Sars-CoV 2 / Covid 19 vaccine
The Covid Vaccine
I am frequently asked about the new SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 vaccines.
Should I get vaccinated?
Are you going to? (I have)
Was it developed too quickly (i.e. without appropriate study)?
Is it safe?
Will it alter my DNA?
Does it have microchips that are going to control our brains and thoughts? (NO!)
Should I get it if I have a chronic Borrelia infection.
This article attempts to address those questions.
The Covid vaccine is a ribonucleic acid (“RNA”) vaccine. RNA is a molecule that is the step between deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and protein manufacturing. Our bodies store information as DNA in our genes. We make RNA molecules that carry that information to a protein production system to make protein. That's how we, as living biological beings, turn DNA into proteins.
Think of it like this.DNA is a cookie recipe you found in a cookbook in the library, which you want to use.
RNA is a photocopy of that recipe, which you bring home to your kitchen.
Protein is the cookies.
Humans do not turn RNA back into DNA. There are some viruses that have the ability to turn RNA into DNA, called retroviruses. This coronavirus is not a retrovirus, and humans do not have the ability to go from RNA to DNA. Will the vaccine alter your DNA? No. We don't have the enzymes for RNA to become DNA, so we can't incorporate the RNA into our genome.
We cannot put that photocopy of the cookie recipe back into the book.
The J& J vaccine uses a virus that can inject DNA into our cells. Originally, scientists hoped that a virus could inject DNA directly into our DNA genome. Turns out that didn't work to get the virus to change our DNA. SO, instead, researchers used a virus to get DNA into our cells, so that we could make RNA and then the protein. Johnson and Johnson's vaccine is a living virus that has been altered so it can't reproduce, but it can get DNA into our cells, but not into our genome. The RNA vaccine concept has been in development for many years. It's a quite interesting success story with trials and tribulations on the way. It is not a new idea. It is not recently invented. It is well studied as a concept and has been in development for 30 years, since the early 1990s.
Covid vaccines are also not new. Researchers have been working on Covid vaccine development for years as well. The only thing “new” about this vaccine is the specific part of the SARS-CoV-2 viral protein being used. Everything living has something unique about it--a protein or some molecule on the surface that identifies it. Like a name tag.
The goal of a vaccine is to introduce that “name tag” to your immune system. Your immune system will start to recognize the unique tag, and make an immune response to that name tag specifically.
There are a lot of corona viruses, but there is only one coronavirus with the name tag that says “Hello, my name is SARS-CoV-2.”
Figuring out the name tag of SARS-CoV-2 took coronavirus researchers a few hours. They already knew the full gene sequence of previously studied coronaviruses, so they simply looked for any differences in the new SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. They found that difference very quickly. The difference is in a spike protein at the surface of the virus, a place your immune system will “see” quickly and easily.
The thing is, making that actual name tag is very difficult. Remember, it's not a name tag, it's a protein. A protein is a highly complex folded molecule. To figure out how a protein folds and how it looks takes years. If vaccine producers wanted to make that name tag to show it to your immune system, it would take years. That process is getting shorter due to technology, but it still takes a long time. How protein folding is figured out is also very interesting. There have been huge leaps in quantum computing and video game networking because of the effort to figure out protein folding.
BUT
We humans have evolved to make proteins very quickly from RNA.
Again, the cookie recipe.
If we wanted to make a chocolate chip cookie without a recipe, only looking at a finished cookie, it would be hard. Could you do it? Eat a cookie and reproduce it? You'd know chocolate chips are in there, right? But how do you make a chocolate chip? You know baking powder is in the cookie. How do you make baking powder? How would you make salt? Can you make flour? What's wheat? Where did that come from?
You get the point. Reverse engineering a cookie takes time.
But if I gave you the recipe and you owned the ingredients already, it would be easier.
Much easier.
The cookie might look easy, but it's actually the end result of a very long process of food and recipe development.
Well, protein vaccines are the same.
We know what DNA is unique to SARS-CoV-2.
