No, The Coronavirus vaccine won’t alter your DNA
I’m sure by now everyone is sick of coronavirus (no pun intended). The viral pandemic has killed 1.5m people worldwide and affected 68.4m people (As of 8/11/2020), and there are few signs of it slowing down. With the news of the Pfiezer/ AntaZenica vaccine showing positive results in clinical trials, hope is returning to people across the world.
However, these vaccinations are also leading to an increase in the spread of misinformation and fear. One particular example is this video, which has been shared among WhatsApp & Facebook groups.
I personally found this video when a friend of mine sent it to me, asking me to help them convince their mum that the information was incorrect, the first few watches, the video infuriated me, but after watching it through to determine the points they were making, I realised that the false information was due mainly to a misunderstanding of jargon, and less from a place of malice.
Recombinant DNA
One of the first statements made is that the vaccination contains recombinant DNA which will alter your DNA (See 00:31 of the video). To fully explain this point it’s better to start with a brief explanation of how a vaccination works and what an adenovirus vaccine is.
When a virus enters your body, it enters your cells and starts replicating. On the outside of the virus are proteins known as Antigens. Infected cells can use a molecule known as MHCI to present the Antigen on its surface, which will be detected by passing immune cells known as T-Cells.
Once detected the T-Cells will trigger an immune response. There are 2 main immune responses, the innate, and adaptive immune responses. The innate immune response is the fastest to act, it will kill cells that are infected, and cause a cascade of molecular events that lead to symptoms we commonly see such as fever and inflammation.
The adaptive response is much slower but extremely specific. It ends with the production of antibodies, which are specific to the virus’ antigen, they destroy the virus before it can get to the cells, and produce memory cells which are activated upon reinfection, preventing symptoms.
Vaccines use memory cells to provide immunity, they introduce the antigen to the immune system without causing an infection, allowing the body’s immune system to respond and form memory cells which will activate if the person becomes infected later on.
The ChAdOx1-nCov19 vaccine uses a chimpanzee adenovirus as a vector (carrier). The adenovirus has been genetically engineered so that it can’t replicate or cause damage. It is considered a safe and well-tolerated vector, which can illicit both an innate and adaptive immune response. The adenovirus has then been edited further so that it can express COVID’s antigens on its outer coat. This is where “Recombinant DNA” comes in. This edited adenovirus is known as a recombinant adenovirus. Only the DNA of the virus is altered, and the virus alone cannot alter the DNA of the patient.
Cells From an Aborted Foetus
The other topic mentioned in the video is that the vaccine contains the cells from an aborted foetus, specifically, they’re talking about the MRC-5 cell line. Unlike bacteria, viruses cannot be grown on media alone. Scientists used to propagate viruses in live animal models or embryos, however after scientists discovered that human cell lines could be grown in the lab they’ve been the prefered method for viral propagation.
There are a variety of cell lines used but the main 2 used for vaccine development are the WI-38 and MRC-5 lines. Both of these lines were taken from aborted foetus’s. The foetus for MRC-5 specifically was stated to have been aborted consensually for psychiatric reasons of the mother.
The cells have been grown constantly since they were sampled, and none of the cells used today for vaccine development was ever part of the foetus. I’ll try not to bring religion into this, as I aim to be objective, however, the national Catholics bioethics centre has said that it isn’t immoral to have these vaccinations, even though the cell line originated from abortion.
The viral load found in the vaccine is purified as well, so the cells it was grown in aren’t even present in the actual vaccination, and therefore no cells will be injected into you regardless of where they came from.
Conclusion
Although it is good to do your own research, it’s better to not rely on straight Wikipedia translations, especially when it comes to science. Unfortunately, science papers can be really confusing (even for me and I’m a masters student), and it can be easy to scare or confuse yourself by reading or misunderstanding the wrong thing.
But in the case of this video specifically, the coronavirus vaccine will not alter your DNA, and you won’t be injected with aborted foetal cells. With the vaccine now being introduced in England and the latest safety report being published today, I hope this can help ease your worries.
What do you think? Will you be getting the vaccine?
