Will the new vaccines be safe?

[Covidfears]

I’ve read a lot about the vaccines (mainly Oxford and Pfizer ones) and know that they have gone through all of the safety tests albeit in just a shorter amount of time as they have had money thrown at it so haven’t had to secure funding etc etc which takes the time.

However, does this mean that they haven’t had the chance to see if there are any long term effects?

I think I feel less worried about the Oxford one as that is based on old technology but the Pfizer one is the new r-DNA one. I’ve read a paper on it that says that the chance of it ‘getting into your dna’ is low. That doesn’t sound great! Am I worrying unnecessarily.

I’m certainly not an antivaxxer - the whole family had had everything going and I really need to the Covid vaccine as I’m very high risk (2% chance of death).

Is it just a matter of picking whether to take the risk of Covid or the risk of the vaccine when the long term effects of neither are known?

SuperbGorgonzola

Yeah it’s well documented

www.narcolepsy.org.uk/resources/pandemrix-narcolepsy

And if you don’t believe that - just google it and it wasn’t just children either. NHS staff were also fighting for compensation.

So before you call people irrational you should double check what your actually talking about

@SuperbGorgonzola I am with you, but I can appreciate that others come to a different conclusion.

LauraBassi it’s well documented, but from what I have read it’s questionable whether there is a real link between the administration of the vaccine and the development of narcolepsy or whether it was just coincidence. The incidence was very low and it was thought that the publicity prompted earlier diagnosis in some individuals whose narcolepsy might have not been spotted at the time. So the diagnosis was brought forward, and therefore appeared higher, in the vaccinated group.

@LauraBassi agreed and also the fact the government actually has a fund set up to compensate children affected by vaccine injury. I was in the first group of girls to get the hpv vaccine. A few girls in school developed chronic fatigue and then it turned out more and more cases were reported. We had 3 needles at the time. Now its only 2 needles and the rates seem to be lower although i would have to look up the article i read on that. Its not anto vax at all to be weary as fuck about a brand new vaccine that has no long term effect testing and it developed from a virus thats only been studied for less than a year. Also the fact that theres more than 10 vaccine trials going on right now all different. Im not saying i wouldnt have the vaccine eventually but i sure as hell will not be lined up on release day with my arm out.

[quote Lurkalot]@SuperbGorgonzola I am with you, but I can appreciate that others come to a different conclusion.

LauraBassi it’s well documented, but from what I have read it’s questionable whether there is a real link between the administration of the vaccine and the development of narcolepsy or whether it was just coincidence. The incidence was very low and it was thought that the publicity prompted earlier diagnosis in some individuals whose narcolepsy might have not been spotted at the time. So the diagnosis was brought forward, and therefore appeared higher, in the vaccinated group.[/quote]
Weird.

Put your fingers in your ears and sing ‘lalala’ if it makes you feel better but it’s true and easily looked up if you’d bothered.

That’s why people more intelligent than you recognised it, studied it, big pharma accepted liability and the government paid out ( eventually) the governments issue with paying out was that the ‘people’ as adults got this too not just children, is that they thought they couldn’t measure how their lives would be effected in the future. They were quite happy to pay out the minimal amount they give when vaccines go wrong.

There is zero point in pretending that vaccines don’t go wrong as it just makes you look strange. It’s a fact they do.

My kids have had their important vaccines. They will never have a flue one.

Coincidentally the swine flu had two U.K. pharmas competing to get the vaccine out. I really hope they have learned their lesson from last time.

All vaccines come with some risk. this one will be voluntary and most of us will not get it as like the flu one every year will go to the old and vulnerable.
I have had the measles one etc in the 1969s and am not anti vax but this new one will just be for certain people and it has certainly been rushed. We all know vaccines have side effects for many people and that most people who get CV19 are not very ill from it so people will make their own rational choices as thankfully this remains (just about) a free country.

I read this https://www.who.int/vaccinesafety/committee/topics/influenza/pandemic/h1n11safetyassessing/narcolepsyystatement/en/

Most of things we do in life carry a level of risk. We're living through a pandemic where 50,000 in this country alone have died and many more are living with long covid.

How would you feel if everyone was like you, and barely anyone consented to the vaccine? Are you happy for life to continue like this, going in and out of lockdown, the economy tanking for 20, 30 years until they can prove beyond all doubt that there are no adverse side effects?

