Original article (in Croatian) was published on 28/02/2022
There is a widespread claim among Facebook users who believe that the Covid-19 pandemic does not exist, and this claim describes mRNA vaccines completely wrong.
“The fight against Covid may be slowly coming to an end, but the mRNA war of the ‘vaccine’ has potentially just begun”.
This is the conclusion of a text published on a Facebook profile called Hrabar Dabar (archived here), which states that people will soon start getting vaccinated against HIV.
“Yes, Moderna has obviously learned so much from making their vaccine against Covid in a hurry, that they are already making an HIV vaccine that they hope will be just as “safe and effective”. In a truly startling coincidence, Moderna’s HIV vaccine began clinical trials the same day the “new variant” of HIV hit the headlines, and the same week that the NHS’s annual “HIV Testing Week” took place. Interesting, isn’t it? In any case, everyone should get ready in line for the AIDS vaccination”, the announcement states.
A person who introduces himself as Hrabar Dabar, who has less than 5,000 friends on Facebook, has previously spread disinformation about HIV, and Faktograf has already written about it. This time, Hrabar Dabar shared a text by Kit Knightly, an American journalist signed below the post. According to the analysis by Healthfeedback.org, this is an author who has repeatedly made inaccurate and misleading claims about Covid-19 and PCR tests.
HIV
The author of the post claims that the public is planning to prepare for the next health intimidation, which will be based on AIDS. The thesis is that the purpose is to force people to get vaccinated again.
Certain information provided is accurate. Namely, US President Joe Biden has announced that his administration’s goal is to end the HIV pandemic by 2030, as stated in the announcement. It is also true that the media recently reported on a new strain of HIV found in the Netherlands. However, some of the accurate information mentioned in the text are simply linked in a manipulative and misleading way.
For example, Oxford scientists who identified a new variant of HIV called VB said that although it is more contagious than previous variants and can accelerate the development of AIDS, there is no need to panic. The newly discovered strain that has been circulating in Europe since 1980 is not a cause for alarm because current therapies are effective in this case as well (1, 2).
The author connects the discovery of a new variant of HIV with the beginning of clinical trials of mRNA vaccines against HIV.
“The fight against Covid may be slowly coming to an end, but the mRNA war of the ‘vaccine’ has potentially just begun”, the statement said. This claim, however, lacks a relevant context. Given the successful use of the mRNA vaccine against Covid-19, it is quite expected that the same technology will be used to develop vaccines against other existing diseases. Not only is the mRNA vaccine against HIV under development, but also the Epstein-Barr virus vaccine.
mRNA technology
Since the beginning of the pandemic, Faktograf has encountered disinformation related to mRNA vaccines, which were first used in practice in the case of Covid-19 disease.
Although they first came into mass use due to the Covid-19 pandemic, this technology has been studied for decades.
In 1961, scientists Sydney Brenner, Francois Jacob and Matthew Meselson discovered that mRNA is a molecule that takes information from DNA and gives instructions for making proteins. After less than 30 years, Robert Malone, a student at the Salk Institute, did an experiment – he mixed mRNA threads with fat droplets, after which human cells accepted mRNA and began making proteins from it. Malone then noted that RNA could be treated as a drug. Malone’s discovery was preceded by the development of synthetic mRNA in the laboratory. (Nature)
Although Malone called himself the inventor of mRNA, this is not entirely true. The development of mRNA is a process that has lasted for decades, and several scientists have contributed to it, as The Atlantic wrote in a text pointing out that Malone often overemphasizes his role in the development of mRNA.
This is not an unknown and new technology, as disinformers often present it, and it is built on the fact that the first therapy based on RNA, the one for the treatment of retinal inflammation, was approved in 1998 (Nature).
The first mRNA flu vaccine was tested on mice in the 1990s, while the first human vaccine tested in 2013 was rabies. The first vaccine developed was the one against Ebola. However, since the Ebola virus was found in only a few African countries, there was no interest in its commercial development.
According to Horizon, the European Commission’s online journal dedicated to research and innovation, the first cancer vaccine trials involving human testing were launched in 2011.
