Transcript of AE 1121 - Interview: How Covid Vaccines Work & How We Know They're Saving Millions of Lives with

G'day, you mob. Pete here from Aussie English, welcome back to the Aussie English podcast, today is part two of the four-part series where I am interviewing PhD in Molecular Biology, Dr Dan Wilson. Today we discuss the technology of different COVID vaccines and how they work. Why the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines are so controversial among anti-vaxxers.

How the body's immune system works when injected with a vaccine and for fighting disease more generally. How we know the COVID vaccines are safe and effective based on the science, so what the science has to say about these vaccines.

How the scientific method works, the incentives of scientists and big pharma and why, if you could show the vaccines didn't work using science, you'd become the most famous scientist alive today, and much more. So, without any further ado, guys, slap the bird and let's get into today's episode. Anyway, stepping into your wheelhouse, could you describe the technology behind the different vaccines?

Yeah. Yeah, sure. So, the different COVID vaccines, there are generally two types, now there are- There's a third one coming onto the scene, but the one that everyone knows about are the mRNA vaccines. And, you know, the whole goal of a vaccine is simply to deliver to your cells a foreign piece or pieces of an antigen.

And an antigen is just a foreign protein that your own body doesn't make, it's something that's made by a virus or a bacteria that your immune system can recognise. So, the vaccine is supposed to get the antigen into your cells, into your system so that your immune system can see it and recognise it as foreign.

And that way, it's going to mount an immune response, and that immune response will hopefully result in immune memory so that the next time your immune system sees that antigen, it can quickly and efficiently ramp up its forces, so to speak, to attack the foreign antigen. And so, with mRNA vaccines, what it does is it delivers pieces of genetic material called mRNA, and so- How much detail should I go into here?

MRNA is not DNA, so it's not going to like change your genes or anything. Your own body makes mRNA all the time, your cells have DNA and in order to make that DNA into protein that actually does stuff, it first has to get made into messenger RNA.

And so, the analogy that biology teachers always like to use is it's like DNA is like the library, the database and then if you go into that library and you make a copy of a book and then take it out of the library, that copy is like mRNA. And so, that's what the cell actually reads in order to make protein. And so, the mRNA isn't permanent, obviously, it degrades over time, it's all part of a balance of gene expression that your cells do.

We can take advantage of that and deliver this temporary piece of mRNA into your cells that codes for a protein that SARS-CoV-2 makes. So, once your body starts making that protein at that site of injection, immune cells are going to take up that antigen, they're going to chop it up into little pieces and they're going to present it on their surface.

And then once they have it presented on their surface, they're going to travel along to your lymph nodes. So, lymph nodes around your neck are usually where immune cells from your arm are going to go after an injection. And then in those lymph nodes, a bunch of immunology is going to happen, that's where you're going to get your immune cells learning how to fight the virus, essentially.

That's where you're going to get immune memory cells forming. And then voila, you have immunity. So, that's kind of the gist of the mRNA vaccine technology, it's just delivering the mRNA into the cells so that the cells have a template they can read to- Basically an instruction manual on what the enemy looks like.

Why are they so controversial in comparison to traditional vaccines? Which are vector vaccines, right?

Yeah, so the vector vaccines, they're- They work essentially the same way, except instead of packaging the mRNA into a lipid nanoparticle and delivering the naked mRNA they package genetic material into a harmless virus, and that harmless virus then delivers that genetic material into your cells.

And then you have the whole same process of making the protein, recognising it as foreign, blah blah blah. But yeah, the reason that mRNA vaccines are controversial is because it is technically new technology in the sense that it is just being used on humans for the first time recently, and that sounds scary to a lot of people, right? It's involving genetic material, it's new. What's it going to do to me?

You know, that's why I think a lot of people are afraid of it, but really from a biological standpoint, it is no different in terms- It's not much different in terms of its function than any other vaccine.

So, it's effectively getting the same response from your immune system.

Yeah, it's cutting out the middleman, sort of. So, instead of, you know, packaging the genetic material into a harmless virus and having the harmless virus deliver it, you have this way of taking just that one piece of genetic material that you want your cells to read and make a- Basically, read it as a manual and make a response to delivering that directly to the cells.

And there were lots of molecular challenges to doing that. There are- In some of my videos, I have links to some of the history of that. It's really, really fascinating. Some of the problems that they had to overcome in order to make it work because it's definitely not as simple as what I'm describing.