Or are you just the type of person who lets everyone else take responsibility so that you passively benefit from their actions?

@Xenia which vaccines are risky "for many people"?

We are ALL being adversely affected by this pandemic. Every last one of us. People are dying now. I would sooner accept a small risk of vaccine side effects for a small number of people than living with this pandemic indefinitely.

[quote SuperbGorgonzola]@Xenia which vaccines are risky "for many people"?

We are ALL being adversely affected by this pandemic. Every last one of us. People are dying now. I would sooner accept a small risk of vaccine side effects for a small number of people than living with this pandemic indefinitely. [/quote]
Xenia has only ever cared about her and hers.

@Calledyoulastnightfromglasgow

So how do we know the RNA vaccine doesn’t damage our DNA subtly and lead to increased risk of disease such as cancer or autoimmunity?

Because scientists who have developed RNA vaccines know what RNA is, how it differs to DNA and whether or not it could be converted into DNA in the situation in which is given as a vaccine. Do you?

The rationale for mRNA vaccines

Vaccine platforms using mRNA-based technologies utilise two approaches: non-replicating and self-replicating mRNA. Non-replicating mRNA vaccines only code for the antigen required to elicit the desired immune response (such as the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2), making them relatively simple to develop and often more economical to administer (particularly where direct intradermal injection is feasible). Self-replicating mRNA vaccines include not only the genetic sequence of the antigen required but also the RNA replication machinery required for the mRNA to be amplified, thereby enabling a large amount of antigen production from a small dose, potentially reducing reactogenicity but complicating the development, manufacture and administration of the vaccine.

For both non-replicating and self-replicating mRNA vaccines, the mRNA is formulated with a carrier such as a lipid-nanoparticles that encapsulates the mRNA to protect it from degradation and to allow uptake into human cells. There are various possible modes of delivery of the mRNA to the patient, including direct intradermal injection and more complex cellular therapies (removing, modifying and reintroducing target cells). Once within the cytoplasm of a patient’s host cell, the mRNA is translated by the host cell’s translational machinery (ribosomes) to produce the target protein, which then undergoes further post-translational modifications such as folding to produce a functional protein. This protein mimics the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and therefore has the ability to elicit an adaptive immune response to the SARS-CoV-2 virus. As noted above, self-replicating mRNA constructs additionally have the ability to be translated by ribosomes to produce the replicase machinery necessary for self-amplification of the mRNA itself.[10]

This mRNA vaccine approach offers potential advantages over conventional inactivated and live-attenuated whole virus vaccines and subunit vaccines (which use a specific part of the virus such as its proteins, sugars, or capsule) in its simplicity and capacity to bring into effect a rapid and scalable response to novel pathogens. There is also likely to be potential for improved vaccine safety and efficacy:[11], [12]

mRNA vaccines allow for rapid, cost-effective and scalable manufacture of vaccines as there is no need for viral growth and expansion or the development of viral-specific cell cultures.
Once the viral genome has been sequenced, the target mRNA can be produced by a standardised process, rendering production faster and more cost-effective.
Delivery of mRNA into a human cell can be achieved by formulating the mRNA onto carrier molecules, allowing for rapid uptake and expression within cells.
Modifications to mRNA vaccine constructs can make them more stable and highly translatable.
Vaccines containing mRNA are capable of inducing both a T-cell (cellular) and B-cell (antibody) immune response.
The use of mRNA confers no risk of infection from the vaccine itself.
This approach also has advantages over DNA-based vaccines because mRNA does not need to enter the host cell nucleus in order to be transcribed. This means the dosage of vaccine can be significantly lower and no special delivery mechanisms are required. Additionally, there is no risk of DNA integrating into the host cell genome, avoiding concerns about the possibility of insertional mutagenesis.

www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=fae5c89a-be0e-4c82-9bf1-321d7cc9d56c

@LauraBassi I did actually try to defend you 😂 I won’t go into detail about my background and experience in this area - too outing.

My opinion of the link you’ve posted about narcolepsy is that it is biased and you need to look at a variety of sources. I see there were payouts but that does not prove causality, which is not supported by the scientific evidence. The evidence for the HPV vaccine causing chronic fatigue looks weak as well.

