12 ms·

I feel like mRNA vaccines have huge potential, but I am really, really concerned about potential side effects. Does anyone know which other helper-substances ar

I feel like mRNA vaccines have huge potential, but I am really, really concerned about potential side effects. Does anyone know which other helper-substances are inside the vaccine, besides the RNA?

cpfohl 6y ago
Adjuvants in modern vaccines are extraordinarily well studied and safe. Current side effects include 6-24 hours of feeling totally crappy. Still beats Covid-19...
- Mirioron 6y ago
  How modern is "modern" here? Because the whole Pandermix saga happened only a decade ago and some are pointing towards the combination of the adjuvant and antigen: https://www.bmj.com/content/362/bmj.k3948/rr-22 https://www.bmj.com/content/362/bmj.k3948/rr-22 Considering that this doesn't seem to be a settled question, I'm not so sure that it makes sense to blindly trust that everything will be alright in the current, rushed, case.
  - acqq 6y ago
    The whole Pandermix risk is much smaller than the risks in the current pandemics. Narcolepsy is very rare disease and even increased risk due to that vaccine remains very low as absolute value and it only appears high if it's expressed as a relative number. In establishing the shorter-term safety nothing was "rushed" now compared to the processes performed before (it was tested on tens of thousands of people). Regarding the longer-term safety, who would be willing to wait e.g. two more years before any vaccine could be used? As the vaccination will be voluntary for common people, as long at there are shortages, those who don't want to get it should indeed leave it to those who will.
    - acqq 6y ago
      To elaborate the absolute numbers: around 1 in 55000 vaccinated were affected by the side effects in two years, so even if everybody in the UK was vaccinated with something causing such side effects, that translates to 1200 with the side effects. To compare, there were more than 70,000 excess deaths in the UK since start of pandemics. Around 60 times more deaths than, in the case of vaccine, those still living with side effects. But these side effects were apparently the strongest in just a part of the population: 4-18, which is 11 million, resulting is estimated 200 people with side effects. Covid-19 luckily affects exactly that part of population less, but even then I'd guess that Covid-19 already made more damage to more than 200 people in it. And that small number of cases just can't be detected unless the trial covers enough of those affected. If the total effect is 200 cases in the whole population, a trial would have to be performed on at least one 20th of it: as much as 600,000 children would have to be a part of the trial to even detect that issue. Not to mention that it took two years to recognize the issue. Now, for the trial to recognize the problem, half would have to be placebo group. That gives once all outside of the trial are counted 97.5% of people unprotected for two years. In the case of whole population, and even waiting for only 10 months, there would still be 68,000 deaths more if that kind of trial would be a condition for the acceptance of vaccine.
  - chimprich 6y ago
    It's worth pointing out that the Pandemrix "saga" affected very few people. According to [1], "The UK Health Protection Agency (now Public Health England) undertook a major study of 4- to 18-year-olds and found that around one in every 55,000 jabs led to narcolepsy." Very rare frequency incidents that slip through testing shouldn't make us over-cautious to the enormous benefits of vaccination. [1] https://www.narcolepsy.org.uk/resources/pandemrix-narcolepsy https://www.narcolepsy.org.uk/resources/pandemrix-narcolepsy
- refurb 6y ago
  But the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have no "adjuvants". What are you getting at?
  - nkohari 6y ago
    They don't have adjuvants, but they do have lipid nanoparticles which allow the mRNA to breach cells. It's feasible that they could cause unexpected side effects. NB: I'm personally going to get the first SARS-CoV-2 vaccine I can get, and I'm incredibly excited about mRNA vaccines in general. But, it's true that any time you inject a chemical into your bloodstream you're taking a calculated risk.
    - hhas01 6y ago
      Please name a vaccine that is injected into your bloodstream.
      - nkohari 6y ago
        It's good to see that HN continues to find ways to increase pedantry! You know what I meant, intramuscularly.
        hhas01 6y ago
        “You know what I meant” No. I am not a mindreader. And “vaccines are injected into the bloodstream” is a standard antivax lie. Yes there’s a risk in receiving a vaccine, just as there’s a risk in receiving any prophylactic/therapeutic treatment, but severe side-effects are closer to 1-in-100K to 1-in-a-million. Compared to a disease that is currently killing 2-in-100, with significant sequelae likely much higher. I’m happy to accept that “bloodstream” was a slip of the tongue, but really try not to make those malignant lying bastards’ jobs any easier, when people die because of them.
        nkohari 6y ago
        If you had actually read what I wrote thoughtfully -- instead of falling over yourself to type a glib reply as fast as you could get it out -- it would have been easy to recognize that I am clearly not anti-vaccine, nor was I suggesting that side effects are common. I said both of those things explicitly. If your goal is actually to educate others, then educate others. Replying with snark achieves nothing but temporarily boosting your own ego.