We can “easily” make that DNA into RNA.
We cannot easily make that protein, in a lab, from that RNA that is folded and produced properly.
But you can! Yes! Yes you can.
You make RNA into protein all the time. LOTS of it.
You don't even need to go shopping. You have all the ingredients available, as long as you eat well and have all the necessary nutrients for healthy life. You don't need to do anything special to make protein from RNA. You're doing it right now!
The RNA in the vaccine will get into your cells. It has to. RNA gets made into protein inside your cells. The cookies are baked in your cells and then shipped out of your cells into your blood. Your immune system sees the protein that you make, and then reacts to the protein by making antibodies. Antibodies that recognize that protein that says “Hello, my name is SARS-CoV-2” and then bind to the virus and inactivate it.
Following through on the metaphor: The RNA is the recipe. The kitchen is in your cells. The cells make the protein. The protein gets shipped out. The immune system starts to recognize the cookies and now you have a proper immune response. Eventually, the recipe gets ripped up and thrown out. If you want to make more protein to have more immune response, you need to go back to get another vaccine. You have to go to the library again. And around it goes.
That's the vaccine in a nut shell. It's the cookie recipe, and your ability to make RNA into protein is the chef. Your reaction to the protein is the immune response.
That brings us back to the safety of the vaccine.
There have been trials showing the vaccine is safe.
There have been trials showing the vaccine reduces the symptoms of Covid-19, which is a great thing. Reducing the symptoms will keep people out of the hospital. Keeping people out of the hospital will leave resources for people having heart attacks or car accidents, and beds for people who need chemotherapy. Keeping people out of the hospital will flatten the curve.
To that end, the vaccine is awesome.
It is yet to be seen how long the vaccine will help a person's immune system to recognize SARS-CoV-2.
It is yet to be seen if the vaccine will stop the spread of the virus.
That's normal. We learn that information by observing how peoples' immune systems respond. Part of vaccine development requires seeing how people's individual immune systems respond to the vaccine. The polio vaccine has changed over time to make it more effective with less side effects.
Is the vaccine safe? Yes. Seems to be.
Is the vaccine microchipped to track us? NO. If you want to focus your energy in that direction, the device on which you are reading this post is actually monitoring you and trying to change the way you shop, feel and think. You likely already have a phone, computer, car, tv, and other computerized things that are tracking you.
You are fine with your devices tracking you and they are not geared towards slowing down or stopping a worldwide pandemic and saving lives. The vaccine is not tracking you, but is capable of slowing down or stopping a worldwide pandemic and saving lives.
My concern with the vaccine is gluten reactions.
I'm just joking.
I'm trying to keep a sense of humor when the world is so triggered.
It's the cookies people! The cookies.
Lets say you make those hypothetical cookies, but you have a gluten reaction. You are going to react to the cookie.
That's the problemSome people are going to have an immune overreaction to the protein that gets produced, or to a component in the vaccine.
My concern is how people with inflammatory disorders like Lyme Disease or autoimmune diseases are going to react to the proteins and to the RNA. It may be different than the rest of the population.
I'm making up a number to illustrate my point: Lets say 0.1% of people vaccinated have an immune overreaction to the vaccine. That's OK. That's far less than the people who will be hospitalized with Covid-19. (“OK” is relative here--the side effects should ideally be less than the danger of the infection or it's not worth it.)
But what if 5% of people with autoimmune issues react to the vaccine? Meaning, they react more to the cookie then they should have. Gluten reaction to the cookie = immune reactions to the protein.
We need to know IF people tend to react more or less to a RNA-based vaccine than a protein-based one.
We also don't know how many cookies will be made from the recipe. We don't know exactly how much protein each individual will make using the RNA recipe. If a person reacts to that protein, then it's possible they may make a lot of that protein and hence, have a lot of reaction.
If you have a gluten reaction and eat one cookie, you will have less symptoms than if you eat 1000 cookies!
