Anyone concerned about the vaccines against COVID-19 can really rest assured: changes to human DNA are simply not possible and we are safe in the long term.
The world has been waiting for it for almost a year. But now that vaccinations have finally started this week, there is still a lot of mistrust and anxiety. As many as 1 in 4 Dutch people do not want to be vaccinated against COVID-19. There are several reasons. First, one wonders whether accidentally or even on purpose unwanted material is not being injected. After all, the vaccine is an RNA vaccine. In other words, how can this genetic material affect our own DNA?
Our DNA leapfrog with RNA in vaccine?
The answer is none at all. Even if governments or the pharmaceutical industry had nefarious intentions, it is impossible for this vaccine to affect or change our DNA. Vaccinology professor Dr Anke Huckriede of the University of Groningen explains this as follows. “The RNA in the vaccine is a chemically synthesized genetic material that actually has nothing to do with human DNA. The RNA simply cannot affect the DNA. That simply is not possible. The DNA is in our nucleus, the RNA of the vaccine in the cell bodies. So there is no transfer between the two materials there. ”
“Plus, this isn’t going to be the first RNA material we’ll ever get into our body. Every virus ensures that we get RNA, if you have a simple snot nose of a virus, you also have virus RNA in your body. At best, you may only get that 5 times a year, but if you have young children, it can prevent RNA material from a virus from infiltrating your body dozens of times a year. It is therefore not the case that the human body is now introduced to RNA material for the first time. Your body has done that many times in your life. ” The professor therefore concludes: “Genetic modification of our human DNA by the RNA vaccine cannot take place.”
Fear of long-term side effects is not real
The fear of messing around with our DNA isn’t the only concern of vaccine opponents, however. There is also the fear that everything may seem to be going well in the short term, but that we know little about the long-term effects of the vaccine on our body. In other words, what about the side effects? Do we know enough about that? Huckriede thinks so. “The chance of long-term side effects with any virus vaccine is very small. We hardly ever come across that. That also makes sense. A vaccine is very different from a drug. A medicine is prescribed in a certain dose and enters the body regularly. Then it may be that with long-term use, certain substances will accumulate in the body and a toxic effect arises. ”
“The chance of long-term side effects with any virus vaccine is very small”
“It’s very different with a vaccine. You only receive a vaccine once or twice in a very small dose. That vaccine has disappeared completely from the body within two weeks by means of urine and faeces. The vaccine does not have to remain in the body at all, because its only job is to wake up the immune system and make it active against a particular virus. Once it’s done that, it can go. The vaccine with the foreign proteins is thus injected, the immune system reacts and is stimulated to produce antibodies against the intruder. Then the job of the vaccine is done and it can be secreted by the body. ”
Fast vaccine, unreliable vaccine?
There remains the question that occupies many people: how can a vaccine that took only a year to develop, be as safe as a vaccine that has been worked on for 4 or 5 years? This almost gives the impression that elephant trails have been taken and these could be at the expense of our health. That is not the case according to Huckriede. “The rapid availability has nothing to do with the quality of the clinical trials. Like any other vaccine, this vaccine was first tested on animals and then in 3 different phases on humans. About 30,000 to 40,000 people have been injected with this vaccine and all procedures were just as accurate as usual. ” The professor gives several reasons why the vaccine against COVID-19 could be available so quickly. “First, it was not necessary to start from zero. A good vaccine was already available against two other coronaviruses, MERS and SARS-1, to which COVID-19 is related. However, the vaccines against MERS and SARS-1 were never used because the disease did not spread as quickly as initially feared. ” The knowledge gained during the development of those vaccines now came in handy. That saved an awful lot of research time. ”
Urgency ensured fast administration
“But that’s not all. Don’t forget that developing a vaccine that is less urgent involves an awful amount of administrative work. That registration does not normally go into top gear. That also has to do with finances, of course. Developing a vaccine costs a lot of money and both companies and governments are careful with the investment in vaccines. Sometimes it takes months before you can move from one phase to another. Fortunately, that was not the case here. Due to the high urgency, these time-consuming factors were much less important. There was a so-called rolling review: while the administrative settlement of one test phase was still in progress, the next test phase could already be started. The provision of money and the shortening of administrative processes are therefore also largely responsible for the rapid development of this vaccine, ”concludes Huckriede.
While 25% of the Dutch will focus on the above considerations in the coming months, the majority of the Dutch are already looking forward to the injection that will soon make normal social life possible again.
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