“What if we confused speed and haste?
".
The accelerated development of vaccines against Covid-19 raises many questions in public opinion.
What immediate and long-term side effects?
How effective on the elderly?
Does it protect against infection or only severe forms?
And for how long?
These questions are legitimate and even shared by the scientific community.
The adverse reactions observed on Wednesday in two English people suffering from allergies who received the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine once again call for caution.
However, from prudence and common sense to the dissemination of alarmist and unfounded theses, there is sometimes only one step.
A lot of false information is circulating about the messenger RNA technology, used by the Pfizer and Moderna laboratories, the first to demand the marketing of their products.
Here we take stock of this technique, of the fake news to which it is the subject.
But also on the severity of headaches and fevers that some people suffer temporarily after their vaccination.
We do not master this process: RATHER FALSE
As a reminder, the messenger RNA method consists in pushing the organism to produce itself molecules which are traditionally injected via an “inactivated” or “attenuated” virus vaccine.
DNA fragments are thus introduced which are capable of transforming cells into veritable protein factories or “antigens”, the famous “spicules” of the coronavirus.
These spikes, harmless in themselves, will then be expelled outside the cells, and push the immune system, which detects them, to produce antibodies.
This method is unprecedented in a phase 3 trial, but the first clinical experiments date back at least two decades.
Easy to produce, this type of vaccine has since been placed under the elbow of the scientific community in the event of the emergence of a pathogen of the virulence of the new coronavirus.
MRNA attacks DNA and genome: FALSE
The most widespread "fantasy" about it concerns the risk for vaccinated people to see their own DNA or that of their future children permanently changed.
In fact, the probability turns out to be infinitesimal, according to the experts interviewed.
“The likelihood that these sequences will integrate into the genome and create a disorder causing cancer or other serious disease is implausible.
We do not see how that could activate other pathological mechanisms ”, indicated at the beginning of December to La Montagne the“ Mr. Vaccin ”of the government Alain Fischer.
In the human body, "the genetic path is: DNA which is transcribed (recopied Editor's note) into RNA […] We do not see the reverse path", also recently confirmed to AFP the French geneticist Axel Kahn .
Basically, the genetic modifications are located at the level of the nucleus, while the RNA revolves only around the latter, in what is called the cytoplasm.
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Claude Leclerc, honorary doctor at the Institut Pasteur, does not say anything else.
“A lot of people confuse mRNA with gene therapy, which consists of producing genetic material that will be voluntarily entered into the nucleus.
This is particularly what we are trying to do against a retrovirus like HIV, ”says the one who was director for 35 years of the Research Unit in Immune Regulation and Vaccinology.
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In addition, the scientist takes issue with the idea that this mRNA could survive in the long term and generate a kind of viral runaway.
“It is very, very quickly degraded in the cytoplasm.
This is also the reason why this vaccine must be stored at low or very low temperature ”.
We don't have much hindsight: RATHER TRUE
So much for the infox.
From there, however, gray areas remain about the safety of these vaccines.
"The apprehension is justified, we do not have a lot of hindsight", concedes Renato Monteiro, president of the French Society of Immunology and head of department at Bichat hospital.
"If people were so vigilant with what they smoke, eat, drink or ingest as medicine, that would be good ...", breathes Claude Leclerc, very worried about this wind of mistrust of a large number of French people. to the speed of pharmaceutical laboratories.
“Watch out for the confusion!
The common man, the general public and scientists, have not yet had the detailed data of phase 3. But the English authorities and the European Medicines Agency already have them, and they will soon be available, she promises.
We have to walk forward, that's how it is ”.
At the moment, several scientific journals are indeed working on this mission.
The Lancet on Tuesday validated the product developed by AstraZeneca and the British University of Oxford, to be around 70% effective.
The European agency leaves it until December 31 to authorize or not the placing on the market of the first candidates.
Renato Monteiro approves the timetable set by France and the European Union.
"It even allows us to see what is done in England," he pointed out Wednesday morning.
He did not believe in saying so.
A few hours later, the British authorities formally advised against inoculating the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine to people who have had "significant allergic reactions" in the past.
Two people who reacted badly to the first injections.
There are side effects: TRUE
The adverse effects caused by the doses in the hours following the injection: here is the subject that is likely to rise in the coming days, after the publication on Tuesday of a report submitted by the American health agency (Food and Drug Administration) on the Pfizer vaccine.
While this document validates the product's marketing, it also lists a battery of “adverse events”.
Among those aged 16 to 55, more than half felt tired and more than half also reported headaches.
A little over a third have finally felt chills, and 37% muscle pain.
These inconveniences, noticed mainly after the second dose and which the competitor Moderna also mentions in its press releases, would fade for the majority approximately 24 hours later.
It should be noted that they are paradoxically less severe on average among those over 55 years old.
Four people also had facial muscle paralysis.
But the agency estimates for the moment that this share is not significant compared to the 20,000 people who received the vaccine.
These side effects are serious: RATHER FALSE
Eric Caumes points to these statistics in the name of the search for "truth".
In an interview with the Parisian, the head of the infectious disease department of Pitié-Salpêtrière claims to have "never seen such a frequency of adverse effects".
If he fears in spite of himself to contribute to the climate of mistrust and to nourish certain conspiratorial theories, his opinion remains isolated for the moment.
These effects prove that the immune response is good, on the other hand, several experts interviewed by the Washington Post abound.
"There is a difference between a bad reaction to vaccines and severe side effects", also retorts the immunologist Claude Leclerc, who calls "simply to be transparent" with the volunteers, and not to neglect the pharmacovigilance work. .
On Monday, Kristen Choi, a psychiatric nurse and University of California researcher, testified in the medical journal JAMA Internal Medicine about symptoms after participating in the Pfizer / BioNTech trial.
She also relates chills, nausea, headaches and fever after the second injection.
And ends with this advice: "Clinicians should be prepared to discuss with patients why they should trust the vaccine and whether its side effects could be very similar to those of Covid-19."
Some should expect to "take a day off," prominent immunologist Akiko Iwasaki predicted with The New York Times.
The educational work promises to be immense.
In particular around the central notion of the benefit-risk ratio.