There it is. My concern. I think people with inflammatory disorders MIGHT have worse vaccine reactions from a RNA vaccine than from a protein-based vaccine. I don't know if it's true yet. It's POSSIBLE. To figure that out, we have to wait a few months and see if people with allergies and autoimmune disorders have higher incidents of side effects than to regular protein-based vaccines.
I think people with an active Borrelia infection will have an increased inflammatory response to the vaccine. My suggestion, if you have Lyme Disease or chronic Borrelia, is to have that infection managed to the best of your ability for vaccine time. This means be on your treatment for Lyme. I think suppressed and managed Borrelia will have less ability to magnify your inflammation. Vaccines work due to the inflammatory response. Lyme likes to magnify inflammation and make it worse. People do have reactions to vaccines. There is real damage that a vaccine might cause. We need better methods to screen people who may have vaccine reactions. If you have a history of serious vaccine reactions, then don't get more vaccines. I think some people are reacting to the vaccine because they are reacting to the spike protein. The vaccine causes the person to make spike protein from the RNA. Then their immune system over reacts to spike protein and causes damage. That happens But, it would also happen if they got the infection! The same spike protein on Covid would have caused the same reaction. Those people are stuck between a rock and a hard place. And it's a scary rock and a scary hard place.
Ergo. If you are asking me if you should get the vaccine:
Yes, I think vaccines are a good idea.
No, vaccines do to not cause autism.
Yes, some people react to some of the ingredients in vaccines.
Some people have irritated immune systems that may react improperly to a vaccine, and we need to know more about the reaction to RNA vaccines in both healthy and unhealthy populations to fully understand if it'll trigger Lyme or autoimmune disorders.
No, do not talk to me about microchips and conspiracies.
Will the vaccine make your Lyme or autoimmune disease worse? Maybe. Maybe not. I can't say. I think this effect will be less if the infection is managed.
I have been treating people who have been damaged from a Covid-19 infection. The long term damage to some people is severe. I prefer that everyone has less reactions, and the hospitals don't get overwhelmed. I prefer that people continue to work to be more healthy and content. I prefer that, as a species, we work to improve health on the whole. I prefer that we stop fighting like kids in the sandbox.
There is data indicating that a large percentage of people that get Covid have long term consequences, even if they don't have severe symptoms.
“Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.”-Kris Kristerofferson
It's not freedom to neglect the management of SARS-CoV-2. Covid-19 is taking things away from people. It's reducing our freedom. It is freedom to fight the virus and to stop it's spread. It's freedom to be able to go to the hospital when we want and get the services we need.
It's freedom to be healthy.
The RNA vaccine has huge potential. In the near future, I think that doctors will be able to use the RNA vaccine platform to make cancer vaccines specific to a patient's cancer. This reason alone is enough for me to want to use this vaccine more often. We have to get good at using this vaccine to be able to use it and adapt it to specific cancers and other diseases.
What I hope to get people to think about is these 2 things.
1) Having unvaccinated groups of people makes a breeding pool for mutant viruses. If the virus is allowed to infect people, it has time to mutate. The longer it has to mutate the more likely we are to have viral mutants that the vaccine and herd immunity doesn't work for. Then we have to start again. More deaths. More closing. Back to the beginning. Going unvaccinated, esp groups of unvaccinated people, increases the risk that we are going to have to go back to the beginning. The virus is causing much more damage than the vaccines are , and each time it mutates beyond herd immunity or the current vaccine we have to do it again.
2) If the the RNA vaccine can be adapted to personalized cancer treatments, it's going to be so much better than chemotherapy. If we can get a patient's immune system to kill a cancer, instead of using chemo, that is going to be a huge advancement in oncology! If you think you may want to use a vaccine to cure your cancer in the future, then you should be willing to get the RNA vaccine now for this virus now. There is a huge potential for humanity in the RNA vaccine platform. I think it's everyone's responsibility to help develop this vaccine so we can use it to cure other problems.
If you think you may want a cancer vaccine 10 years from now, and you think you may get that cancer vaccine when you find out you have cancer...then get the vaccine.
