By Curt Anderson December 24, 2020 6:47 pm Category: Health (5.0 from 1 vote)
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Dr. Francis Collins' Blog is particularly worthwhile in explaining how the mRNA vaccines "work" and why they do not, in any way, constitute a risk to "infection" or "altering a person's DNA"—both current myths circulating. Dr. Francis Sellers Collins is an American physician-geneticist who discovered the genes associated with a number of diseases and led the Human Genome Project. He is director of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, United States.--CA
The two vaccines currently authorized for administration in the United States work in a unique way. Their centerpiece is a small, non-infectious snippet of mRNA. Our cells constantly produce thousands of mRNAs, which provide the instructions needed to make proteins. When someone receives an mRNA vaccine for COVID-19, it tells the person's own cells to make the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. The person's immune system then recognizes the viral spike protein as foreign and produces antibodies to eliminate it.
This vaccine-spurred encounter trains the human immune system to remember the spike protein. So, if an actual SARS-CoV-2 virus tries to infect a vaccinated person weeks or months later, his or her immune system will be ready to fend it off. To produce the most vigorous and durable immunity against the virus, people will need to get two shots of mRNA vaccine, which are spaced several weeks to a month apart, depending on the vaccine.
Some have raised concerns on social media that mRNA vaccines might alter the DNA genome of someone being vaccinated. But that's not possible, since this mRNA doesn't enter the nucleus of the cell where DNA is located. Instead, the vaccine mRNAs stay in the outer part of the cell (the cytoplasm). What's more, after being transcribed into protein just one time, the mRNA quickly degrades. Others have expressed concerns about whether the vaccine could cause COVID-19. That is not a risk because there’s no whole virus involved, just the coding instructions for the non-infectious spike protein.
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Dr. Francis Collins' Blog is particularly worthwhile in explaining how the mRNA vaccines "work" and why they do not, in any way, constitute a risk to "infection" or "altering a person's DNA"—both current myths circulating. Dr. Francis Sellers Collins is an American physician-geneticist who discovered the genes associated with a number of diseases and led the Human Genome Project. He is director of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, United States.--CA