3 ms·

Toxin has a real meaning and its not the meaning you are using. mRNA as such isn't toxic, its how your cellular machinery functions. Its removed from your body

Toxin has a real meaning and its not the meaning you are using. mRNA as such isn't toxic, its how your cellular machinery functions. Its removed from your body because that's the mechanism your body uses to produce the effect size it wants and not more, as mRNA production is used as a communication mechanism by your cells. A real toxin disrupts your normal cellular fucntion and / or causes direct damage in some way. > It's very unclear to me, as a layman, how this artificial "self amplifying RNA" that incorporates elements from a virus is so very different from an actual virus, given that the SARS-CoV-2 is itself basically RNA surrounded by a coating in a form that can self-replicate. For one, we can implement protocols to ensure the mrna we are generating contains the instructions we want, at the effect size we want. We could go the non mrna route and grow it as a virus, but that is going to be less accurate, more costly, and take longer. We could also just let people develop natural immunity, which will also work. People will get varying effect sizes, and vary from barely immune to dead. Obviously no vaccine and no virus would be the best outcome. But we don't get that choice.

mike_hearn 5y ago
I'm not sure what distinction you're drawing. Expressing spike protein and being destroyed by the immune system is a disruption of the normal cellular function. No, mRNA in general is not toxic but the mRNA vaccines specifically absolutely are. That's the entire point of them, to train the immune system by actually giving it targets to practice on. However the targets are our own cells, in this case. We could go the non mrna route and grow it as a virus, but that is going to be less accurate, more costly, and take longer. These are things that concern vaccine makers for understandable commercial reasons, but what you're saying is that there's effectively no difference to the recipient beyond the fact that the artificial self-replicating mRNA might be higher "quality" in some way. Let's put it like this: given the apparently low probability of being infected (for people my age, in a way that we actually notice, at current prevalence levels etc), most of us actually can choose "no vaccine and no virus". Or put another way we can choose between guaranteed cell damage from vaccines, or the chance of cell damage from virus the exact probability of which is some integral of prevalence, individual risk behavior, how quickly you get treated (e.g. with ivermectin), and how many people around you are vaccinated. To me it looks like a good tradeoff to not take the vaccine, especially when so many other people are: the chance of avoiding cell damage entirely is really quite high, and I like my body spike-free. Stories like the Reuters article this thread is about just reinforce that decision.
- cloverich 5y ago
  > Expressing spike protein and being destroyed by the immune system is a disruption of the normal cellular function. That’s how the immmune system works in general, with or without the vaccine. > what you're saying is that there's effectively no difference to the recipient beyond the fact that the artificial self-replicating mRNA might be higher "quality" in some way It’s the difference between taking a known dose with quality control or an unknown dose with no quality control. > Let's put it like this: given the apparently low probability of being infected (for people my age, in a way that we actually notice, at current prevalence levels etc), most of us actually can choose "no vaccine and no virus". Let’s put it like this. you can take vaccine and have an extremely rare chance if pericarditis, or eventually get the virus (it’s not going away) and have a higher chance of pericarditis.
  - mike_hearn 5y ago
    There are many viruses in the world that have never been wiped out, and which I've never caught, nor have any other people I know. The assumption that eventually SARS-CoV-2 will infect 100% of the population is a common modelling assumption. When I went looking for validation of it, I couldn't find any. As for known dosages, as I say above, I couldn't find any information comparing dosages or cell death levels of vaccines vs actual viral infections. That would certainly be helpful to know, assuming such reports were reliable.
    - Pyramus 5y ago
      > When I went looking for validation of it, I couldn't find any. It's unlikely you will find validation outside an entry-level text book for virology or epidemiology. From my understanding it's a fundamental assumption that's easy to verify: ALL viruses with a similar transmissibility profile as SARS-Cov-2 (high R0, aerosols) have become endemic, that includes e.g. seasonal influenza and all other human coronaviruses. That's the reason seasonal influenza is not a big issue most of the time, because we already had it in the past (or a related strain) and our immune system is primed. This happens usually as children and is the reason why both young children and their parents are a lot more ill than the average. A completely new influenza strain, however, has a similar pandemic potential as SARS-Cov-2, and one hypothesis why the 1918 influenza was so deadly for younger generations is that they likely had not encountered it before, while the older had. In fact, if SARS-Cov-2 wouldn't go the same route as basically all similar viruses have done before, it would be a big surprise. Try to speak to an expert in the field, preferably a virologist or an epidemiologist. Somewhat related: it's a common cognitive bias to trust self-generated knowledge more than the knowledge from others.

