April.

The hospital is following the influenza vaccine policy it implemented in 2009. On June 7, unvaccinated employees will be placed on a two-week suspension giving them time to begin the vaccination process. Like other required hospital vaccinations, employees will not be permitted to return to work unless they are vaccinated. The hospital considers employee vaccinations to be a patient-safety issue.

The CDC recommends vaccinations for healthcare workers include physicians, nurses, emergency medical personnel, dental professionals and students, medical and nursing students, laboratory technicians, pharmacists, hospital volunteers, and administrative staff.

These vaccinations currently include Hepatitis B, Influenza, MMR (Measles, Mumps, and Rubella), Varicella, and Tdap (Tetanus, Diptheria, Pertussis). Most hospitals also require annual tuberculosis risk assessments. These recommendations are in place to reduce the risk of hospital-acquired infections. Healthcare worker vaccinations protect hospital staff exposed to infectious disease and reduce the risk of a healthcare worker transmitting an infection to a hospitalized patient.

The Houston Methodist system may be the first hospital to require vaccination, but others are considering their options. Texas Herman Hospital and the Baylor College of Medicine are evaluating the options.

Some have questioned the legality of a private company mandating Covid-19 vaccination for employees. A recent Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guidance indicates employers may require vaccination.

On Monday, March 29, 2021, everyone aged 16 and older was now eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccine in Texas.

There are three FDA-approved vaccines for Covid-19. The two messenger RNA vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer offer 95% protection against Covid-19. The Covid-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna use messenger RNA (mRNA). A single strand of mRNA delivers instructions to human cells to produce an antibody against the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein.

The Johnson and Johnson’s Janssen vaccine offers 72% protection against infection and 86% against severe disease. The Janssen vaccine uses Adenovirus 26 (AD26) as the vector to deliver DNA material into our cells to provoke an immune response.

The FDA resumed administration of the Johnson and Johnson’s Janssen vaccine after a temporary pause to study the risk of rare but severe blood clots in a small number of cases. The FDA has determined “that the available data show that the vaccine’s known and potential benefits outweigh its known and potential risks in individuals 18 years of age and older.”

The Moderna and Janssen vaccines are approved for those 18 years old and up. The Pfizer vaccine is approved starting at age 16.

All three vaccines are highly effective in preventing death.

The post Houston Methodist Hospital Will Fire Employees Who Do not Get a Covid-19 Vaccine appeared first on Medika Life.

New emerging research raises important questions and could also potentially affect our understanding of the coronaviruses. To really understand the content of this article, a little refresher course in basic biology is required for reference. I’ve tried to keep it as simple as possible and we are going to take a few side roads to arrive at the conclusion. Stay with us as we examine the most studied viruses in the world, discover how they’ve mastered the art of subterfuge, and examine our efforts to stay one step ahead.

A human cell

Although there are many different cells within our bodies, for simplicity we’ll look at a generalized cell structure. A cell consists of three parts: the cell membrane, the nucleus, and, between the two, the cytoplasm. Within the cytoplasm lie intricate arrangements of fine fibers and hundreds or even thousands of minuscule but distinct structures called organelles.

The vaccine manufacturers are at pains to point out that the mRNA they use in their vaccines bypasses our DNA (your DNA is encased within your cell in the nucleus, the purple and deep blue bit in the image below). Vaccine mRNA is delivered directly to the cytoplasm of a cell (the light blue section below), in effect, replicating our cell’s DNA-based processes of making(transcribing) RNA within the nucleus of the cell. Our DNA also releases any messenger RNA it creates into the cytoplasm. 

According to the manufacturers, their mRNA can not be reintegrated into the nucleus and DNA of our cells. in other words, their mRNA cannot cross the nuclear membrane. Everything is restricted to the cytoplasm, as with the coronaviruses, on which their vaccines are molded. Is their explanation consistent with emerging science? 

If you’re still having trouble visualizing cell layout, have a quick look at this article that breaks down cell structure to its basic levels.

The wonders of the viral world

To truly appreciate the complexity and subtle beauty of life and nature, and to appreciate the limitations of our understanding, examine the humble virus and its life cycle. We are toddlers in a new world, just learning to read and the limits of our knowledge are reflected by our vulnerability.