It sounds so easy, right? Just take the mRNA and deliver it to cells. Why was that always so hard? Well, there's a big story there. But yeah, it's actually- It's- An mRNA vaccine is actually kind of reminiscent of, you know, either a vector vaccine or a live vaccine, because you're delivering material to the cells and your cells are going to actively be producing antigen and responding to it.

So, you know, it's- The concept, the core concepts are still the same, it's just the fact that it's a new technology and has been expressed as such has scared a lot of people.

So, yeah, what would you say about people who say, I'm not sure if these vaccines are safe? How do we determine whether a vaccine is safe? How do we know that the COVID vaccines are safe? And perhaps you know, beyond that, how do we know that they work?

So, the process of a vaccine going from the laboratory to the hospital, we also call it from bench to bedside. That process is extremely, extremely tough for a vaccine to do. It's a very rigorous process. So, after a vaccine is developed, after the scientists think like, hey, this could work, there are several stages that it goes through.

It first goes through pre-clinical trials where it's tested in animals, that was done for COVID vaccines, and then if it's- If it looks good on animals, it's not causing any glaring problems, it seems to be inducing immune responses. Then it moves on to phase one clinical trials, and those are on humans, it's a small group of humans.

And if it looks good then after they figure out dosing and preliminary safety things, then they move on to phase two, which adds more people. And finally, phase three, which involves 40,000 people, 20,000 in vaccine group, 20,000 in the control group, generally numbers in those ballpark- That ballpark range.

And so, at each stage they're testing for safety and efficacy, they're monitoring they're patients, they're following up on them, they're testing certain immune markers to make sure that it's actually doing something. And at the end of all of that, once a vaccine gets approved, it's still intensely monitored. Right, so post-market monitoring is a thing that is done for almost every drug that gets approved.

And there are certain programmes in place specifically for vaccines, in America we have v-safe. You know, you usually hear about VAERS, but programmes like v-safe is the programme that actually goes in and determines which of these reports is legit. Is there any merit to them? Do they actually have connection to the vaccine?

And can we draw any trends from there? So, these programmes are constantly ongoing. You have independent labs all over the world, independent groups all over the world doing their own observational studies on how effective and how safe the vaccines are.

And we've reached a point now where over 10 billion doses of COVID vaccines have been given worldwide, and the consensus from the scientific community despite the- You know, regardless of country, regardless of which government the lab supposedly belongs to, the consensus is the same that COVID vaccines are very safe and they're really effective.

And so, that's how the average person can know that these COVID vaccines are safe, that they've gone through a really stringent and very rigorous time in the spotlight in the scientific community, right, so many different labs, so many different scientists are focussed on COVID because it's such a big front and centre issue right now.

And you can be confident that these really hyper competitive nerds in the scientific community are coming to the same conclusion that means something. Because in reality, every scientist is looking for the next- Their next big break, right. If they find a good finding that rests on strong data, then that's big for them. That's a big paper, that's recognition, that's- That means a lot to them.

But they're not going to go forward with that unless the data are sound. So, if the data all agree on one thing, then, you know, they don't have a reason to say otherwise. They're not going to...

The amount of people...

...They would.

...The amount of people that would be required to keep a lid on it, right, would just be...

...Ridiculous.

...Would be insane. I think, the one that I often hear about is, Bill Clinton couldn't even get a blowjob in the White House and not have people find out about it. How on earth do you think say, like, you know, we didn't land on the moon or that 911 was an inside job, or that the vaccines don't work, and no one's been able to come forward and prove that.

Because yeah, as you were saying, if you're a good scientist and you had good evidence and good data that supported the vaccines not making a difference, your name would never be forgotten. As the first person to come forward and prove that, the incentives-

People don't seem to realise that the incentives for scientists to do the work and determine that say in this case, the vaccines didn't work and then come forward and publish this data and have it looked at. Yeah, at first, they would probably be scoffed at. But if it was done correctly, and that's what it showed because it was, you know, real, they would be a household name for probably decades.

So, it's one of those things. What would you expect? Okay, imagine the vaccines didn't work and even that they were dangerous. What would be the signals you would expect to have seen since they were starting to be put into people's arms?

Right, so if they didn't work, then we would see no difference between vaccinated and unvaccinated when it comes to COVID deaths, COVID hospitalisations, things like that. Because at the end of the day, those are the two things that vaccines are supposed to prevent. They're not supposed to prevent a positive PCR test, they're meant to prevent disease. That's the way vaccines have always, always been.

