Item — HN Reader

> To be clear: whoever gets heart inflammation from Moderna would’ve almost certainly got it worse from Covid. The issue arises from the spike protein itself. That’s why we don’t see myocarditis from non-MRNA vaccines like Astra Zeneca.

https://twitter.com/joshzepps/status/1486213480823017472?s=2...

Edit : Consider readied the entire Twitter thread.

https://www.abc.net.au/radio/sydney/programs/afternoons/myoc...

> It's hard to sift through the mass of information and misinformation that exists about COVID-19. Recently there’s been increased focus on myocarditis and whether COVID-19 vaccines increase the risk of this condition and, if so, is that risk greater or less than the risk if you contract COVID.

> To clarify exactly what the situation is Josh Szeps spoke to an expert, Associate Professor Raj Puranik who’s a consultant cardiologist with the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Camperdown and board member and clinical practice advisor with the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand.

9 comments

To be clear: this is an overconfident assumption, not an evidence-based claim. It's not even plausible on the surface. Why would we assume these proteins would be distributed similarly in the infection case and the vaccination case? We know that very different physiological processes will be taking place, so why assume the inflammatory responses must be the same?

> The issue arises from the spike protein itself. That’s why we don’t see myocarditis from non-MRNA vaccines like Astra Zeneca.

AZ also uses spike, so he's undermining his own argument.

Of course the spike is pathogenic. In this case, though, it could be something else like the mRNA strands themselves or the structure of the lipid envelope causing inflammation. There isn't enough evidence either way for this journalist to confidently assert a single cause.

>In viral vector vaccines (AstraZeneca, Sputnik, Johnson & Johnson) the gene for the spike protein is introduced into an adenovirus. Following vaccination, the modified adenovirus will infect cells of the host, which will subsequently start to produce the spike protein

So if there is a difference in the incidence of myocarditis, it must be for a different reason.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34228411/

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the FDA still has not approved Moderna beyond emergency use, due to the myocarditis issues. This, in addition to a number of EU countries that have now stopped giving Moderna to males under 30 for the same reason.

We're likely not seeing myocarditis in AZ shots because it's a very long tail event and the AZ represent an order of magnitude smaller sample size.

Well his blue check says he’s a journalist. I do wonder if the delivery is different. Wild covid is caught in the respiratory tract while vaccine is injected in the muscle. Any medically savvy people can comment on this pseudoscientific drivel?

Re: question of why the spike protein from mRNA vaccines shows increased risk of heart inflammation vs AZ vaccine, I listened to the entire interview with Raj Puranik [0], and it's still not clear to me why. He said comparing side-effect profiles of different vaccines is challenging because the dosage and delivery are so different. I.e. mRNA is given over 3 weeks while AZ is given over months.

[0]: https://abcmedia.akamaized.net/radio/local_sydney/audio/2022...

If it was just reaction to the spike protein then why is myocarditis more likely on the second vaccination?

I think it is therefore more likely that adaptive immune system is involved because it has ability to remember.

Now is it possible that spike protein itself or lipid shell is causing this based on indicence rate differences between 3 vaccines?

Hard to say.

The amount of spike protein produced is in correlation with amount of mRNA entering cells. The amount of mRNA entering cells is 3x higher with Moderna vaccine than with Pfizer vaccine and it appears that it is similar on both shots (first and second). But the amount of mRNA (converted from adenovirus DNA) entering cells with the second AZ shot is probably lower than on the first shot because there is also some immunity against the adenovirus and the dose size is the same.

This is in correlation with the amount of antibodies produced by these vaccines.

This is the not contradicting with the observation so far.

But it could be also lipid cell that has been found to cause inflammation. Considering the high amount of antibodies generated on the second vaccination, it is plausible that the lipid shells are not attacked by the immune system directly. But it might be possible that the cells are attacked after lipid shells have merged with their membranes.

There are few ways to find how what is most likely happening.