Certain viruses are capable of hijacking our DNA. In fact, it is such a common occurrence, that a small portion of every person’s DNA is comprised of bits of viral code. We carry with us a history book of our ancestor’s brushes with viruses. The human genome is replete with endogenous retroviruses (HERVs, also known as retrotransposons) that have entered the human germline at various times in the evolutionary past and now occupy 8.3% of our genome. 

The HIV virus is perhaps best known for exploiting this mechanism, commandeering our DNA, from where it then orchestrates its attacks. It’s one of the reasons HIV has been so difficult to combat. This is a typical trait of the family of viruses known as retroviruses.

What’s the main difference between these viruses and your standard-issue, run-of-the-mill virus? Two key processes that differentiate retroviruses from standard viruses are reverse transcription and genome integration. Remember we learned earlier that transcription is simply another name in cell biology for ‘making’, so reverse transcription simply means reverse or backward making. Genome integration refers to the ability of these viruses to invade and commander our bodies’ DNA via their RNA, incorporating their genetic material into ours. 

Without becoming too technical, retroviruses are a type of virus in the viral family called Retroviridae. They use RNA as their genetic material and are named after a special enzyme that’s a vital part of their life cycle, namely reverse transcriptase. Simply put, this enzyme allows retrovirus RNA access to the nucleus of our cells. 

You might wonder why we’re headed down this route, as coronaviruses arent classified as retroviruses, but rather RNA viruses. RNA viruses typically invade a cell and conduct their business in the cytoplasm, where they replicate without accessing our DNA. So why the retrovirus thing? Read on, all will be revealed.

Retroviruses are capable of insane amounts of cellular and genetic engineering, processes so intricate and delicate that you cannot but be left in awe at their complexity and ingenuity. Their ingenious design is not apparent until you understand the complex engineering they can undertake to hijack our cells and reprogram our DNA for their own use. For science, these viruses pose a massive headache and it can take decades to develop mechanisms to combat them.

An important part of the retroviral war is the virus’s ability to hide within our cells without being “active”. These stowaways are referred to as latent reservoirs. infected individuals appear completely healthy. You can even pass all the tests science can throw at you and the stowaways will remain undetected. Viruses can also employ another trick to evade the body’s defenses, hiding in plain sight where the body’s natural immune system doesn’t look, so-called “immunoprivileged sites”.

Dormancy can last weeks, months, or years, ensuring the virus survives. In some instances, as with the Ebola virus, and EVD, individuals who test negative for the virus or who are asymptomatic, are in fact contaminated with latent reservoirs of the Ebola virus and can act as vectors for new outbreaks. Coronaviruses are capable of this little trick as well. For instance, in a study, infected men were found to have traces of the SARS-CoV2 virus in their semen, two to three days after recovery. Semen is the perfect hiding place for a virus and it’s one of the places Ebola chooses.

The testes, along with the eyes, placenta, fetus, and central nervous system, are considered to be “immunoprivileged sites”, which means they are protected from severe inflammation associated with an immune response. This is probably an evolutionary adaptation that protects vital structures. Immune cells are prevented from interacting with cells in the testes and the brain by means of blood-tissue barriers(BTB). 

These “immunoprivileged sites” are, in effect, safe zones where viruses may be protected from the host’s immune response, if, and only if, the viruses are able to penetrate the BTB. We know SARS.CoV2 is capable of penetrating these barriers, but don’t as yet understand how it achieves this. This is evidenced by infected cells in the central nervous system. You can read a more detailed explanation of the impact of coronavirus on the brain here.

Let’s examine the mechanism viruses use to pull off their stowaway act, as this involves, amongst other tricks, reverse transcription and this, as we’ll discuss later, may have relevance to the mRNA vaccines. Then we can examine the real reason we’re here, data released in a preprint from Harvard and MIT, entitled SARS-CoV-2 RNA reverse-transcribed and integrated into the human genome.

The viral magic trick called reverse transcription

Sciencemag first published a reference to the study above in December of 2020 in an article entitled “The coronavirus may sometimes slip its genetic material into human chromosomes — but what does that mean?”. Perhaps the best way to understand how this process works is to examine HIV, one of the most studied and best understood retroviruses on the planet. I also chose HIV as it is not subject to the flurry of conflicting information that surrounds the coronavirus.

