COVID-19 vaccines — a knowledgeably reassuring take — from MedCram and the La Jolla Institute for Immunology's Professor Shane Crotty

© 2020 Peter Free

 

17 December 2020

 

 

Today, I highlight counter-reasoning to my previous COVID-19 vaccine caveats

 

Whether to receive a COVID-19 vaccine is a seemingly contentious topic. I have expressed skepticism myself about the Establishment's statistically misleading claims for efficacy and cross-population safety.

 

On the other hand, solid arguments exist in favor of receiving the COVID (emergency use authorized) vaccines, especially the new mRNA-based ones.

 

Below is one such. I find it persuasive.

 

 

Defending the "take the vaccine" approach

 

Yesterday, MedCram co-founder — Kyle Allred — interviewed Professor Shane Crotty:

 

 

MedCram - Medical Lectures Explained Clearly, COVID 19 Vaccine Deep Dive: Safety, Immunity, RNA Production, with Shane Crotty, PhD, YouTube (16 December 2020)

 

 

MedCram includes a very helpful time-point map of the variety of subjects addressed, during the interview.

 

 

Crotty heads a lab named after him . . .

 

. . . at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology's Center for Infectious Disease and Vaccine Research. His group investigates the body's immune response to SARS-CoV-2.

 

During the above video, Allred impressed me with his logically ordered questions. He structured the interview to deliver concise and illuminating clarity.

 

Professor Crotty answered Allred's questions in similarly understandable "lay" ways. This is extremely difficult to do in a field as complicated as immunology. Only a master can make immunology's complexity transparent, without simultaneously being grossly misleading.

 

 

The gist of what Professor Crotty said

 

First, Crotty pointed out that mRNA only lasts a short time in the body. It is quickly degraded. In the COVID vaccine instance, it does its SARS-CoV-2 spike protein-manufacturing work for minutes to just a few hours and goes away.

 

(The spike protein, which characterizes SARS-CoV-2 for this purpose, is what the vaccine "wants" the body to target for its immunological defense.)

 

Second, manufacturing mRNA is easy. And the mRNA is delivered inside a simple lipid wrap. Thus, the whole kaboodle is easy to manufacture.

 

Manufacturing simplicity, in turn, means that the FDA's review process easy to complete. See interview clip at 16:50 minutes.

 

Last, because Government infused so much money into the mRNA vaccine research and manufacturing processes, the companies involved can fly along, without worrying about the finances and risk that would ordinarily slow them way down.

 

Crotty states — reasonably so in my estimation — that Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna both were able to take advantage of these time-reducing factors and very rapidly accumulate safety and efficacy evidence — for 70,000 people — that, in previous times, would have taken up to 10 to 20 years to accumulate. See video interview, beginning at 30:20 minutes.

 

His reasoning makes sense to me. Even though I would still quibble that 70,000 people are not enough to detect possibly significant problems for specific (as yet unidentified) subsets of the global population. Especially so, under test methodologies and statistical protocols that were not designed to detect them.

 

Nevertheless, Professor Crotty is more probably right, than wrong.

 

He points out that, historically speaking — according to the FDA — if serious consequences do not emerge over two months of legitimate vaccine trials, they are not going to. See the video at 32:40 minutes.

 

 

There is always ambiguity in medicine

 

The general standard is that the worth of the intervention must significantly outweigh the risk posed (to life and well-being) by the illness being intervened against.

 

According to the FDA, Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech have successfully demonstrated that this is (very probably) true.

 

In the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine's case, a comparative handful of anaphylaxis cases is not a good argument against it. Anaphylactic reactions to all sorts of "stuff" are common. These reactions are ordinarily easily dealt with in competent medical settings.

 

 

The moral? — Professor Crotty's argument in favor of the mRNA vaccines is (arguably) persuasive

 

But notice — for instance — that there is still no convincing data (as of 17 December 2020) about pregnancy and/or breastfeeding. Both of which are exceedingly common across the population.

 

As I have said, if we do not structure our clinical trials to find specific evidence, we won't.

 

Ambiguity can be decision-making's bane.