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The amount of times I've seen text to the extent of "mRNA does not alter DNA" vastly exceeds the amount of text I've seen that claims mRNA does alter DNA. As fa

The amount of times I've seen text to the extent of "mRNA does not alter DNA" vastly exceeds the amount of text I've seen that claims mRNA does alter DNA. As far as I could see nobody in this thread is claiming such a thing, so I'm genuinely curious to know why you feel the need to point it out.

whatshisface 5y ago
Everyone knows you can't predict what a treatment will do just by knowing its mechanism - if you could, clinical trials would never fail. Talking about the mechanism is the least effective way to explain how it's safe, because most people realize that well-controlled studies are the only true authority.
- haswell 5y ago
  A hypothesis still must precede a trial, and many hypotheses are formed based on an understanding of fundamental concepts/mechanisms and prior studies. Studies are still required because a hypothesis is just that - a hypothesis - but I wouldn't completely dismiss a discussion of the mechanism, because this may still provide meaningful context and/or help form an initial understanding of risk before having real study results.
  - whatshisface 5y ago
    There are a few hypotheses suggested by the higher-count events in VAERS, as well as the standard ones checked in postmarket studies (effects on pregnant women and children in particular). I agree that the mechanism is a good way to do hypothesis generation, but it's not a solid argument for the safety of a treatment. It is really only an antidote to specific, hallucinatory claims, like the line about it "changing your DNA."
- lolwut987 5y ago
  Except we’ve been studying this for well over a hundred years, and it’s not a medication, it’s only presenting something to the immune system so it can perform it’s singular task on. So, by this point, you’re telling me I can’t understand what editing a cell in my excel spreadsheet will do without a huge test of hundreds or thousands of people all making the same edit to figure out if it’ll work. We know it works. We know how it works. It works by handing the task to the immune system and getting the fuck out of the way. Clinical trials are to assess if it works well enough to consider widespread use.
  - whatshisface 5y ago
    The claims that rare side effects have been well-characterized and can be predicted from the mechanism alone are simply not true - the FDA itself required further postmarketing studies (to be finished around 2023) as a requirement in their approval letter. The foundation of convincing people that taking the vaccine is safer than not taking it cannot be the false claim that the probabilities of each side effect are known, because they are not. Instead we should focus on the true claim that the virus is much more dangerous and also not completely characterized.
    - lolwut987 5y ago
      That’s absurd. Yes, I still test my code. But when I write it, I do it with the lessons I’ve learned over decades, and it’s usually close to working before the first test comes into the picture. That’s where we are with vaccine production: we’ve been cranking them out for decades, and the process is so robust that failures at in the six plus nines range of outliers.
      - whatshisface 5y ago
        I think you might be overestimating the success rate of drug discovery and underestimating the complexity of the situation. Starting from 10,000 compounds chosen on the basis of reasonable mechanistic or chemical arguments, one or two working drugs are typically discovered. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Drug-discovery-and-development-timeline-The-current-drug-approval-pipeline-can-take-15_fig1_308045230 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Drug-discovery-and-devel...
        lolwut987 5y ago
        Like the rest of engineering, you very rarely start with a novel target. You’re building things from a library of tested techniques. Vaccines aren’t drugs. They’re a method of delivering material to the immune system for it to do its thing. We do that by finding the thing we want to present, finding a pipeline to extract that, and finding a delivery mechanism that is tested and compatible. We don’t “discover” a new flu vaccine ever my season, we put together this seasons release. That’s why it didn’t take years to design and release a new vaccine for covid: we have the technology already, we just needed to pick the payload and select the rocket best suited for the job.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Izkata 5y ago
I have actually seen that claim elsewhere. The issue is, almost all of them know about reverse-transcription enzymes and use that as part of their argument, while the people attempting to debunk them have never touched on it, instead treating them as if they don't know the difference between DNA and RNA.
lovegoblin 5y ago
> I'm genuinely curious to know why you feel the need to point it out. I haven't seen it in this thread either, but it's been a very common [false] talking point in the conspiracy/anti-vax circles.
vfclists 5y ago
What is this paper saying then? SARS-CoV-2 RNA reverse-transcribed and integrated into the human genome https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33330870/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33330870/

whatshisface 5y ago

Everyone knows you can't predict what a treatment will do just by knowing its mechanism - if you could, clinical trials would never fail. Talking about the mechanism is the least effective way to explain how it's safe, because most people realize that well-controlled studies are the only true authority.

