Two COVID vaccines are now available in the US and are currently being administered to health professionals and residents oflong-term care facilities. But it’s new, and new things are scary, and both COVID and the vaccine have been ruthlessly politicized. Rumors fly.
If people in your life have doubts about the safety of the vaccine, or are still wondering if the coronavirus is a hoax, we have some tips here for talking to them. There to be still many unknowns about the vaccine, so just because someone has doubts or questions doesn’t mean they are an anti-vaxxer. If you have questions of your own, or if you’d like to talk to people in your life who do, we will list some of the myths and facts for you here.
Was it in a rush?
The vaccine was developed quickly and was deployed and distributed much faster than any other vaccine in history. But that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been tested or that corners have been cut.
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Each of the two vaccines was tested in a study of more than 30,000 people, with half receiving the vaccine and the other not. In short, there is enough data to support the belief that the vaccine is safe and effective.
The vaccine cannot give you a COVID
Both vaccines contain a piece mRNA that our body can use to make the spike protein, a tiny piece of the virus. The shot nothing but contains the mRNA and some ingredients that help the mRNA get into your cells. That means:
- It does not contain the virus itself.
- It does not contain any of the virus’ proteins.
- It does not contain the entire RNA of the virus, only the part that codes for the spike protein.
All of this means that it cannot and cannot give you a COVID. The virus just isn’t there. The virus is also not involved in the vaccine manufacturing process. (Some other vaccines use modified or killed viruses; the COVID vaccine uses no viruses at all in its production.)
The mRNA in the vaccine cannot change your DNA
The coronavirus has RNA as its genetic material and we have DNA for ours. But the two are not interchangeable. Your DNA is safe.
Your DNA lives at the core of each of your cells, and our body makes mRNA copies of our DNA as part of the normal daily routine of keeping us alive. The vaccine introduces a new mRNA that normally wouldn’t be there. mRNA does not change DNA.
Now there are Others viruses in the world called retroviruses, which can make DNA from RNA and, in some cases, can lodge in DNA. But that is not relevant here, because the coronavirus is not a retrovirus. It uses RNA but doesn’t know how to make DNA.
Neither the virus nor the vaccine contains one reverse transcriptase, a special molecular machine needed to make DNA. Even if reverse transcriptase were somehow present in the cell, neither the viral RNA nor the vaccine mRNA contain the necessary binding sites for the reverse transcriptase to work.
Or if you want an analogy, think of your DNA as a reference library. The books remain in the library, but you can make notes on your own notebook paper for use elsewhere. (The notebook paper is the RNA.) Your notebook cannot in any way become part of the permanent collection of the library.
What is actually in the vaccine?
Both vaccines are amazingly simple. The ingredient lists for both contain only three types of ingredients:
- the mRNA
- lipids with very long names (these are in fact luxury oils and they form the coating around the mRNA)
- sugars, salts and / or simple chemical buffers
In the Pfizer vaccine, the third category includes potassium chloride, monobasic potassium phosphate, sodium chloride, dibasic sodium phosphate dihydrate and sucrose. These may sound scientific, but you probably have three of them in your kitchen (sucrose is sugar, sodium chloride is salt, and potassium chloride is sodium-free salt). Here is the fact sheet for the Pfizer vaccine, including the ingredient list.
The Moderna vaccine is formulated with different ingredients, but using the same formula. In addition to the mRNA and lipids, it includes tromethamine, tromethamine hydrochloride, acetic acid, sodium acetate, and sucrose. Again, these are extremely common simple ingredients in medical solutions. Tromethamine is just Tris buffer, which you may have used in science class. Acetic acid is the acidic component of vinegar. Sucrose is sugar. Here is the fact sheet for the Moderna vaccine.
But I’ve heard it contains …
Even before COVID, there was a lot of misinformation about vaccines floating around. Sometimes people heard that there was a certain ingredient in it some vaccines and came to the conclusion that it should be entered all of them vaccines. Like mercury, for example, which is found in very few vaccines. (It used to be in more.) So let’s go through some of the things that are not in the COVID vaccine:
- The COVID vaccines do not contain aluminum or mercury.
- The COVID vaccines do not contain preservatives.
- The COVID vaccines do not contain fetal cells.
- The COVID vaccines do not contain microchips.
Let’s talk a little bit about those last two.