You can skip over this, but understanding the processes these viruses use is key to understanding emerging and existing questions relating to mRNA technology.

HIV is called a retrovirus because it works in a back-to-front way. Unlike other viruses, retroviruses store their genetic information using RNA instead of DNA, meaning they need to ‘find’ DNA when they enter a human cell in order to make new copies of themselves. To achieve this, they need to access the nucleus of the cell to get at the DNA it contains. To make this easier to understand we need to examine the structure of HIV to understand what happens. Here’s a graphic to help you visualize how this works.

• HIV specifically targets CD4 cells, the body’s principal defenders against infection, using them to make copies of the virus.

Inside the virus envelope is a layer called the matrix. The core of the virus, or nucleus, is held in the capsid, a cone-shaped structure in the center of the virion. The capsid contains two enzymes essential for HIV replication, the reverse transcriptase and integrase molecules. It also contains two strands of RNA — which hold HIV’s genetic material. HIV’s RNA is made up of nine genes that contain all the instructions to make new viruses.

I’m going to skip over the virus’s attachment and fusing to the cell and focus on what happens after attachment. You can find a more detailed explanation of the HIV life cycle here. 

Reverse transcription and Integration

When HIV RNA enters the cell it must be `reverse transcribed` into proviral DNA before it can be integrated into the DNA of the host cell. HIV uses its reverse transcriptase enzyme to convert RNA into proviral DNA inside the cell.

After HIV RNA is converted into DNA, HIV’s integrase enzyme attaches itself to the end of the proviral DNA strands and it is passed through the wall of the cell nucleus. Once the proviral DNA enters the cell nucleus, it binds to the host DNA and then the HIV DNA strand is inserted into the host cell DNA.

After the proviral DNA is integrated into the DNA of the host cell, HIV remains dormant within the cellular DNA. This stage is called latency and the cell is described as ‘latently infected’. It can be difficult to detect these latently infected cells even when using the most sensitive tests.

Transcription and Translation, the final phase

The cell will now produce HIV RNA (remember, DNA produces RNA) if it receives a signal to become active. Our CD4 cells become activated if they encounter an infectious agent. When the cell becomes active, HIV uses the host enzyme RNA polymerase to make messenger RNA. This messenger RNA provides the instructions for making new viral proteins in long chains. 

The long chains of HIV proteins are cut into smaller chains by HIV’s protease enzyme and are assembled into a new copy of the virus inside the cytoplasm of the infected cell. The new copy of the virus then exits its host and sets off in search of another CD4 cell to infect.

Is the SARS-CoV2 virus capable of accessing the nucleus of an infected cell?

To answer this, let’s start by examining existing literature for older coronaviruses, notably SARS and MERS. What does the scientific literature say about the ability of these viruses to access our DNA? 

The problem we immediately encounter here is the scarcity of research. A lot of the outbreaks for these viruses were small, affecting sample sizes, geographical locations posed challenges in terms of collecting reliable data, and the duration of often isolated and contained outbreaks was brief. Unlike Covid, there was no widespread testing of populations, so even something as simple as suggested mortality rates are skewed for these viruses, as scientists were unable to account for asymptomatic and mild infections in the broader populations.

Now would be the perfect time to underscore the rationale for widespread testing. We can not truly assess the impact of a virus on a population unless we can develop a cohesive data set for a large majority of the group. Say you‘ve’ an island of a hundred thousand people, 1000 are hospitalized and 100 die. Can you claim a ten percent mortality rate for the virus? Absolutely not. Can you ascertain if asymptomatic carriers are transmitting the virus or how long they act as reservoirs? Absolutely not. 

While you can argue that a percentage of this data may be compromised as a result of human error, it remains essential. Testing, as widespread as possible, is critical to forming a proper understanding of any virus and highlighting areas of concern. It’s how investigative research has arrived at the report below. Discrepancies are showing up in PCR tests that cannot be explained away with historical research.

The Preprint

When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s fictitious crime solver, Sherlock Holmes would have felt very much at home in a modern virology setting but may have frowned on the profession’s proclivity for forcing data to conform to accepted models, rather than examining alternate solutions, however improbable. Researchers at MIT and Harvard have uncovered evidence of segments of SARS-CoV2’s genetic material mixed in with ours. They’ve come up with a hypothesis to explain these bits of viral code, backed by in vitro experiments. 