You are completely entitled to come to your own conclusions about the risks and potential benefits of your or your children having a vaccine or any other medicinal product. It’s probably academic in this case since this one isn’t likely to be available to most people any time soon. I am entitled to challenge what I see as misinformation though.

@lurkalot its great if this is your area of specialism and you can talk out about any misconceptions. I would love to 100% trust the vaccine and get it but i still cant get over the time frame hurdle. Its a huge mental block for me that i am struggling with.

If you're a healthy under 40 (arguably if you're a healthy under 50), then you've already given up a lot for the last 8 months (and will be paying for it for a lot longer) in order to protect other people from a disease which poses a very low risk to you. I don't think it's fair to then accuse someone in this group of selfishness if they don't feel like taking a new vaccine in order to protect other people. And if someone is at risk and doesn't want the vaccine, surely that's their problem.

(This is pretty academic at the moment as there's no way healthy young people are even going to be offered the vaccine for quite some time. And quite possibly never.)

I am a pro vax person and doctor's daughter. I even paid £400 for the twins to have the BCG. I actively would damage my childdlren to benefit other people's even which is why mine have had everything going from MMR to all the rest. All I meant by saying that there is risk is that every single vaccine has some risk to some people.

I believe the new vaccine will be offered to the old and sick as with the flu vaccine and that they will have a choice whether to have it or not just as they do with the flu vaccine.

@Shaniac I have a background in a life science, and specialised in immunology. I have also worked in a pharmaceutical company and have seen and reviewed dossiers that have been submitted to the regulator. We did not have any vaccines though, and I left that area when I had my dcs in any case, and have since re-trained in a completely different field. So I would not at all consider myself to be an expert.

I am not concerned with the speed of the development. As many have said, the process has been shortened because of the funding available - there has been no need to wait for funding between stages. These vaccines also build on work that was already in progress so it’s not as though they started from scratch.

Vaccines are generally very safe compared with other medicinal products. You are typically injecting some organic material (eg weakened virus) which will be broken down by the body once it has done its job. Side effects are usually seen very quickly and do not tend to last long (eg swelling at the site of injection). That’s not like the drugs taken daily by many of us, which are often large inorganic molecules (ie not at all the type of thing the human body is made up from, so they are essentially quite foreign to the body and can cause nasty effects). However, vaccines need to be safe because they are given to healthy people in order to prevent disease - so the risk/benefit analysis is different to that of a medicine that treats a serious condition (eg cancer). This is taken into account in the review process (ie higher risks of serious long lasting side effects will be accepted if the drug can be shown to be effective in treating a serious condition, but serious side effects would not be acceptable for a vaccine).

Of course, there have been claims of serious side effects linked with vaccines in the past. If you vaccinate lots of people some will become ill afterwards. That doesn’t necessarily mean the vaccine was the cause. It could be coincidence. You need to look more closely, but you may never reach a definite conclusion. Sometimes you can’t get enough data because the product has been withdrawn because of the reports, or because the virus is no longer in general circulation. Even so, a government may pay compensation because the courts decide there’s a chance the injury was caused by the vaccine. The papers I’ve read about the swine flu vaccine and narcolepsy and the HPV vaccine and chronic fatigue suggest that the effects could just have easily been down to coincidence and increased vigilance leading to a higher rate of diagnosis in the vaccinated group. No one can be sure though.

No one can give an absolute guarantee I’m afraid. If this gets regulatory approval in the UK I would be happy to take it however.

(The point about the safety of mRNA has been addressed above by another poster- I did ask the OP twice for her source saying it could alter your DNA but she hasn’t come back - no surprise there).

Thank you @Lurkalot thats all really interesting and does make a lot of sense.

There is also this article in the Guardian with Prof Robin Shattock from Imperial College.
www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/13/is-the-vaccine-safe-do-i-need-it-if-ive-had-covid-readers-questions-answered
The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine uses a piece of genetic code, called messenger RNA (mRNA), to issue instructions to the protein-making machinery in our cells to manufacture viral proteins. The vaccine is injected into the shoulder muscle, so the mRNA will mostly get into muscle cells, but probably also some immune cells. “I think people are concerned when they hear the term ‘genetic material’, but the really good thing about RNA is that it falls apart very quickly – in a cell, it’ll hang around for about 72 hours,” Shattock said. “And it doesn’t get into the nucleus where your chromosomes are, so there’s zero chance that it can change your genes.”

