“The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine contains messenger RNA (mRNA) which is genetic material.”
Source (FDA)
“This type is also called an mRNA-based vaccine. Vaccination involves injecting genetic material called mRNA into live host cells.”
Source
Currently, mRNA is considered a gene therapy product by the FDA.
Source
- Study: Nanomedicines to Deliver mRNA: State of the Art and Future Perspectives
- Study: Direct Gene Transfer into Mouse Muscle in Vivo
This article: Yes, some COVID vaccines use genetic engineering. Get over it gets it all wrong. The author states:
“What mRNA vaccines do is prompt a few of your cells near the injection site to produce the spike protein.”
This isn’t true though. Another article in BMJ explains:
All COVID-19 vaccines in current use deliver their payload into muscles. The Pfizer-Bio-nTech and Moderna vaccines both use lipid nanoparticles (LNP) as mRNA carriers, whilst the Oxford Astra-Zeneca and Sputnik vaccines use adenovirus vectors. mRNA and viral vaccines must transfect cells to produce their corresponding proteins, whilst other vaccines, such as the Chinese Sinovac vaccine, deliver inactivated virus proteins directly into muscle. Whichever delivery system is used, viral proteins do not initiate immune memory responses in muscles.
Covid-19: Schedule breast screening before vaccine or 4 to 6 weeks after to avoid false positives, says guidance
Instead of staying in the muscles, the article goes on,
They must be transported to lymph nodes in order to initiate a response. This transport occurs primarily within antigen-presenting cells (APC), specifically dendritic cells (DC), which are drawn from blood into the vaccination site by local inflammation. Within tissues they are activated and endocytose and process viral proteins, expressing them in the context of surface major histocompatibility complex (MHC) molecules. The critical next step is entry into tissue-draining afferent lymphatics; this process is actively facilitated by expression of lymphatic-homing molecules on activated DC. Some antigen may also travel directly to draining lymph nodes. Even though this occurs by passive convection, it still relies on the presence of intact functioning lymphatics. Only once delivered to local lymph nodes can the antigen trigger a specific adaptive memory response from naïve B- and T-cells located there.
The genetic material in the vaccines is traveling through the blood, to the tissues, and then finally to the lymphatic system. What happens then?
The virus would require reverse-transcription, an enzyme that humans don’t produce on their own, in order to turn RNA into DNA and enter the human genome. I wondered if the virus itself had this (like HIV does) or if the vaccine has reverse-transcription. There is a preprint study hypothesizing that the virus does enter the genome here: SARS-CoV-2 RNA reverse-transcribed and integrated into the human genome. Another study suggests that this hypothesis is true: Reverse-transcribed SARS-CoV-2 RNA can integrate into the genome of cultured human cells and can be expressed in patient-derived tissues.
They concluded:
We present here evidence that SARS-CoV-2 sequences can be reverse-transcribed and integrated into the DNA of infected human cells in culture.
So the virus does enter the nucleus and integrate into the DNA. Does the vaccine? Hopefully more studies will be done on this. For now, we cannot say with any certainty that the vaccine does not integrate into the DNA.
This doctor offers more explanation:
Article: Breaking Study Sheds More Light on Whether an RNA Vaccine Can Permanently Alter DNA
Article: OPEN LETTER TO THE CATHOLIC BISHOPS