You can access the preprint in the NIH National Library of Medicine, and I have referenced large portions of it below. The paper, “SARS-CoV-2 RNA reverse-transcribed and integrated into the human genome” is already contentious, simply by its title alone. It’s the scientific version of covid research clickbait and the question we need to ask is does it hold up under scrutiny? Below is the paper’s abstract and I have highlighted portions in bold.

Prolonged SARS-CoV-2 RNA shedding and recurrence of PCR-positive tests have been widely reported in patients after recovery, yet these patients most commonly are non-infectious. Here we investigated the possibility that SARS-CoV-2 RNAs can be reverse-transcribed and integrated into the human genome and that transcription of the integrated sequences might account for PCR-positive tests. In support of this hypothesis, we found chimeric transcripts consisting of viral fused to cellular sequences in published data sets of SARS-CoV-2 infected cultured cells and primary cells of patients, consistent with the transcription of viral sequences integrated into the genome. To experimentally corroborate the possibility of viral retro-integration, 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. Human endogenous LINE-1 expression was induced upon SARS-CoV-2 infection or by cytokine exposure in cultured cells, suggesting a molecular mechanism for SARS-CoV-2 retro-integration in patients. This novel feature of SARS-CoV-2 infection may explain why patients can continue to produce viral RNA after recovery and suggests a new aspect of RNA virus replication.

To test whether SARS-CoV-2’s RNA genome could integrate into the DNA of our chromosomes, the researchers added the gene for reverse transcriptase (RT), an enzyme that converts RNA into DNA, to human cells and cultured the engineered cells with SARS-CoV-2. In one experiment, the researchers used an RT gene from HIV. They also provided RT using human DNA sequences known as LINE-1 elements, which are remnants of ancient retroviral infections and make up about 17% of the human genome. Cells making either form of the enzyme led to some chunks of SARS-CoV-2 RNA being converted to DNA and integrated into human chromosomes.

This was consistent with the findings of fragmented viral material from the PCQR tests in the general population.

You can begin to see why this paper and research could be viewed as contentious and why it’s been met with resistance. It not only challenges our current understanding of RNA viruses, suggesting the viruses may possess a broader skillset than previously imagined, it also potentially raises new questions relating to the use of mRNA vaccines. If the vaccine mRNA is modeled on a portion of the virus, and the virus is capable, under certain circumstances of reverse transcription, what then of claims by mRNA vaccines that their products cannot contaminate our DNA?

It’s important at this point, to explain that mRNA vaccines don’t reproduce the entire virus in your cytoplasm, they merely create a copy of the spike protein attached to the virus which helps it bind with our own cells. Reproducing a portion of the virus minimizes risk and allows our body the opportunity to mount an early defense against the spike protein when we encounter the SARS-CoV2 virus in the wild. Of equal importance is the length of time for which the vaccine RNA stays viable in the cytoplasm, and we’ll examine this issue towards the end of the article.

What prompted this research?

What prompted these researchers to investigate whether viral RNA could become hardwired into our genomic DNA? Their motive had nothing to do with mRNA vaccines. They were simply puzzled by the growing number of people who were testing positive for COVID-19 by PCR long after the infection was gone. It was known that these people were not reinfected, so where was the viral genetic material the PCQR tests were identifying coming from?

The authors sought to answer how a PCR test is able to detect segments of viral RNA when the virus is presumably no longer present in a person’s body. They hypothesized that somehow segments of the viral RNA were being copied into DNA and then integrated permanently into the DNA of somatic cells. This would allow these cells to continuously churn out pieces of viral RNA that would be detected in a PCR test, even though no active infection existed. 

Through their experiments, they did not find full-length viral RNA integrated into genomic DNA; rather, they found smaller segments of the viral DNA, mostly representing the nucleocapsid (N) protein of the virus, although other viral segments were found integrated into human DNA at a lower frequency. It is important to note that the authors emphasize their results don’t imply that SARS-CoV-2 establishes permanent genetic residence in human cells to keep pumping out new copies, as HIV does.

How has the scientific community reacted?