tibbydudeza 6y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35Idb_lCU4o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35Idb_lCU4o by Ninja Nerd Lectures This is the best science based informative video I have seen on how these different Covid vaccines actually work.
SlateBlate 6y ago
Why is this comment getting downvoted? seems like a fair question. I've seen this now in several threads where even questioning side effects of the vaccine gets downvoted and looked down upon like they did something illegal. This is not HN I used to know.
- hannob 6y ago
  There's a tendency to highlight risks and sideeffects of this vaccine that is without any basis. It's reasonable to ask what the risks are, but unspecific ramblings about risks aren't helpful and it's unreasonable to highlight very hypothetical risks compared to the very real risks of getting Covid-19. Right now the risk issue seems pretty clearcut: There were no serious sideeffects in the trials. What gave me additional confidence is hearing in an interview with Paul Offit (one of the world's leading vaccine expers) that almost all serious vaccine sideeffects that appeared in the past with other vaccines would appear relatively quickly (within weeks). Thus if there would be common sideeffects we would know by now. Thus we can with reasonable confidence say that if there are any serious sideeffects from the promising Covid-19 vaccines then in all likelyhood they will be rare. It seems almost impossible that the vaccines pose a greater risk than the risk of not using them.
  - rjknight 6y ago
    This is a great reply, and is a good reason why down-voting the original question is counter-productive: if it gets down-voted too much, fewer people will see the informative replies! If the OP were spreading unsubstantiated panic then I would take a different view of it, but to me it appears as an honest concern about a novel medical procedure.
  - krona 6y ago
    > It seems almost impossible that the vaccines pose a greater risk than the risk of not using them. How about to a baby, or an unborn baby? The relative risk is almost certainly higher to a baby, but how high? We don't know, since there haven't been any longitudinal studies (for starters.) Which is why it would be unethical outside a clinical trial to administer it to younger people en masse. Eventually the relative risk will be quantifiable, but it will take years. It took ~4 years for the increased risk of narcolepsy in children due to the H1N1 vaccine (Pandemrix) to be reported, for example.
LatteLazy 6y ago
Ingredients list: >6. PHARMACEUTICAL PARTICULARS >6.1 List of excipients ALC-0315 = (4-hydroxybutyl) azanediyl)bis (hexane-6,1-diyl)bis(2-hexyldecanoate), ALC-0159 = 2-[(polyethylene glycol)-2000]-N,N-ditetradecylacetamide, 1,2-Distearoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine, cholesterol, potassium chloride, potassium dihydrogen phosphate, sodium chloride, disodium hydrogen phosphate dihydrate, sucrose, water for injections Source is the pdf from this UK Gov page: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/regulatory-approval-of-pfizer-biontech-vaccine-for-covid-19 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/regulatory-approv... I have no idea at all about vaccines, healthcare or bio chem so please correct me but. .. The first 2 are the RNA right? Sodium and potassium chloride are standard in table salt and saline drips right? Sucrose and cholesterol occur naturally in humans I think (sucrose comes from breaking down fructose?). Potassium dihydrogen phosphate is harder. No real idea what that is, but apparently they put it in gatorade? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopotassium_phosphate https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopotassium_phosphate Disodium hydrogen phosphate dihydrate is (I think) also used in food (condensed milk) and water softeners! Anyone know what 1,2-Distearoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine is? Or I'm sort of impressed it doesn't have 1001 complex chemicals.
- fabian2k 6y ago
  The RNA isn't in that list. The first four are likely all components of the lipid vesicles that are used to deliver the mRNA. The rest of the list is mostly some salts and then sugar and water.
  - LatteLazy 6y ago
    Thanks! Any idea if thoseipid vesicles are "standard"? In case you care, I have no objections to the vaccine. I'm too young (36 and not working in care) to get it any time soon. But I'd take it tomorrow if it were available for me.
    - fabian2k 6y ago
      As far as I understand, the delivery systems were a large part of the research necessary to make RNA-based drugs possible. What the RNA does inside the cell we know reasonably well (I'm simplifying a lot here ), but getting the RNA into the cells efficiently was the original problem to be solved. So I don't think those are really standard components, there are a lot of ways to create different systems here with different properties. As a more general comment on this concern about additives, this is typically targeted at vaccines with adjuvants. Adjuvants are designed to create a stronger immune response, the lipids here are not adjuvants and as far as I understand the mRNA vaccines don't contain any adjuvants. I don't agree with the general concerns about adjuvants (though of course each vaccine has to prove safety in the studies on their own), but they are an additive with an inherently higher risk than something more inert. The immune system is extremely complex and highly dangerous.
runeks 6y ago
> I feel like mRNA vaccines have huge potential, but I am really, really concerned about potential side effects. Would you mind expanding on this? Why are you severely concerned about side effects for mRNA vaccines in particular?

