Is codon optimization in COVID vaccines dangerous?
This post exposes the disinformation in Joseph Mercola’s article entitled “Can Super-Shots and ‘Morality Pills’ End COVID?”, which can be found at [1]. Contrary to its title, the bulk of the article argues that the codon optimization present in COVID mRNA vaccines is dangerous.
Mercola’s article is mainly based on another person's blog post [2]. Below, the main arguments in the article are summarized, and the inadequacy of each argument is shown.
- The mRNA vaccines are using codon optimization. Codon optimization may lead to proteins that may behave differently than they would have in their native form. The claimed supporting evidence is: "Biber cites a quote by Chava Kimchi Sarfaty, Ph.D., a principal investigator at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration: 'We do not believe that you can optimize codons and have the protein behave as it did in its native form.' ".
- The original source of the quote is in [3], and it's being taken totally out of context. The full quote appears in the following context: "But, beyond getting optimization to work, some worry that fiddling with codons in therapeutic proteins could have unpredictable effects on people’s health. 'From our experiments now, we do not believe that you can do that to any protein and have the protein behave as it did in its native form,' says Chava Kimchi-Sarfaty, who works with Sauna at the FDA. The changed form could cause immunogenicity, for example, which wouldn’t be seen until late-stage clinical trials or even after approval." (emphasis mine).
- She's talking about *therapeutic proteins* here, and the context is that naturally occuring codon mutations in our genes are linked to a number of diseases. For example, "a group from the University of Alabama at Birmingham showed last year that a synonymous codon change found in the most common form of cystic fibrosis results in mRNA misfolding" [3].
- These findings are disparate from how the mRNA covid vaccines work. In the context of diseases mentioned in the original source [3], the body is producing proteins from naturally mutated genes. While in the case of the covid vaccine, there is no naturally produced form of the spike protein in our genes, so the out-of-context quote that "We do not believe that you can optimize codons and have the protein behave as it did in its native form" makes no sense here, as again, there is no native form.
- Protein misfolding is linked to many serious pathologies, and more specifically "In its BNT162b2/Comirnaty Risk Management Plan submitted to the FDA to get Emergency Use Authorization, Pfizer even admits that the codon optimization they did resulted in elevated gamma-glutamyl transferase (GGT), which is an early marker of heart failure."
- While not referenced by Mercola, the original document from Pfizer can be found at [4]. It actually states that "Elevated levels of gamma-glutamyl transferase were observed in the first repeat-dose toxicity study with COVID-19 mRNA vaccine (V8) without evidence of cholestasis or hepatobiliary injury but was not recapitulated in the second repeat dose-toxicity study with COVID-19 mRNA vaccine (V9), the final clinical candidate." (emphasis mine). That is, elevated levels of GGT were only found in a previous version of their vaccine, but were NOT present in the final version. So this claim is blatantly false.
- Claim that "No animal studies were done for the COVID jab".
- This is another blatantly false claim. For example in [5], results are provided for both mice "In mice, one intramuscular dose of either candidate vaccine elicits a dose-dependent antibody response with high virus-entry inhibition titres and strong T-helper-1 CD4+ and IFNγ+CD8+ T cell responses" and rhesus macaques "The vaccine candidates protect macaques against challenge with SARS-CoV-2; in particular, BNT162b2 protects the lower respiratory tract against the presence of viral RNA and shows no evidence of disease enhancement".
- Suggestions for "What Can You Do if You Got the COVID Jab?", with the claim that "Fortunately, your body has a process that is designed to correct for this misfolding, because about one-third of the proteins your body makes are misfolded from the moment they’re made."
- First, if this is the case, 1/3 of proteins are misfolded naturally, so our bodies already have mechanisms to get rid of them. The marginal amount of additional misfolded spike proteins they claim to come from the mRNA vaccines is of no concern.
- Second, this argument doesn't even make any sense, because the whole point of the mRNA vaccines is to train our immune system to target *spike proteins* and eliminate them *completely*, not just the claimed misfolded copies.
[1] https://www.lewrockwell.com/2022/02/joseph-mercola/can-super-shots-and-morality-pills-end-covid/
[3] https://www.nature.com/articles/nm1211-1536
[4] https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/documents/rmp-summary/comirnaty-epar-risk-management-plan_en.pdf
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