“This is a very interesting molecular analysis and speculation with supportive data provided. I do not think it is a complete story to be certain … but as is, I like it and my guess is it will be right.” — Robert Galeo, Head of the Institute of Human Virology

“Impressive and unexpected. Because it is all pieces of the coronaviral genome, it can’t lead to infectious RNA or DNA and therefore it is probably biologically a dead end. It is also not clear if, in people, the cells that harbor the reverse transcripts stay around for a long time or they die. The work raises a lot of interesting questions.” — David Baltimore, a virologist at the California Institute of Technology who won the Nobel Prize for his role in discovering RT

“LINE-1 elements in the human genome rarely are active. It is not clear what the activity would be in different primary cell types that are infected by SARS-CoV-2.” — Zandrea Ambrose, a retrovirologist at the University of Pittsburgh

“I’m not yet convinced but it’s believable, solid evidence shows that LINE-1 RT can allow viral material to integrate in people. The evidence of SARS-CoV-2 sequences in people should be more solid, and the in vitro experiments conducted by Jaenisch’s team lack controls I would have liked to have seen. All in all, I doubt that the phenomenon has much biological relevance, despite the authors’ speculation.” — John Coffin, Retrovirologist at Tufts University

What has the paper established

1) Segments of SARS-CoV-2 Viral RNA can become integrated into human genomic DNA.

2) This newly acquired viral sequence is not silent, meaning that these genetically modified regions of genomic DNA may be transcriptionally active (DNA is being converted back into RNA). Note the paper does not confirm this, merely indicates it, their FISH data is not conclusive and more study is required.

3) Segments of SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA retro-integrated into human genomic DNA in cell culture. This retro-integration into genomic DNA of COVID-19 patients is also implied indirectly from the detection of chimeric RNA transcripts in cells derived from COVID-19 patients. Although their RNAseq data suggest that genomic alteration is taking place in COVID-19 patients, the point needs to be proven conclusively. This is a gap that needs to be closed in the research. The in vitro data in human cell lines, however, is air-tight.

4) This viral retro-integration of RNA into DNA can be induced by endogenous LINE-1 retrotransposons, which produce an active reverse transcriptase (RT) that converts RNA into DNA. (All humans have multiple copies of LINE-1 retrotransposons residing in their genome.). The frequency of retro-integration of viral RNA into DNA is positively correlated with LINE-1 expression levels in the cell.

5) These LINE-1 retrotransposons can be activated by viral infection with SARS-CoV-2, or cytokine exposure to cells, and this increases the probability of retro-integration.

What questions can we now ask?

The author of this paper is well respected and considered brilliant by his peers. There can be no doubt about the authenticity of the research and although the paper has not yet been subjected to peer review, another consequence of the pandemic, it certainly will be. It is our hope that the results from the research act to spur on further research to eliminate or conclusively show the validity of the suggested mechanisms, both in -vivo and in-vitro. 

It’s well known that in-vivo results don’t always translate when the experiment is transferred to a living host, therefore it’s essential we continue the research to its logical conclusion. The paper raises a number of issues, possibilities that we don’t as yet have conclusive answers to. The mere fact we now have to ask these questions would suggest caution moving forward until we have conclusively addressed potential concerns.

1. Can RNA from an RNA virus, SARS-CoV2, reach our DNA?

It would almost certainly seem so. Whether in one piece or in genetics bits, the virus appears to be finding its way into our DNA. PCR tests are finding the viral genetic material when they shouldn’t. If the mechanism the paper describes is responsible, that is cause for concern. There may prove to be other mechanisms involved we don’t as yet understand, perhaps involving immunoprivileged sites. More research is required.

2. If viral RNA can find its way into our DNA, can the same hold true for synthetic RNA?

It is a possibility that we cannot conclusively rule out, particularly given the fact that synthetic RNA has been engineered to be more resilient and produce more proteins than its less chemically stable natural version. This makes the cell more alert to the presence of synthetic RNA and offers the cell more time to address the foreign body chemically. In other words, the likelihood of whatever processes the natural RNA is subjected to being expressed on the synthetic version, increases exponentially. 