I feel like mRNA vaccines have huge potential, but I am really, really concerned about potential side effects. Does anyone know which other helper-substances are inside the vaccine, besides the RNA?

cpfohl 6y ago

Adjuvants in modern vaccines are extraordinarily well studied and safe. Current side effects include 6-24 hours of feeling totally crappy. Still beats Covid-19...

Mirioron 6y ago
How modern is "modern" here? Because the whole Pandermix saga happened only a decade ago and some are pointing towards the combination of the adjuvant and antigen: https://www.bmj.com/content/362/bmj.k3948/rr-22 https://www.bmj.com/content/362/bmj.k3948/rr-22 Considering that this doesn't seem to be a settled question, I'm not so sure that it makes sense to blindly trust that everything will be alright in the current, rushed, case.
- acqq 6y ago
  The whole Pandermix risk is much smaller than the risks in the current pandemics. Narcolepsy is very rare disease and even increased risk due to that vaccine remains very low as absolute value and it only appears high if it's expressed as a relative number. In establishing the shorter-term safety nothing was "rushed" now compared to the processes performed before (it was tested on tens of thousands of people). Regarding the longer-term safety, who would be willing to wait e.g. two more years before any vaccine could be used? As the vaccination will be voluntary for common people, as long at there are shortages, those who don't want to get it should indeed leave it to those who will.
  - acqq 6y ago
    To elaborate the absolute numbers: around 1 in 55000 vaccinated were affected by the side effects in two years, so even if everybody in the UK was vaccinated with something causing such side effects, that translates to 1200 with the side effects. To compare, there were more than 70,000 excess deaths in the UK since start of pandemics. Around 60 times more deaths than, in the case of vaccine, those still living with side effects. But these side effects were apparently the strongest in just a part of the population: 4-18, which is 11 million, resulting is estimated 200 people with side effects. Covid-19 luckily affects exactly that part of population less, but even then I'd guess that Covid-19 already made more damage to more than 200 people in it. And that small number of cases just can't be detected unless the trial covers enough of those affected. If the total effect is 200 cases in the whole population, a trial would have to be performed on at least one 20th of it: as much as 600,000 children would have to be a part of the trial to even detect that issue. Not to mention that it took two years to recognize the issue. Now, for the trial to recognize the problem, half would have to be placebo group. That gives once all outside of the trial are counted 97.5% of people unprotected for two years. In the case of whole population, and even waiting for only 10 months, there would still be 68,000 deaths more if that kind of trial would be a condition for the acceptance of vaccine.
- chimprich 6y ago
  It's worth pointing out that the Pandemrix "saga" affected very few people. According to [1], "The UK Health Protection Agency (now Public Health England) undertook a major study of 4- to 18-year-olds and found that around one in every 55,000 jabs led to narcolepsy." Very rare frequency incidents that slip through testing shouldn't make us over-cautious to the enormous benefits of vaccination. [1] https://www.narcolepsy.org.uk/resources/pandemrix-narcolepsy https://www.narcolepsy.org.uk/resources/pandemrix-narcolepsy
refurb 6y ago
But the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have no "adjuvants". What are you getting at?
- nkohari 6y ago
  They don't have adjuvants, but they do have lipid nanoparticles which allow the mRNA to breach cells. It's feasible that they could cause unexpected side effects. NB: I'm personally going to get the first SARS-CoV-2 vaccine I can get, and I'm incredibly excited about mRNA vaccines in general. But, it's true that any time you inject a chemical into your bloodstream you're taking a calculated risk.
  - hhas01 6y ago
    Please name a vaccine that is injected into your bloodstream.
    - nkohari 6y ago
      It's good to see that HN continues to find ways to increase pedantry! You know what I meant, intramuscularly.
      - hhas01 6y ago
        “You know what I meant” No. I am not a mindreader. And “vaccines are injected into the bloodstream” is a standard antivax lie. Yes there’s a risk in receiving a vaccine, just as there’s a risk in receiving any prophylactic/therapeutic treatment, but severe side-effects are closer to 1-in-100K to 1-in-a-million. Compared to a disease that is currently killing 2-in-100, with significant sequelae likely much higher. I’m happy to accept that “bloodstream” was a slip of the tongue, but really try not to make those malignant lying bastards’ jobs any easier, when people die because of them.
        nkohari 6y ago
        If you had actually read what I wrote thoughtfully -- instead of falling over yourself to type a glib reply as fast as you could get it out -- it would have been easy to recognize that I am clearly not anti-vaccine, nor was I suggesting that side effects are common. I said both of those things explicitly. If your goal is actually to educate others, then educate others. Replying with snark achieves nothing but temporarily boosting your own ego.

tibbydudeza 6y ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35Idb_lCU4o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35Idb_lCU4o by Ninja Nerd Lectures This is the best science based informative video I have seen on how these different Covid vaccines actually work.

