As a doctor, people ask me if it is safe to take a new Covid vaccine. Since the review is risky, here is my very careful answer – RT Op-ed

Since the first positive vaccine results came out, a lot of people have asked me if I think everyone should take them? For whatever reason, a number of people trust my judgment on such things.

I noticed that the Daily Mail recently conducted a poll, which showed three-quarters of Britons would agree to having a shot – although 40% wanted politicians to take it first to prove it was safe. Frankly, I pity any vaccine injected into some politicians because I’m not sure it would survive.

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Either way, are the majority of Daily Mail readers right to be so excited about the vaccination? I must admit that I write this article with some caution, as I am well aware that even the slightest hint of criticism of a vaccine, of any vaccine, is risky.

As I recently pointed out to a friend, the moment someone says ‘vaccine’ the only acceptable response is to jump to your feet and say hello, while singing Ode to Joy. Followed by fifteen minutes of enthusiastic applause. If you don’t, you get kicked out and shot for thought crimes. Doubleplusgood, indeed.

The first thing I want to say here is that the type of vaccine being developed against Covid-19 has never been used before, apart from Ebola. Some people think that they shouldn’t really be called vaccines because they are completely different from anything that has come before.

Until now, vaccination has meant injecting a dead virus (or bacteria), or a virus that has been weakened and can only poorly replicate, or parts of the virus, or whatever. Once inside the body, the immune system spots this “alien” material and creates a response against it, which will be remembered for years and years to come.

The next time the dangerous virus appears, the body will use the immune memory of something very similar to eliminate the virus (or bacteria) at high speed, giving it no chance to do any damage. The first “vaccine” worked by using the cowpox virus to immunize against smallpox.

It had been noted that milkmaids who contracted cowpox, a relatively mild disease in humans, did not contract smallpox. It was Edward Jenner who wondered how or why this had happened. In 1796, he scratched the material from the wounds of cow pox, then scraped it on the skin of people not infected with smallpox, to see if they would be protected.

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His first volunteer was a young boy, whom he “immunized” with scrapings against cowpox. Jenner then attempted to infect the boy with smallpox scrapings. A form of research that would be rather frowned upon today. Fortunately, the young boy survived and the vaccination was born. Since then everything has been a variation on this theme, to use a less dangerous “thing” to create a defense against a damaging infection. Until now.

Now we have something called a messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine. RNA is, in fact, a single strand of DNA – the double helix that is found in our cells and makes up our genetic code. Many viruses consist of a single strand of RNA surrounded by a protein sphere.

They enter the cell, take over the replication systems, make thousands of copies of themselves, and then exit the cell. Sometimes killing the cell like they do, sometimes coming out more gently. Covid19 (Sars-Cov2) is an RNA virus.

Knowing this, rather than trying to create a weakened virus, which can take years, or smash the virus into pieces, the vaccine researchers decided to use Sars-Cov2 RNA against itself. To do this, they isolated the section of RNA that codes for the “spike” protein – what the virus uses as a “key” to enter cells.

They then worked on how to insert this small section of RNA, the messenger RNA, into the cell, where it takes over part of the protein replication mechanisms that are found inside all cells. They turn the mechanism into a 3D printer, producing copies of the spike protein.

These spike proteins then leave the cell – somehow, that bit is unclear. The immune system encounters them, recognizes them as “extraterrestrials” and attacks them. In doing so, antibodies are created and the immune memory system kicks in. If, later, a Sars-Cov2 virus enters the body, the immune system kicks in and attacks the spike protein that is remembered. I hope to kill the whole virus.

That’s it, certainly some very smart stuff. As they say, what could go wrong?

The first thing to say is that with something so new, you don’t really know. It could be absolutely 100% safe. We are told that none of the mRNAs can enter the nucleus of the cell, where it could be incorporated into DNA. I hope. Could it trigger an immune cascade? I hope not.

I know researchers will be looking very, very, very closely at any new security issues that may arise. If they aren’t, they should be. However, the deadlines here are very short. It normally takes several years to create safe and effective vaccines. Here it is actually happening in weeks.

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The early studies on human security were very closely consolidated. In addition, we will also have very little information on things like whether the vaccine actually reduces serious infections or death, as Professor Haseltine noted in a recent article: “These [vaccine] the protocols do not focus on the most important ramifications of COVID-19 that people are most interested in preventing: global infection, hospitalization, and death. Professor Haseltine also maintains that the trials were all “designed to be successful”.

The reality is that we are rushing and we are rushing. There are very good reasons for this rush, but I advise caution. Should everyone get vaccinated? Probably yes for those most at risk of serious infection and death, for whom the potential benefit is high. As for any healthy person under sixty, I would wait. As I will be.

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