3. Can I infect anyone with this genetic material?

The obvious answer to this is no. This is not the same way in which the HIV virus we learned about earlier operates. These are fragments of RNA, so think of it like a computer program. If you cut the program into sections, those individual pieces may or may not be able to run on their own, but they cannot perform the original function of the program. The paper does not suggest you would become infectious to others.

The statement above does not mean that you would be unable to transmit these segments to other people, simply that the recipient won’t be able to develop covid from the fragments. 

4. Do I need to be worried about this?

Absolutely not. This paper simply explores and deepens our understanding of viruses and reminds us that we are still learning about many aspects of a virus’s life cycle. Viruses are as unique and gifted as we are and each possesses its own toolbox of tricks to ensure its survival. Remember as you sit and read this, an 8th of your body is made of bits of viral genetic code. We’ve done just fine up to now as a species co-existing with viruses and there may very well be a selective advantage to us as a species to incorporate bits of viral genetic material into our own genome. We are still learning and as technology advances, so does our understanding of this infinitely complex system.

5. So where does this leave mRNA vaccines?

mRNA covid vaccines are proving in the short term to be safer and less likely to elicit allergic responses than the more traditional covid vaccines. They also appear efficacious against new strains and can be reverse engineered to address emerging strains far more rapidly than conventional vaccines. The technology is fantastic and holds huge promise for the future of medicine. Do we know what the long-term consequences, if any, will be to us from the use of the mRNA vaccine? No. That’s the honest answer.

It’s too early into the life cycle of this technology to know for sure and we lack detailed long-term evaluations of the impacts on our bodies. The urgency of the pandemic has robbed us of the opportunity to subject these vaccines to rigorous long-term scrutiny (all the covid vaccines, not merely the mRNA vaccines) but let’s not forget, that without the pandemic, we would not have made this leap in technology, perhaps not for another five or six years, perhaps longer. 

So in answer to the question, is there any chance these vaccines could have their RNA incorporated into our DNA, the answer, for now, would have to be this.

We cannot emphatically rule out the possibility and nature says ‘never say never’. It’s one of the reasons we need to proceed with as much caution as possible and Medika strongly supports an individual’s right to choice in the matter of vaccination. Educate yourself and then choose, but understand that in terms of risk, if you are in an at-risk category for covid, the mRNA and other vaccines are a no-brainer. Get vaccinated. 

Compare the risk of death with an almost negligible, unquantified possibility of genetic absorption that may, or may not be deleterious to your health. Then roll up that sleeve and thank your nurse.

The post mRNA Technology, Human DNA and The Traffic Flow of Genetic Material appeared first on Medika Life.

How does mRNA work and what is it?

mRNA medicines are sets of instructions and these instructions direct cells in the body to make proteins to prevent or fight disease. The m stands for messenger and RNA is ribonucleic acid, a part of our DNA. mRNA is a single-stranded molecule that carries genetic code from DNA in a cell’s nucleus to ribosomes, the cell’s protein-making machinery.

Without mRNA, your genetic code would never get used by your body. Proteins would never get made and your body wouldn’t (actually couldn’t) perform its functions. mRNA plays a vital role in human biology, specifically in a process known as protein synthesis. Rather than subjecting you to a long-winded explanation of exactly how mRNA functions, this video provides an excellent overview. 

What really matters is what these mechanisms have to do with medicine and how our mastery of nanoparticles has enabled science to manipulate processes at a level hitherto unachievable. The following is an overly simplified explanation to enable you to appreciate the potential of these new medicines. We don’t know how our cellphones work, but we appreciate the benefits they offer.

mRNA, DNA, and your body

Our DNA is ground zero for our bodies. Everything that happens inside us arguably originates in our DNA. It is the machine that powers our bodies and like all machines, is subject to breakages and manufacturing flaws. These can exhibit as diseases later in life, cancer, etc, or conditions that are genetic and affect a person at birth.

mRNA medicines provide us a mechanism to access the actual DNA machinery that regulates our health. Targetted solutions that can repair and address problems right at the source, at ground zero. 

mRNA medicines depend on really small nanoparticles to deliver the medicine’s payload or instructions. Solid lipid nanoparticles provide transport and measure anywhere from 1 to 1000 nanometres. To give you an idea of their scale, imagine this. 