First is to hope that protein based vaccine from Novavax will be used by meaningful amount to detect proper incidence rates. When it is spike protein itself then we should see also high incidence rate on second vaccination.

The second option is to analyze mixed vaccinations where first vaccination was done with adenovirus vaccine and the second one with mRNA vaccine. It is not perfect setup but it might provide some additional information.

Third option is to use a mouse model similar to one in previous study where mouse were intravenously injected with mRNA vaccines. Repeat the study with mRNA vaccine, placebo (saline solution), dummy lipid shells and protein vaccines (might be necessary to do the study without and with the adjuvant).

> That’s why we don’t see myocarditis from non-MRNA vaccines like Astra Zeneca.

Does the AstraZeneca vaccine not include the spike protein? I thought it included the whole virus including the spike protein.

I posted a similar comment, but it's not the same - AZ uses a modified non-Covid virus that has been engineered to model the spike protein. I'm not sure why that spike protein is different than the MRNA, other than being attached to a virus.

The spike is not attached to the virus, it's produced by the virus.

In both the mrna and viral vector vaccines, the mrna and virus are the DELIVERY mechanism of the payload.

Spike proteins are found on the surface of the virus particles. They aren't released by the virus as some sort of pollutant.

The instructions for producing the spike protein are released by the virus. Your body produces the spike protein, just like with an mrna vaccine. The difference between the vaccines is the delivery method of the instructions (spike recipes.)

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/i...

"In this type of vaccine, genetic material from the COVID-19 virus is placed in a modified version of a different virus (viral vector). When the viral vector gets into your cells, it delivers genetic material from the COVID-19 virus that gives your cells instructions to make copies of the S protein. Once your cells display the S proteins on their surfaces, your immune system responds by creating antibodies and defensive white blood cells."

https://www.gavi.org/vaccineswork/there-are-four-types-covid...

"Viral vector vaccines also work by giving cells genetic instructions to produce antigens. But they differ from nucleic acid vaccines in that they use a harmless virus, different from the one the vaccine is targeting, to deliver these instructions into the cell. One type of virus that has often been used as a vector is adenovirus, which causes the common cold. As with nucleic acid vaccines, our own cellular machinery is hijacked to produce the antigen from those instructions, in order to trigger an immune response."

https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/how-you-make-adeno...

"The adenovirus goes in and does its normal infection route; all that machinery is intact.. But in this case, the DNA payload that's delivered into your cells is not a big set of instructions for making more adenoviruses, it's a much shorter sequence that codes for the coronavirus spike protein instead. So the modified DNA gets transcribed to messenger RNA in your cells (and that's the exact step that the mRNA vaccines jump in at if you take them), and this mRNA is taken up by ribosomes and translated into the Spike protein itself."

https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/coronavirus-vaccin...

"This class uses some other infectious virus, but with its original genetic material removed. In its place goes genetic instructions to make coronavirus proteins, and when your infected cells do that, these proteins will set off an immune response. Note that this is different than being infected with a “real” virus, whose instructions are (naturally enough) to produce more virus, which go off and infect more cells. No, in this case each viral particle that you’re injected with will be able to infect one cell, and that’s it. "

The virus pollutes the body with spike protein recipes. There are absolutely not spike proteins on the surface of the vector virus.

If it was just reaction to the spike protein then why is myocarditis more likely on the second vaccination?

I think it is therefore more likely that adaptive immune system is involved because it has ability to remember.

Now is it possible that spike protein itself or lipid shell is causing this based on incidence rate differences between 3 vaccines?

Hard to say.

This is in correlation with the amount of antibodies produced by these vaccines.

This is the not contradicting with the observation so far.

There are few ways to find how what is most likely happening.

It should also produce the spike protein I believe, it's just that the triggers for cells to produce it are within an adenovirus, not mrna inside lipids.

So I'm not sure what this guy is on about.

I'm confused by this - the AZ vaccine also expresses the spike protein, just in a different delivery mechanism, right? That was my understanding when I got the AZ vaccine in a trial.