PERSPECTIVE
The Vaccine Wars
What will be the true cost of immunity to COVID-19?
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Millions of Americans have already received the COVID-19 vaccine, with millions more slated to receive it in the coming months. Efforts to blunt the spread of the novel coronavirus have led to the emergency use authorization of a handful of vaccines that are deemed safe and effective against COVID-19 infections.
The ongoing coronavirus pandemic prompted a rush to develop a safe and viable vaccine, but just how safe are they? As stories of people having adverse reactions to the vaccines begin to trickle in, questions are being raised concerning exactly how safe they really are.
Due to the pressing need to stem the spread of SARS-CoV-2, researchers and scientists made a mad dash in the race against the virus to come up with a way to prevent further infections. The results have so far bordered on miraculous, due in part to the fact that coronavirus vaccine development was completed in record time. With scarcely a year of hard data under their belts, officials made the decision to roll out the vaccines to the public.
Although reports of adverse reactions have been sparse, they have been constant and serious enough to warrant further investigations and even led to a pause in the use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine out of “an abundance of caution.” There has also been some troubling information revealed about the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines as well.
So far, only a small number of people are verifiably known to have been adversely affected by these vaccines, but the fact that they were rushed to production has caused quite a bit of angst in many Americans over which one they should take, or if they should take any of them at all.
The first noticeable thing is even though they essentially work the same in the body, each coronavirus vaccine is different from the other. For example, their handling and storage requirements are different. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, all three vaccines can be handled between 2° and 8°C (36°F and 46°F). However, although they share handling requirements, Johnson & Johnson is single-dose while Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna are two-dose.
Additionally, when it comes to storing these vaccines, Johnson & Johnson’s can be stored at normal refrigeration temperatures, while Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna must be stored at sub-zero temperatures, with the Pfizer/BioNTech being the outlier, having a soul-freezing -80°C to -60°C (-112°F to -76°F) long-term storage requirement.
But beyond the handling requirements of these vaccines, the part that raises the most eyebrows is the technologies used to make them. This is where the average layman is thrust directly into sci-fi territory. For this writer, shades of the popular video game, Resident Evil, begin to emerge — complete with a novel virus, and a gigantic biopharmaceutical company — not unlike those mentioned above, comes to mind. At this point, in the interest of clarity, it must be pointed out that the fictional Umbrella Corporation is a vile, untrustworthy, thoroughly evil, and ruthless organization, while those mentioned above are relatively benevolent and benign(?).
The Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine is produced by a more traditional but still somewhat controversial process called “viral vector.” These vaccines utilize the inert DNA of the real virus, delivered to the body by another live virus “vector” genetically engineered to not cause disease. In this case, the infamous coronavirus spike protein is combined with a normally cold-causing adenovirus that has been modified to not cause a cold. Viral vector vaccine technology has been around since 1972, so scientists have a relatively keen grasp on how it works and its safety.
Perhaps the most controversial technology is the mRNA or messenger RNA process used by the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines. A fascinating story about the history of mRNA vaccines can be found here. The concept of mRNA vaccines has been around since 1990, but unlike the viral vector technology, it has never been used on humans or mass-produced — until now. In fact, the technology was originally rejected and is still being questioned by some experts.
“‘I worry about innovation at the expense of practicality,’ Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine and an authority on vaccines, said recently,” according to STAT magazine.
This alone has caused alarm bells to go off among Americans who are already skeptical about the origins and nature of SARS-CoV-2, and even many who are not.
It is normal to have misgivings about any emerging technology, but the fact that this involves introducing what is, for all intents and purposes, an experimental substance with relatively scant data, has prompted extra scrutiny. After all, once injected, there is no way to remove it from the body, other than its natural elimination process.
Despite the near-miraculous advent of these potentially life-saving vaccines, the seeming success of these treatments has been marred by reports of everything from allergic reactions such as anaphylaxis, to the sudden deaths of apparently healthy people. Although suggestions have been made positively linking the coronavirus vaccines to many of these events, the current official word on their safety is, at best, encouraging yet somewhat vague.
There is no question that we are navigating uncharted waters when it comes to these vaccines and COVID-19 itself. Each day reveals a bit more information but each day raises more questions as well — especially concerning long-term side effects. There is also a degree of wariness over whether so-called “Big Pharma” can be trusted to provide full transparency with their findings. So far, adverse reactions appear to be on par with those observed during trials.
Perhaps the most lingering question is whether the remedy is worse than the disease itself. The answer to that question, at least among most medical professionals, is a resounding “no” at this point. Experts insist that the benefits outweigh the risks by far, but for many Americans, these reassurances are less than reassuring. Reports are already surfacing about people skipping their second vaccination in large numbers. Experts say that it is very important to get the second dose to achieve maximum immunity if given a two-dose vaccine, so what does this mean for the rest of us?
Will partial inoculation eventually become a means that will allow the coronavirus to mutate and become resistant to the vaccine? We have certainly seen instances of treatment-resistant pathogens and there is already evidence of the emergence of variant strains of SARS-CoV-2. Most troubling of all, perhaps, are reports of so-called “breakthrough” infections where people contract the virus despite being fully vaccinated.
So we see that the emergence of the novel coronavirus has introduced a unique set of variables into life’s equation that must be addressed if we ever want to have any hope of regaining normality, but at what cost?
It appears that each of these coronavirus vaccines has its strengths and drawbacks as well as its own set of unknowns. Obviously, nothing is 100 percent perfect and this is nowhere more evident than the circumstances presented by the coronavirus pandemic. With so many choices and unanswered questions, it is not difficult to understand people’s reticence to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
Meanwhile, with several pharmaceutical companies vying for a place in this newly-opened market, who will win the “Vaccine Wars”? Will it be one of the known players, some dark horse, or none of the above? Conversely, are we truly on the cusp of a major medical innovation, or have we just became test subjects in the largest medical experiment in history?