I am frequently asked about the new SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 vaccines.
Should I get vaccinated?
Are you going to? (I have)
Was it developed too quickly (i.e. without appropriate study)?
Is it safe?
Will it alter my DNA?
Does it have microchips that are going to control our brains and thoughts? (NO!)
Should I get it if I have a chronic Borrelia infection.
This article attempts to address those questions.
The Covid vaccine is a ribonucleic acid (“RNA”) vaccine. RNA is a molecule that is the step between deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and protein manufacturing. Our bodies store information as DNA in our genes. We make RNA molecules that carry that information to a protein production system to make protein. That's how we, as living biological beings, turn DNA into proteins.
Think of it like this.DNA is a cookie recipe you found in a cookbook in the library, which you want to use.
RNA is a photocopy of that recipe, which you bring home to your kitchen.
Protein is the cookies.
Humans do not turn RNA back into DNA. There are some viruses that have the ability to turn RNA into DNA, called retroviruses. This coronavirus is not a retrovirus, and humans do not have the ability to go from RNA to DNA. Will the vaccine alter your DNA? No. We don't have the enzymes for RNA to become DNA, so we can't incorporate the RNA into our genome.
We cannot put that photocopy of the cookie recipe back into the book.
The J& J vaccine uses a virus that can inject DNA into our cells. Originally, scientists hoped that a virus could inject DNA directly into our DNA genome. Turns out that didn't work to get the virus to change our DNA. SO, instead, researchers used a virus to get DNA into our cells, so that we could make RNA and then the protein. Johnson and Johnson's vaccine is a living virus that has been altered so it can't reproduce, but it can get DNA into our cells, but not into our genome. The RNA vaccine concept has been in development for many years. It's a quite interesting success story with trials and tribulations on the way. It is not a new idea. It is not recently invented. It is well studied as a concept and has been in development for 30 years, since the early 1990s.
Covid vaccines are also not new. Researchers have been working on Covid vaccine development for years as well. The only thing “new” about this vaccine is the specific part of the SARS-CoV-2 viral protein being used. Everything living has something unique about it--a protein or some molecule on the surface that identifies it. Like a name tag.
The goal of a vaccine is to introduce that “name tag” to your immune system. Your immune system will start to recognize the unique tag, and make an immune response to that name tag specifically.
There are a lot of corona viruses, but there is only one coronavirus with the name tag that says “Hello, my name is SARS-CoV-2.”
Figuring out the name tag of SARS-CoV-2 took coronavirus researchers a few hours. They already knew the full gene sequence of previously studied coronaviruses, so they simply looked for any differences in the new SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. They found that difference very quickly. The difference is in a spike protein at the surface of the virus, a place your immune system will “see” quickly and easily.
The thing is, making that actual name tag is very difficult. Remember, it's not a name tag, it's a protein. A protein is a highly complex folded molecule. To figure out how a protein folds and how it looks takes years. If vaccine producers wanted to make that name tag to show it to your immune system, it would take years. That process is getting shorter due to technology, but it still takes a long time. How protein folding is figured out is also very interesting. There have been huge leaps in quantum computing and video game networking because of the effort to figure out protein folding.
BUT
We humans have evolved to make proteins very quickly from RNA.
Again, the cookie recipe.
If we wanted to make a chocolate chip cookie without a recipe, only looking at a finished cookie, it would be hard. Could you do it? Eat a cookie and reproduce it? You'd know chocolate chips are in there, right? But how do you make a chocolate chip? You know baking powder is in the cookie. How do you make baking powder? How would you make salt? Can you make flour? What's wheat? Where did that come from?
You get the point. Reverse engineering a cookie takes time.
But if I gave you the recipe and you owned the ingredients already, it would be easier.
Much easier.
The cookie might look easy, but it's actually the end result of a very long process of food and recipe development.
Well, protein vaccines are the same.
We know what DNA is unique to SARS-CoV-2.
We can “easily” make that DNA into RNA.
