First off - I’m not taking the vaccine. Everyone had their own right/decision to make, but me and my family won’t until there are longer studies, at scale, on long term effects.
Secondly, and my main question if anyone can explain it in a “simple manner” how do these mRNa vaccines work? My understanding is unlike other vaccines where you get a dead or live version of the disease, so your body recognizes it and responds appropriately, the mRNA basically sends a message, via proteins/genetic material to tell our body how to build up an immunity to fight the particular strain of virus?
So instead of “typical” vaccine where we learn via experience, mRNA is telling us when we encounter it how to fight it?
I’m genuinely curious as I’ve heard some people saying mRNA alters DNA, has less approval, isn’t as safe, etc.
First off - I’m not taking the vaccine. Everyone had their own right/decision to make, but me and my family won’t until there are longer studies, at scale, on long term effects.
Secondly, and my main question if anyone can explain it in a “simple manner” how do these mRNa vaccines work? My understanding is unlike other vaccines where you get a dead or live version of the disease, so your body recognizes it and responds appropriately, the mRNA basically sends a message, via proteins/genetic material to tell our body how to build up an immunity to fight the particular strain of virus?
So instead of “typical” vaccine where we learn via experience, mRNA is telling us when we encounter it how to fight it?
I’m genuinely curious as I’ve heard some people saying mRNA alters DNA, has less approval, isn’t as safe, etc.
tldr: tells the body (via dna) how to behave in at a cellular level scenario. this gene manipulation stuff is freaky playing with nature eugenicist crap. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/different-vaccines/mrna.html
This is not completely correct but it's pretty close.
The mRNA in the vaccine does not interact with DNA. Instead, it's delivered to the cells cytoplasm where host ribosomes (think protein factories) directly translate that mRNA into viral proteins. These viral proteins have a number of fates, including being secreted outside of the cell or being transported to the cell surface. This essentially boils down to our own cells "presenting" viral particles to our immune system.
Whether these are safe in the long-term has yet to be demonstrated. Preliminary data suggest that these vaccines can cause immune reactions, but you can look at the numbers and you'll see that very few of the people who received their first dose experienced a serious side effect. So it seems these are well tolerated in the short-term, but we'll have to wait for more data in the long-term.
That all said, in my opinion there's no reason to receive a vaccine for a virus with a 99.9% survival rate and no long-term morbidity or mortality for the average healthy person.
so just the one sided strip of the instruction set? i was trying to make it brief lol
Yes exactly. No worries about the brevity; you were pretty close actually.
The basic function of the cell is (called the central dogma of biology) is:
DNA -> mRNA -> Proteins.
We're skipping the DNA step and starting with mRNA.
yeah yeah but after doesnt it leave residual effects which i assumed to be rewiring/rewriting the overall code which i thought was DNA
The messenger RNA causes you cell machinery to make a protein found on the surface of the virus. that protein is then displayed on the surface of infected cells(muscle?) then the immune system then learns to recognize the cell marker as an invader.
Yes, you are right. It uses the pathogen’s genetic code to instruct your body to create antigens. Think of it as a game patch that the software developers release when they find a specific bug. If deemed safe and successful, it's fast and can be done in as little as a week.
In a nutshell:
I’m a tad suspicious because it is my understanding that we’ve never had a widely used mRNA vaccine until now.
To be fair, I am wary too. But every new medical process that saves lives today, which we take for granted, was used for the first time once. To our advantage, the entire world is working on this, and it's well funded. So hopefully it will succeed with minimal side effects.
Personally, I’m waiting for a version 1.1 of the vaccine, where they’ve worked out the initial bugs or the most severe of the adverse side effects.
It’d also be nice if they could figure out a way to vaccinate us in one sitting rather than have it be in two doses taken two weeks apart.
Correct, there has never been an mRNA vaccine used in humans and Moderna, one of the makers has never created a drug or vaccine before. Ever.
RNA is short lived, nothing is being changed long term.
It works like a virus and it injects it's code to rewrite your dna to make the proteins that interferes with covid connectors.
However, we still don't know the long term implications of this. It's not fully tested. It could be zika virus.
This shouldn't happen. mRNA is a short-lived molecule and if the mRNA is not naturally found in your DNA, it shouldn't have long-lasting changes on protein production at the cellular level.