Pfizer, Fauci staffers sign off on research finding mRNA COVID vaccines produce worse antibodies
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Second study in a month to find "class switch" to so-called IgG4 antibodies, known for their mild immune response, in mRNA recipients alone. Future of Johnson & Johnson's traditional vaccine unclear as demand craters.
Updated: January 17, 2023 - 11:24pm
Less than a month after the CDC marked the two-year anniversary of the first administered COVID-19 vaccine by telling Americans to get a bivalent booster,two peer-reviewed German studies have found that mRNA vaccines — the vast majority of the U.S. market — induce worse antibodies compared to traditional adenovirus vaccines.
The first paper, published in Science Immunology Dec. 22, focused on mRNA boosters, while the second, published in Frontiers in Immunology Jan. 12, found the same association with the two-dose primary series.
The Frontiers paper has the added distinction of a Pfizer scientist serving as its editor and one of Anthony Fauci's staffers at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases as a peer reviewer, suggesting the mRNA vaccine maker and feds were aware of a potential antibody problem around the time Omicron-targeting boosters were authorized.
The findings call into question the government's promotion of bivalent boosting even while regulators admit that newer COVID variants are evading vaccines.
New York City's Department of Health told residents Friday the XBB.1.5 Omicron subvariant now comprises three-quarters of documented COVID infections in the city.
It is "the most transmissible form of COVID-19 that we know of to date and may be more likely to infect people who have been vaccinated or already had COVID-19," the department tweeted. It didn't answer Just the News queries about the evidence for its claims about vaccination or prior infection.
The CDC said XBB.1.5 accounted for 43% of documented infections nationwide last week, with under 3% from BA.5, which is part of the bivalent cocktail. University of Tokyo virologists shared research Sunday that found XBB.1.5 exhibits "profound immune resistance" and "augmented ACE2 binding affinity," and hence "increased transmissibility," due to specific mutations.
While the World Health Organization deemed XBB variants "the most antibody-resistant variants to date" in a "rapid risk assessment" last week, it said XBB.1.5 specifically "does not carry any mutation known to be associated with potential change in severity."
The University of Lübeck researchers behind the Frontiers study confirmed the so-called IgG4 antibody "class switch" first observed by their peers at
University of Erlangen-Nuremberg among healthcare workers in the Science Immunology paper, which was submitted 11 days earlier in August.
The Lübeck researchers recruited 157 people starting in December 2020 and split them into six groups, five of which had no known prior infection.
The first five received either two doses of Pfizer, Moderna or traditional AstraZeneca, or one dose of AstraZeneca followed by either a Pfizer or Moderna dose. The sixth group — infected but not hospitalized — received one or two Pfizer doses.
"[R]epeated immunization of [uninfected] individuals with the mRNA vaccines increased the proportion of the IgG4 subclass over time which might influence the long-term Ab [antibody] effector functions," according to the paper.
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/coronavirus/pfizer-fauci-staffers-sign-research-finding-mrna-covid-vaccines-produce