A guy I know on Facebook posted some stupid stuff about the vaccine, so I replied. Thus, there will be some odd statements in this blog post that are in response to what he wrote. He’s thoroughly entrenched in conspiracy theories that are just . . . dumb. They’re inaccurate. He’s just wrong. And I was pissed off. But I wrote a whole bunch, so I’m cross-posting it to my blog because I wrote a thing.
I'm dictating this, so expect some typos, and it’s too long, so the second part is a reply to this comment. As you may remember, I am a microbiologist. I am an actual virologist. I hold a PhD in molecular biology/microbiology, and I did my postdoctoral research at the University of Pennsylvania in neuroscience. (Yes, so I am actually Dr. Blair Babylon, PhD.) I published six scientific papers, I think, in peer-reviewed journals. I did a rotation in the lab of Dr. Stanley Perlman, who is one of the world's leading coronavirus researchers.
In addition, my husband works for Pfizer, and I have actually seen the original research and data for this vaccine. I even worked as an unpaid consultant in the early days of the pandemic and commented on the vaccine research and drug therapies that Pfizer was considering buying or investing in. I was one of the voices who told them dear God, start working with BioNtech right now (the people who originally designed the vaccine.) I spent the first three months of the pandemic sitting in on Zoom meetings with my husband, talking to vice presidents of Pfizer and up. That's why I didn't write for the first three months of the pandemic.
However, I must also note that I'm a PhD, which means I profess, not an MD, so I do not prescribe. If you have any pre-existing conditions, you should call your own doctor.
I taught in the medical school, though, at the University of Iowa. When a doctor I'm seeing starts to get uppity with me, I make them call me professor.
Okay, now that we've established my bona fides, everything you wrote about the mRNA vaccines is scientific gobbledygook. So is your post on ivermectin. There's just nothing in there that is correct. I'm sorry to say this, (I wrote to the dumb guy in response, not you who are reading this blog), but you're not a scientist, and everything you wrote betrays a deep misunderstanding of how the mRNA vaccines, basic microbiology, cellular biology, and science work.
You say that the data isn't out there, but it is. I saw it earlier than everybody else because I was again looking over my husband's shoulder, but all the data has been published. If you say it's not, you either haven't looked or you don't understand it. Quite honestly, of course you don't understand it, you don't have a doctorate in virology or pharmaceutical science, which is what you would need to understand these scientific papers.
One major thing that you got wrong is the idea that we don't know how long mRNA persists in the body. Yes, we do. Because the mRNAs that are produced by the vaccine are beautifully stable, still exist for about thirty-six hours, maybe less if you're particularly robustly healthy. That's one of the reasons why it the mRNA vaccines require two vaccines, because the mRNA degrades like all mRNA does. The difference between mRNA and DNA is one oxygen on the bottom of the sugar in the nucleoside base, and that one -OH group instead of just a hydrogen destabilizes RNA tremendously, making it far more reactive. That's why DNA can persist in your cells your whole life, but most RNA degrades within hours.
Your whole comment about the spike protein is incorrect. First of all, the mRNA vaccines only encode a tiny, tiny epitope of the spike protein. Imagine that the spike protein is a mile, as a metaphor. The part encoded by the mRNA vaccines is a few steps of that mile. All of the parts of the spike glycoprotein that interact with other cells to fuse them to the viral membranes are not encoded in the vaccine. It's just not. Just everything that you wrote doesn't make sense and doesn't equate.
Early in the pandemic, there was a theory that ivermectin and other drugs that acidify endosomes, such as chloroquinine, might be able to change the trajectory of the disease, but this was shown not to be true. It just doesn't work. These drugs just make you sick. Really, these drugs are only good against parasites, not viruses. They've never been shown to be effective against viruses, especially RNA viruses. There's been a meta-study with three thousand people, and it didn't change the course of the disease in the population. Do not eat cat dewormer or pool chemicals.
There's nothing wrong with taking zinc and vitamin D. That's generally healthy stuff. That may actually help you in the course of the disease, though I think it's pretty obvious from the horrendous outbreak in India that warm weather, humidity, and vitamin D from sunlight cannot protect anyone from Covid-19.
Blah blah blah, big Pharma and big government. I agree with you about big government. But more on that below. The pharmaceutical industry, Pfizer changed a few years ago, and it took me a while to really understand the change. A new CEO came in, Dr. Albert Bourla, who is a scientist rather than an accountant or MBA. He made a change within Pfizer that I didn't catch until recently. He came in with the strategy of, “Patients first.” He completely changed the internal structure of Pfizer. Most scientists I knew were pretty demoralized a few years ago. When this pandemic started he went to the board and to the scientific bodies within Pfizer and said, “We have two billion dollars sitting around. I am willing to dump two billion dollars of our money into saving the world.” And he did.
Pfizer did not take money from the US government. They didn't take all that Trump “Operation Warp Speed” money because Bourla did not want to be accountable to politicians when Pfizer was making their decisions. This was done as pure science. In addition, Pfizer is selling it to governments for very little profit. They pretty much just rounded up to the next dollar after production costs. This is not a moneymaker for Pfizer. It's practically charity.
Here's my recommendation which is in line with the CDC: unless you have a pre-existing condition, you should go get the vaccine. Yes, you really should if you don't want to die. If you do have a pre-existing condition that is quite serious, talk to your doctor before you get the vaccine. And you should get Pfizer's. If you can't get Pfizer's, then get Moderna. J&J is really a last resort, and it's kind of for people who aren't smart enough to go to the mRNA ones.
If you don't get the vaccine, however, there are quite a few Covid therapies coming down the pike. If you don't get sick for a couple of months, you probably have several different options. Most of them are about a hundred thousand dollars or more, and few of them will be covered by insurance. So you can get the free vaccine, or you can pay a hundred thousand bucks out-of-pocket to save your life. It's up to you.
Quite honestly, if you want the real conspiracy theory stuff, I have suspicions about where this virus came from. Every microbiologist in the world went, wait, Wuhan Province? If the outbreak had started at Fort Dietrich, Maryland, I would have the same suspicions.
Was it on purpose? That's an entirely different question, and I do believe in the ineptitude of humanity such that this was probably an accidental release.
So, if this virus was released from a weaponizing lab, what you think it's gonna do?
Here's the real conspiracy theory, and I am dead serious about this. The government, the CDC, and every government out there has been underselling the long-term damage of this disease, even if you get a “light” or even asymptomatic case of it. I seriously think that in the next twenty years, there's going to be in huge increase in people dying of heart attacks, heart disease, and lung disease due to scarring and inflammation from the long-term effects of this virus.
In addition, there's an excellent chance that the disease will cause male sterility. Cells important for male fertility express the ACE2 Receptor, and forty percent of men who have Covid-19 report “severe scrotal pain.” That's why I wrapped my teenage son in cotton and didn't let him outside the house for the last fifteen months. I think there's going to be an enormous problem with male infertility in the next few decades in men who had the disease.
So, to sum up, the real conspiracy is the people who don't get the vaccine are going to be selected against in a very Darwin way. If they don't die, the men will be infertile, and they won't be passing those anti-science genes on to the next generation.
But, it's up to you (I said to the guy on Facebook, not you my dear blog reader). I will not be answering questions. I have written all about this on my blog and in my newsletter during the whole pandemic. Most of blog posts that I wrote are on my profile if you search my profile. I have books to write, so I really cannot be bothered explaining basic science. All the information is out there. You just have to look for it.