mike_hearn 5y ago

I'm not sure what distinction you're drawing. Expressing spike protein and being destroyed by the immune system is a disruption of the normal cellular function. No, mRNA in general is not toxic but the mRNA vaccines specifically absolutely are. That's the entire point of them, to train the immune system by actually giving it targets to practice on. However the targets are our own cells, in this case. We could go the non mrna route and grow it as a virus, but that is going to be less accurate, more costly, and take longer. These are things that concern vaccine makers for understandable commercial reasons, but what you're saying is that there's effectively no difference to the recipient beyond the fact that the artificial self-replicating mRNA might be higher "quality" in some way. Let's put it like this: given the apparently low probability of being infected (for people my age, in a way that we actually notice, at current prevalence levels etc), most of us actually can choose "no vaccine and no virus". Or put another way we can choose between guaranteed cell damage from vaccines, or the chance of cell damage from virus the exact probability of which is some integral of prevalence, individual risk behavior, how quickly you get treated (e.g. with ivermectin), and how many people around you are vaccinated. To me it looks like a good tradeoff to not take the vaccine, especially when so many other people are: the chance of avoiding cell damage entirely is really quite high, and I like my body spike-free. Stories like the Reuters article this thread is about just reinforce that decision.

cloverich 5y ago
> Expressing spike protein and being destroyed by the immune system is a disruption of the normal cellular function. That’s how the immmune system works in general, with or without the vaccine. > what you're saying is that there's effectively no difference to the recipient beyond the fact that the artificial self-replicating mRNA might be higher "quality" in some way It’s the difference between taking a known dose with quality control or an unknown dose with no quality control. > Let's put it like this: given the apparently low probability of being infected (for people my age, in a way that we actually notice, at current prevalence levels etc), most of us actually can choose "no vaccine and no virus". Let’s put it like this. you can take vaccine and have an extremely rare chance if pericarditis, or eventually get the virus (it’s not going away) and have a higher chance of pericarditis.
- mike_hearn 5y ago
  There are many viruses in the world that have never been wiped out, and which I've never caught, nor have any other people I know. The assumption that eventually SARS-CoV-2 will infect 100% of the population is a common modelling assumption. When I went looking for validation of it, I couldn't find any. As for known dosages, as I say above, I couldn't find any information comparing dosages or cell death levels of vaccines vs actual viral infections. That would certainly be helpful to know, assuming such reports were reliable.
  - Pyramus 5y ago
    > When I went looking for validation of it, I couldn't find any. It's unlikely you will find validation outside an entry-level text book for virology or epidemiology. From my understanding it's a fundamental assumption that's easy to verify: ALL viruses with a similar transmissibility profile as SARS-Cov-2 (high R0, aerosols) have become endemic, that includes e.g. seasonal influenza and all other human coronaviruses. That's the reason seasonal influenza is not a big issue most of the time, because we already had it in the past (or a related strain) and our immune system is primed. This happens usually as children and is the reason why both young children and their parents are a lot more ill than the average. A completely new influenza strain, however, has a similar pandemic potential as SARS-Cov-2, and one hypothesis why the 1918 influenza was so deadly for younger generations is that they likely had not encountered it before, while the older had. In fact, if SARS-Cov-2 wouldn't go the same route as basically all similar viruses have done before, it would be a big surprise. Try to speak to an expert in the field, preferably a virologist or an epidemiologist. Somewhat related: it's a common cognitive bias to trust self-generated knowledge more than the knowledge from others.