Once manufactured, the viral proteins are displayed on the cells’ surface, where circulating immune cells will detect and raise an immune response against them.

@Shaniac, you’re welcome 🙂

I believe the new vaccine will be offered to the old and sick

@Xenia oi, who are you calling old and sick? I’m 56 and have diabetes, so doubly qualified to receive the vaccine. I am decidedly neither old nor sick.

That was only shorthand. I was saying it is likely the people offered this will be the vulnerable and old as with the flu vaccine and probably like flu NHS staff too. In other words if you are usually offered the NHS flu vaccine you are likely to be offered the CV19 vaccine.

@RoSEbuds6 they are some really helpful links. And your right, the virologists, immunologists and scientists are the experts so I’d rather they made the decision on our behalf. I think this sort of distrust comes from the US because everything is so unregulated there

@Xenia you actually don’t need to guess who it will be offered to, because the provisional list has already been published and well publicised.

Personally I think that it will, in due course, be offered to younger adults as well. But that’s just a guess.

@JS87

The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine uses a piece of genetic code, called messenger RNA (mRNA), to issue instructions to the protein-making machinery in our cells to manufacture viral proteins....

Once within the cytoplasm of a patient’s host cell, the mRNA is translated by the host cell’s translational machinery (ribosomes) to produce the target protein, which then undergoes further post-translational modifications such as folding to produce a functional protein. This protein mimics the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and therefore has the ability to elicit an adaptive immune response to the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

The point I was making earlier was, what if these 'instructions' are interpreted incorrectly by the body, for instance, in people with autoimmune disease (where the immune system is already not working as it should). This is not at all uncommon, think for example of Hashimoto or Graves autoimmune thyroid disease in women, coeliac disease, etc.

Isn't this whole process excessively complicated with a high probability of going wrong at several points? Isn't it too early to say that the risk from this vaccine is likely to be small?

It seems that the main driver for this approach seems to be cost (as the virus doesn't need to be grown and inactivated) and our body would be doing the work that would otherwise would have been carried out in a production lab.

Also my understanding is that you cannot be infected by a whole virus that has been inactivated, only if the vaccine contains live virus?

js no I don’t. That’s my point. Even if scientists “know” about mRNA, only longer term data can tell us. One thing covid (and many other things) has taught us is that “science” is rarely one opinion.

It was bloody scientists after all in the UK that initially decreed the virus wouldn’t affect the U.K. I am no scientist but in February this concerned me hugely as it seemed flagrantly wrong.

I guess I’m not easily pacified by platitudes. I want to see data and I want to see it for myself. And I want to know how that data was obtained and what data was ignored. For example, studies involving antidepressants are often only publishes when the data supports the use of ADs. If a study is unfavourable then it isn’t published!

This maddens me.

To the PP who clearly knows their stuff. The HPV vaccine side effects may indeed be “coincidental” but if you dip your toes into the hundreds of stories from parents - who are told there is no link to the vaccine - it sounds remarkably like a link to me. Perfectly healthy teenage girls - within two weeks or a vaccine - POTS. Same story over and over and dismissed and not recorded.

It’s outrageous.

And this is why I am a sceptic!!!!

[quote Lurkalot]@LauraBassi I did actually try to defend you 😂 I won’t go into detail about my background and experience in this area - too outing.

My opinion of the link you’ve posted about narcolepsy is that it is biased and you need to look at a variety of sources. I see there were payouts but that does not prove causality, which is not supported by the scientific evidence. The evidence for the HPV vaccine causing chronic fatigue looks weak as well.

You are completely entitled to come to your own conclusions about the risks and potential benefits of your or your children having a vaccine or any other medicinal product. It’s probably academic in this case since this one isn’t likely to be available to most people any time soon. I am entitled to challenge what I see as misinformation though.[/quote]
I I completely agree bias effects people’s thinking... to the point the deny all credibility to anything that goes against their beliefs.

Even the CDC recognise it but obviously you know best...

Suppose that’s MN for you. Every ones an expert.