In the International System of Units, the prefix “nano” means one-billionth; so one nanometer is one-billionth of a meter. It’s difficult to imagine just how small that is, so here are some examples: 

•  A sheet of paper is about 100,000 nanometers thick. 
• A strand of hair is 80,000 –100,000 nanometers in diameter. 
• There are 25,400,000 nanometers per inch. 
• Your fingernails grow about one nanometer per second!

It turns out these solid lipid nanoparticles (SLNP’s) are hugely important to the development of mRNA medicines and we’ve been tinkering with them since the early ’90s. The body easily accepts them without risk of rejection as companies now focus on the use of physiological lipids. They offer the perfect carrier.

The first drug using SLNP’s as a delivery mechanism, Onpattro was approved in 2018. You can read more about their delivery system for this drug here and as we all now know, in late 2020, several life-saving mRNA vaccines for SARS-CoV-2 were released. Moderna’s mRNA-1273 and Pfizer/BioNTech’s BNT162b2, also use lipid nanoparticles for their drug delivery system.

mRNA medicines have finally truly “arrived”. Their development over nearly three decades is a testament to open scientific collaboration, innovation, and sheer perseverance. The question now is what else can we use this novel technology for, and how can we use it to address disease?

Looking to tomorrow

Imagine the potential for being able to address diseases and genetic “glitches” at their root. Unborn children with identified genetic abnormalities could be born as healthy infants, thanks to early interventions made possible with these medicines.

Cancers and other diseases are currently being explored, to see how we can apply these drugs. High on the list are autoimmune disorders, a natural starting point after the success of the vaccine, and the technology’s established ability to impact the immune system. Recently, a team led by Ugur Sahin has designed an mRNA vaccine that can restore tolerance to myelin proteins in mice, reducing the severity of multiple sclerosis-like symptoms, while maintaining the immune response towards other antigens.

On the subject of mRNA Cancer Vaccines, a recent article in PubMed suggests another novel application for mRNA. Apart from being used directly to vaccinate patients, mRNAs can also be used in cellular therapies to transfect patient-derived cells in vitro and infuse the manipulated cells back into the patient. The technology is so rapid and cost-effective that it can be tailored to individual patients and their particular genetic code.

mRNA may be on course to do for modern medicine what Flemming’s penicillin did for healthcare in the early twentieth century. It holds out huge promise that may, for now, only be limited by existing technology and our ability to innovate. Watch this space.

The post Is mRNA Technology the New Penicillin? appeared first on Medika Life.

No time to read this article? No problem. The content is available in the video below.

The vaccine is finally here. It has been given Emergency Use Authorization, and the Pfizer mRNA vaccine has been injected into the arms of Americans. This is great news, and this should be the beginning of the end of this pandemic. The more of us get vaccinated, the fewer people the virus can sicken, and we can finally return to normal life.

How does the vaccine work?

The Pfizer (and Moderna) vaccines are mRNA (called “messenger RNA”) vaccines. The mRNA is the code for our cells to make proteins. So, the vaccine has the mRNA code for the spike protein on the virus. The spike protein is those little “antennas” on the surface of SARS CoV-2.

Our cells make the spike protein, and then the immune system develops a response. The mRNA is then degraded in the cell. The vaccine has no virus in it at all.

What does the vaccine do?

The studies of the vaccine have shown that the vaccine prevents symptomatic Covid infection. It has also been shown to prevent severe Covid infection. The efficacy is 95%, which is excellent with respect to vaccines. In comparison, the influenza vaccine is typically about 50% effective.

Will the vaccine prevent me from catching the virus?

The answer is: we don’t know. That is currently being studied, and the data are not out yet. This is critical to know, actually. We know that the vaccine prevents symptomatic Covid disease, but we don’t know if it prevents people from catching the virus and then spreading it to other people. It would be great if that was also the case, but we just don’t know at this stage.

So, should I still get the vaccine?

Absolutely. Of course, you should not have any contraindications to getting the vaccine (such as allergies to any of its components). Still, even if the vaccine doesn’t prevent infection and spread of the virus, if enough people are vaccinated, they will be protected from getting sick from the virus. That can only be a good thing, and that will be the best way we can finally get out from under the cloud of this pandemic.

The post Will The Vaccine Stop Me From Catching COVID? appeared first on Medika Life.