There are no microchips in vaccines
The idea that vaccines contain microchips iscaliber wrong. There’s a whole conspiracy theory that was pulled out of the blue about microchips, and shared in groups discussing Qanon conspiracies and anti-vaccine propaganda. It is not based onworld truths.
There to be injectable microchips in this world, and your pet can get them from any vet. (They don’t really do anything since they don’t have a battery; their only job is to store a serial number.) Sometimes pets get their microchip at the same appointment where they get a vaccine. Maybe that’s where the rumor started?
If you’ve ever seen a microchip inject, you know that they are slightly larger than a grain of rice, and that the needle they are delivered with is the right size. In other words, the within of the needle is big enough for a grain of rice. Meanwhile, the needles that deliver vaccines are extremely thin, less than 1 millimeter wide. Here’s Vice President Pence making his COVID recording for news cameras. You can see the needle is normal size. There is no microchip in it.
There are no fetal cells in the COVID vaccines
Some vaccines are developed in cell lines grown in laboratories, and in some cases those cells are derived from cells originally grown from human fetal tissue. This has led to a myth that “pieces of aborted babies” are in vaccines, which is not true at all.
The COVID vaccines are not grown in cells, fetal or otherwise. Remember they are just an mRNA. Lab machines can synthesize these without the involvement of a single cell. Both Pfizer and Moderna did use some fetal-derived cell lines for some of the tests they did while developing the vaccine.
If this is a problem for you or your loved ones, get a Pope approved statement of the American Conference of Catholic Bishops can help to understand how a vaccine tested on fetal cell lines fits into a religious anti-abortion framework. The bishops believe that the “external link” of vaccine development with abortion should not interfere with the fact that “being safely vaccinated against COVID-19 should be considered an act of love for our neighbor and part of our moral responsibility for it. public good. “
There is no evidence that the vaccines harm fertility or pregnancy
The studies with both COVID vaccines excluded people who were pregnant, so we have limited data on their safety and efficacy during pregnancy. But based on how these vaccines work, scientists and doctors say there is no reason to believe the injection would harm people who are pregnant, breastfeeding or planning to become pregnant.
That’s what the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has stated it is believed that the vaccine “should not be withheld” from people who are pregnant although the trials do not include them. The CDC agreed when they wrote the vaccine recommendations, saying that people who are pregnant have a choice of taking the vaccine and should talk to their provider to decide if it makes sense for them.
Meanwhile, there is a rumor that the spike protein mRNA bears a resemblance to a protein in the human placenta. If true, it would indicate that antibodies to the coronavirus would also react on the placenta and interfere with the pregnancy. If you’ve heard the false claim that the vaccine can ‘make you infertile’ or ’cause infertility,’ this is probably the myth the person is thinking about.
But again, this is not supported by evidence. In fact, we have pretty good reason to believe that it is not the case. The spike protein encoded by the mRNA is the same as that on the actual coronavirus. So if antibodies to the coronavirus could cause pregnancy problems, that would be as true for people who got the virus naturally as it would for those who got the vaccine. But that turns out to be a moot point there does not appear to be a meaningful match between the spike protein and the placenta.
But don’t just take my word for it. If you are pregnant or thinking about becoming pregnant, talk to your doctor about the risks and benefits the COVID vaccine may bring to you personally.
Are There Any Scary Side Effects?
For most people, the side effects of the COVID vaccines are what you would expect from an immune response. These include pain and possibly redness or swelling in the arm where you received the vaccine, and possibly a day or two of fatigue and fever. As with other vaccines, the severity of these side effects varies from person to person.
If you’ve heard about serious side effects, they fall into two categories: the ones that are real or plausible, and the ones that have just been devised to scare people on social media.
Here are some that doctors and public health experts are genuinely concerned about:
If you’ve heard something else that’s weird or scary, chances are it probably offset by clicks. Don’t trust blindly; look at it. For example, a nurse passed out after receiving the vaccine (people sometimes pass out after injections, it is quite common), and rumor has it that she died. She didn’t.
Or to take another example, a woman who was in a vaccination trial developed a scary skin condition on her feet, and posted online that she thought it was because of the vaccine. It turned out she was in the placebo group and hadn’t received the vaccine at all. But her story kept circulating.
Should I make the recording?
That is your choice. There is no government plan to force anyone to get it. You don’t have to say any special words to your doctor to get it out; “No thank you” will always suffice.