SlateBlate 6y ago

Why is this comment getting downvoted? seems like a fair question. I've seen this now in several threads where even questioning side effects of the vaccine gets downvoted and looked down upon like they did something illegal. This is not HN I used to know.

hannob 6y ago
There's a tendency to highlight risks and sideeffects of this vaccine that is without any basis. It's reasonable to ask what the risks are, but unspecific ramblings about risks aren't helpful and it's unreasonable to highlight very hypothetical risks compared to the very real risks of getting Covid-19. Right now the risk issue seems pretty clearcut: There were no serious sideeffects in the trials. What gave me additional confidence is hearing in an interview with Paul Offit (one of the world's leading vaccine expers) that almost all serious vaccine sideeffects that appeared in the past with other vaccines would appear relatively quickly (within weeks). Thus if there would be common sideeffects we would know by now. Thus we can with reasonable confidence say that if there are any serious sideeffects from the promising Covid-19 vaccines then in all likelyhood they will be rare. It seems almost impossible that the vaccines pose a greater risk than the risk of not using them.
- rjknight 6y ago
  This is a great reply, and is a good reason why down-voting the original question is counter-productive: if it gets down-voted too much, fewer people will see the informative replies! If the OP were spreading unsubstantiated panic then I would take a different view of it, but to me it appears as an honest concern about a novel medical procedure.
- krona 6y ago
  > It seems almost impossible that the vaccines pose a greater risk than the risk of not using them. How about to a baby, or an unborn baby? The relative risk is almost certainly higher to a baby, but how high? We don't know, since there haven't been any longitudinal studies (for starters.) Which is why it would be unethical outside a clinical trial to administer it to younger people en masse. Eventually the relative risk will be quantifiable, but it will take years. It took ~4 years for the increased risk of narcolepsy in children due to the H1N1 vaccine (Pandemrix) to be reported, for example.

LatteLazy 6y ago

Ingredients list: >6. PHARMACEUTICAL PARTICULARS >6.1 List of excipients ALC-0315 = (4-hydroxybutyl) azanediyl)bis (hexane-6,1-diyl)bis(2-hexyldecanoate), ALC-0159 = 2-[(polyethylene glycol)-2000]-N,N-ditetradecylacetamide, 1,2-Distearoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine, cholesterol, potassium chloride, potassium dihydrogen phosphate, sodium chloride, disodium hydrogen phosphate dihydrate, sucrose, water for injections Source is the pdf from this UK Gov page: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/regulatory-approval-of-pfizer-biontech-vaccine-for-covid-19 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/regulatory-approv... I have no idea at all about vaccines, healthcare or bio chem so please correct me but. .. The first 2 are the RNA right? Sodium and potassium chloride are standard in table salt and saline drips right? Sucrose and cholesterol occur naturally in humans I think (sucrose comes from breaking down fructose?). Potassium dihydrogen phosphate is harder. No real idea what that is, but apparently they put it in gatorade? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopotassium_phosphate https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopotassium_phosphate Disodium hydrogen phosphate dihydrate is (I think) also used in food (condensed milk) and water softeners! Anyone know what 1,2-Distearoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine is? Or I'm sort of impressed it doesn't have 1001 complex chemicals.

fabian2k 6y ago
The RNA isn't in that list. The first four are likely all components of the lipid vesicles that are used to deliver the mRNA. The rest of the list is mostly some salts and then sugar and water.
- LatteLazy 6y ago
  Thanks! Any idea if thoseipid vesicles are "standard"? In case you care, I have no objections to the vaccine. I'm too young (36 and not working in care) to get it any time soon. But I'd take it tomorrow if it were available for me.
  - fabian2k 6y ago
    As far as I understand, the delivery systems were a large part of the research necessary to make RNA-based drugs possible. What the RNA does inside the cell we know reasonably well (I'm simplifying a lot here ), but getting the RNA into the cells efficiently was the original problem to be solved. So I don't think those are really standard components, there are a lot of ways to create different systems here with different properties. As a more general comment on this concern about additives, this is typically targeted at vaccines with adjuvants. Adjuvants are designed to create a stronger immune response, the lipids here are not adjuvants and as far as I understand the mRNA vaccines don't contain any adjuvants. I don't agree with the general concerns about adjuvants (though of course each vaccine has to prove safety in the studies on their own), but they are an additive with an inherently higher risk than something more inert. The immune system is extremely complex and highly dangerous.

runeks 6y ago

> I feel like mRNA vaccines have huge potential, but I am really, really concerned about potential side effects. Would you mind expanding on this? Why are you severely concerned about side effects for mRNA vaccines in particular?