We cannot easily make that protein, in a lab, from that RNA that is folded and produced properly.
But you can! Yes! Yes you can.
You make RNA into protein all the time. LOTS of it.
You don't even need to go shopping. You have all the ingredients available, as long as you eat well and have all the necessary nutrients for healthy life. You don't need to do anything special to make protein from RNA. You're doing it right now!
The RNA in the vaccine will get into your cells. It has to. RNA gets made into protein inside your cells. The cookies are baked in your cells and then shipped out of your cells into your blood. Your immune system sees the protein that you make, and then reacts to the protein by making antibodies. Antibodies that recognize that protein that says “Hello, my name is SARS-CoV-2” and then bind to the virus and inactivate it.
Following through on the metaphor: The RNA is the recipe. The kitchen is in your cells. The cells make the protein. The protein gets shipped out. The immune system starts to recognize the cookies and now you have a proper immune response. Eventually, the recipe gets ripped up and thrown out. If you want to make more protein to have more immune response, you need to go back to get another vaccine. You have to go to the library again. And around it goes.
That's the vaccine in a nut shell. It's the cookie recipe, and your ability to make RNA into protein is the chef. Your reaction to the protein is the immune response.
That brings us back to the safety of the vaccine.
There have been trials showing the vaccine is safe.
There have been trials showing the vaccine reduces the symptoms of Covid-19, which is a great thing. Reducing the symptoms will keep people out of the hospital. Keeping people out of the hospital will leave resources for people having heart attacks or car accidents, and beds for people who need chemotherapy. Keeping people out of the hospital will flatten the curve.
To that end, the vaccine is awesome.
It is yet to be seen how long the vaccine will help a person's immune system to recognize SARS-CoV-2.
It is yet to be seen if the vaccine will stop the spread of the virus.
That's normal. We learn that information by observing how peoples' immune systems respond. Part of vaccine development requires seeing how people's individual immune systems respond to the vaccine. The polio vaccine has changed over time to make it more effective with less side effects.
Is the vaccine safe? Yes. Seems to be.
Is the vaccine microchipped to track us? NO. If you want to focus your energy in that direction, the device on which you are reading this post is actually monitoring you and trying to change the way you shop, feel and think. You likely already have a phone, computer, car, tv, and other computerized things that are tracking you.
You are fine with your devices tracking you and they are not geared towards slowing down or stopping a worldwide pandemic and saving lives. The vaccine is not tracking you, but is capable of slowing down or stopping a worldwide pandemic and saving lives.
My concern with the vaccine is gluten reactions.
I'm just joking.
I'm trying to keep a sense of humor when the world is so triggered.
It's the cookies people! The cookies.
Lets say you make those hypothetical cookies, but you have a gluten reaction. You are going to react to the cookie.
That's the problemSome people are going to have an immune overreaction to the protein that gets produced, or to a component in the vaccine.
My concern is how people with inflammatory disorders like Lyme Disease or autoimmune diseases are going to react to the proteins and to the RNA. It may be different than the rest of the population.
I'm making up a number to illustrate my point: Lets say 0.1% of people vaccinated have an immune overreaction to the vaccine. That's OK. That's far less than the people who will be hospitalized with Covid-19. (“OK” is relative here--the side effects should ideally be less than the danger of the infection or it's not worth it.)
But what if 5% of people with autoimmune issues react to the vaccine? Meaning, they react more to the cookie then they should have. Gluten reaction to the cookie = immune reactions to the protein.
We need to know IF people tend to react more or less to a RNA-based vaccine than a protein-based one.
We also don't know how many cookies will be made from the recipe. We don't know exactly how much protein each individual will make using the RNA recipe. If a person reacts to that protein, then it's possible they may make a lot of that protein and hence, have a lot of reaction.
If you have a gluten reaction and eat one cookie, you will have less symptoms than if you eat 1000 cookies!