Four years ago, RNA-based therapy for ATTR amyloidosis was approved in the United States and Europe, giving further research the hope that such therapies could treat not only rare but more common conditions, including cardiovascular disease and cancer (Nature).
How does the mRNA vaccine work?
It should also be reminded of what these vaccines are.
Namely, mRNA vaccines do not contain attenuated causative agents of the virus but genetic information (called mRNA) with instructions for making copies of the proteins of the spiky shoots of the coronavirus. This protein allows the coronavirus to enter human cells and multiply, leading to disease. Vaccines based on mRNA technology instruct the body to create these proteins so that the immune system can recognize them. After vaccination, the body produces proteins of spiked shoots according to mRNA instructions. After that, the immune system detects foreign proteins and produces antibodies that attack them. Within a few days, both proteins and mRNA are destroyed and disappear from the body (1, 2, 3).
In the case of coronavirus infection, the immune system detects the proteins of the spiky shoots of the coronavirus. It attacks them since it can recognize them because of the vaccine.
“Over the past decade, major technological innovations and investment in research have enabled mRNA to become a promising therapeutic tool in the field of vaccine development. The use of mRNA has several useful properties compared to classical vaccines. First, safety: as mRNA is a non-infectious, non-integrating platform, there is no potential risk of infection or insertional mutagenesis. In addition, mRNA is degraded by normal cellular processes, and its half-life in vivo can be regulated using a variety of modifications and modes of entry into the cell. Second, efficacy: various modifications make mRNA more stable and efficient. Third, production: mRNA vaccines have the potential for fast and cheap production in large quantities”, Dragomira Majher from the Rudjer Boskovic Institute told Faktograf.
HIV and mRNA
After it was confirmed in 1984 that HIV was causing AIDS, the US Secretary of Health and Human Services Margaret Heckler said the vaccine would be available within two years. The fact that it has not yet been developed can be attributed to the very properties of the virus responsible for its continuous multiplication and the generation of more mutations.
A similar problem arises in the development of cancer vaccines. Since there is not just one type of cancer, it is difficult to develop a vaccine that would be universal for all forms in which cancer can occur. Apart from the complex biological structure of the virus, one of the reasons why there is no vaccine against HIV yet is the lack of investment in its development.
The beginning of research into the use of mRNA technology for HIV treatment dates back to 2003, when Judith Lieberman and her colleagues at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, showed that RNA can suppress the replication of HIV in macrophages (Nature)
Late last year, the journal Nature Medicine published the results of an animal mRNA study of the HIV vaccine, led by the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). The researchers first tested the vaccine on mice and found that, after two injections, it caused antibodies that could neutralize HIV. They then tested vaccines on monkeys that also developed antibodies that could neutralize different strains of HIV. The study results showed that vaccinated monkeys had a 79 percent lower chance of contracting HIV.
On that occasion, the NIAID Director and co-author of the study Antony Fauci said that the tested experimental vaccine combines several features that can overcome the shortcomings of other experimental vaccines against HIV, and therefore represents a promising approach.
In late January, Moderna announced that it was launching a clinical trial of the mRNA vaccine against HIV, in collaboration with the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative. (Heathline)
Creating panic
According to UN Aids, 36.6 million people worldwide have died of AIDS since the HIV epidemic began in the 1980s, and 79.2 million have been infected with HIV since then. In 2020, more than 37 million people were living with HIV, of whom 28 million were receiving antiretroviral therapy.
Although the announcement suggests otherwise, there is no word yet that the vaccine, once available, will be mandatory. Given the way HIV is spread, such a decision would be extremely unusual.
Namely, HIV does not pass from one person to another so easily. Methods of transmission include direct entry of blood from an infected person into an uninfected person (usually by sharing intravenous drug delivery devices), unprotected sex (oral, vaginal and anal) with an infected person, and transmission from an infected mother to child during pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding.
According to the Croatian Association for the Fight against HIV, “it is unlikely that you will be infected with HIV by accident that you could not control, and much more likely to get an infection due to risky behavior that is the result of your free will, choice, but also social norms and pressures”.