haswell 5y ago
A hypothesis still must precede a trial, and many hypotheses are formed based on an understanding of fundamental concepts/mechanisms and prior studies. Studies are still required because a hypothesis is just that - a hypothesis - but I wouldn't completely dismiss a discussion of the mechanism, because this may still provide meaningful context and/or help form an initial understanding of risk before having real study results.
- whatshisface 5y ago
  There are a few hypotheses suggested by the higher-count events in VAERS, as well as the standard ones checked in postmarket studies (effects on pregnant women and children in particular). I agree that the mechanism is a good way to do hypothesis generation, but it's not a solid argument for the safety of a treatment. It is really only an antidote to specific, hallucinatory claims, like the line about it "changing your DNA."
lolwut987 5y ago
Except we’ve been studying this for well over a hundred years, and it’s not a medication, it’s only presenting something to the immune system so it can perform it’s singular task on. So, by this point, you’re telling me I can’t understand what editing a cell in my excel spreadsheet will do without a huge test of hundreds or thousands of people all making the same edit to figure out if it’ll work. We know it works. We know how it works. It works by handing the task to the immune system and getting the fuck out of the way. Clinical trials are to assess if it works well enough to consider widespread use.
- whatshisface 5y ago
  The claims that rare side effects have been well-characterized and can be predicted from the mechanism alone are simply not true - the FDA itself required further postmarketing studies (to be finished around 2023) as a requirement in their approval letter. The foundation of convincing people that taking the vaccine is safer than not taking it cannot be the false claim that the probabilities of each side effect are known, because they are not. Instead we should focus on the true claim that the virus is much more dangerous and also not completely characterized.
  - lolwut987 5y ago
    That’s absurd. Yes, I still test my code. But when I write it, I do it with the lessons I’ve learned over decades, and it’s usually close to working before the first test comes into the picture. That’s where we are with vaccine production: we’ve been cranking them out for decades, and the process is so robust that failures at in the six plus nines range of outliers.
    - whatshisface 5y ago
      I think you might be overestimating the success rate of drug discovery and underestimating the complexity of the situation. Starting from 10,000 compounds chosen on the basis of reasonable mechanistic or chemical arguments, one or two working drugs are typically discovered. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Drug-discovery-and-development-timeline-The-current-drug-approval-pipeline-can-take-15_fig1_308045230 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Drug-discovery-and-devel...
      - lolwut987 5y ago
        Like the rest of engineering, you very rarely start with a novel target. You’re building things from a library of tested techniques. Vaccines aren’t drugs. They’re a method of delivering material to the immune system for it to do its thing. We do that by finding the thing we want to present, finding a pipeline to extract that, and finding a delivery mechanism that is tested and compatible. We don’t “discover” a new flu vaccine ever my season, we put together this seasons release. That’s why it didn’t take years to design and release a new vaccine for covid: we have the technology already, we just needed to pick the payload and select the rocket best suited for the job.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Izkata 5y ago

I have actually seen that claim elsewhere. The issue is, almost all of them know about reverse-transcription enzymes and use that as part of their argument, while the people attempting to debunk them have never touched on it, instead treating them as if they don't know the difference between DNA and RNA.

lovegoblin 5y ago

> I'm genuinely curious to know why you feel the need to point it out. I haven't seen it in this thread either, but it's been a very common [false] talking point in the conspiracy/anti-vax circles.

vfclists 5y ago

What is this paper saying then? SARS-CoV-2 RNA reverse-transcribed and integrated into the human genome https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33330870/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33330870/