There it is. My concern. I think people with inflammatory disorders MIGHT have worse vaccine reactions from a RNA vaccine than from a protein-based vaccine. I don't know if it's true yet. It's POSSIBLE. To figure that out, we have to wait a few months and see if people with allergies and autoimmune disorders have higher incidents of side effects than to regular protein-based vaccines.
I think people with an active Borrelia infection will have an increased inflammatory response to the vaccine. My suggestion, if you have Lyme Disease or chronic Borrelia, is to have that infection managed to the best of your ability for vaccine time. This means be on your treatment for Lyme. I think suppressed and managed Borrelia will have less ability to magnify your inflammation. Vaccines work due to the inflammatory response. Lyme likes to magnify inflammation and make it worse. People do have reactions to vaccines. There is real damage that a vaccine might cause. We need better methods to screen people who may have vaccine reactions. If you have a history of serious vaccine reactions, then don't get more vaccines. I think some people are reacting to the vaccine because they are reacting to the spike protein. The vaccine causes the person to make spike protein from the RNA. Then their immune system over reacts to spike protein and causes damage. That happens But, it would also happen if they got the infection! The same spike protein on Covid would have caused the same reaction. Those people are stuck between a rock and a hard place. And it's a scary rock and a scary hard place.
Ergo. If you are asking me if you should get the vaccine:
Yes, I think vaccines are a good idea.
No, vaccines do to not cause autism.
Yes, some people react to some of the ingredients in vaccines.
Some people have irritated immune systems that may react improperly to a vaccine, and we need to know more about the reaction to RNA vaccines in both healthy and unhealthy populations to fully understand if it'll trigger Lyme or autoimmune disorders.
No, do not talk to me about microchips and conspiracies.
Will the vaccine make your Lyme or autoimmune disease worse? Maybe. Maybe not. I can't say. I think this effect will be less if the infection is managed.
I have been treating people who have been damaged from a Covid-19 infection. The long term damage to some people is severe. I prefer that everyone has less reactions, and the hospitals don't get overwhelmed. I prefer that people continue to work to be more healthy and content. I prefer that, as a species, we work to improve health on the whole. I prefer that we stop fighting like kids in the sandbox.
There is data indicating that a large percentage of people that get Covid have long term consequences, even if they don't have severe symptoms.
“Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.”-Kris Kristerofferson
It's not freedom to neglect the management of SARS-CoV-2. Covid-19 is taking things away from people. It's reducing our freedom. It is freedom to fight the virus and to stop it's spread. It's freedom to be able to go to the hospital when we want and get the services we need.
It's freedom to be healthy.
The RNA vaccine has huge potential. In the near future, I think that doctors will be able to use the RNA vaccine platform to make cancer vaccines specific to a patient's cancer. This reason alone is enough for me to want to use this vaccine more often. We have to get good at using this vaccine to be able to use it and adapt it to specific cancers and other diseases.
What I hope to get people to think about is these 2 things.
1) Having unvaccinated groups of people makes a breeding pool for mutant viruses. If the virus is allowed to infect people, it has time to mutate. The longer it has to mutate the more likely we are to have viral mutants that the vaccine and herd immunity doesn't work for. Then we have to start again. More deaths. More closing. Back to the beginning. Going unvaccinated, esp groups of unvaccinated people, increases the risk that we are going to have to go back to the beginning. The virus is causing much more damage than the vaccines are , and each time it mutates beyond herd immunity or the current vaccine we have to do it again.
2) If the the RNA vaccine can be adapted to personalized cancer treatments, it's going to be so much better than chemotherapy. If we can get a patient's immune system to kill a cancer, instead of using chemo, that is going to be a huge advancement in oncology! If you think you may want to use a vaccine to cure your cancer in the future, then you should be willing to get the RNA vaccine now for this virus now. There is a huge potential for humanity in the RNA vaccine platform. I think it's everyone's responsibility to help develop this vaccine so we can use it to cure other problems.
If you think you may want a cancer vaccine 10 years from now, and you think you may get that cancer vaccine when you find out you have cancer...then get the vaccine.