Sorry, to pause you there because this is something I was going to ask you about. Can you talk about that a bit more? Because so many people will say, even if you get vaccinated, you can get infected. Or even if you get vaccinated, you can transmit the disease to someone else, so what's the point?

So, on that first point, "you can still get infected." I mean, I think people need to understand just how far molecular techniques have come since our last pandemic. I mean, I guess the last pandemic was H1N1 in 2009, I think. But that never really reached emergency standards, at least not in hindsight.

It didn't really make a big splash. But my point is we haven't had a huge pandemic while we have really good molecular diagnostic techniques. So, now we're looking everywhere for the virus. We're looking for this virus more than we have ever looked for any virus in the past in humans.

So, imagine what that would be like during polio times, like if we were to go back in time and do the same thing for polio. We would find that polio vaccines don't stop you from testing positive for polio. You could still get infected by polio if you've been vaccinated, but you don't get paralysed, you don't die. That's the point. Right.

So, that concept, I think, is kind of hard for people to wrap their heads around, and again, it's kind of on the- It's a little bit on the shoulders of science communicators, too, because those phase three clinical trials for COVID vaccines, they looked at whether or not people test positive, whether or not they get symptomatic disease.

And so, that's a really high bar for vaccines to reach, and at the very beginning of your immune response where your antibody titres are really high, you're going to be able to prevent infection. But over time, those antibody titres, the immune system is going to contract, it's not going to constantly spend the energy to keep those antibody levels up.

If it did that for every disease you're immune against there wouldn't be any room in your blood for all the antibodies. So, it's a way of your body conserving space and energy by having your immune system contract.

Once the immune system contracts, though, you're not going to be able to prevent infection, but your immune system is going to be able to respond fast enough next time you get infected to prevent that disease and also reduce the risk of transmission.

So, yes, you can still test positive for COVID, but you're less likely to spread it, you're less likely to test positive in the first place, and you're a whole lot less likely to get hospitalised or die if you're vaccinated. And those are the real big reasons that I think a lot of anti-vaxxers don't end up seeing. Was that- Was that all the...

That's sort of what I wanted to know there, because that's- That idea of if you get vaccinated, you suddenly have this magic force shield that prevents any kind of virus or disease that you've been vaccinated against entering your body at all. And it's like, no, you still inhale it. You still, you know, eat it. It gets into your system and your system then responds, but it doesn't prevent you from 1) getting it.

It then replicating at least a little bit, right, to be able to get a response going in your body. And in that time you still have the ability to transmit it, but it's usually nipped in the bud a lot quicker, right, than someone who isn't vaccinated. And so, you end up with reduced disease and reduced transmissibility.

Yes, and we've seen that, we've seen those data where people have measured viral- Shedding a viral RNA over time and vaccinated and unvaccinated people, and you can see that vaccinated people just clear the virus a lot faster.

And we had a study that was published, I think today that came out with, Queensland, one of our northern states found that the people that are getting a booster are 20 times less likely to transmit the disease. They still can but the rate at which it happens is 20 times less, you know. And so, it's not negligible. It's insane, right?

Definitely. Yeah. And that number is probably going to come down, but it's still going to be a decreased risk of transmission. Right. So, you know, people who say, oh, you can still get COVID, you can still transmit it, you know, that's not unders- That's a view that doesn't understand all the stuff we just talked about and also just the basic concept that nothing is 100% effective.

So, going back to the original question there. What would you expect to see if the vaccines were actually harmful? When and how soon would you expect to see, you know, a lot of, say, negative side effects of the vaccine?

Because yeah, I have a lot of friends who would say it's actually harmful, it's bad for you. And I'm like, well, when are you meant to see that? Is that the first few days? The first month? Is that 20 years from now? When is your sort of claim about when the negative side effects kick in?

So, you would see it really fast. And I'll make two points on that. All adverse reactions to vaccination occur within eight weeks of getting the dose. And the reason is because your body is either going to have an allergic reaction really fast to the contents of the vaccine, so if you're allergic to a component and you have an allergic reaction, that's going to happen...

And that's why they have you sit there for 15 minutes afterwards, right?

Yes. Yeah, that's part of the reason. Definitely. So, that's going to happen pretty fast or you're going to get side effects from your immune response. Right. So, things like the fever, the chills, the body aches, that's all your immune response reacting to a foreign substance. Even when you're sick, that's your immune response making you feel that way.

And so, your body can create adverse events as your immune system reacts, but- Well, kind of what we just touched on, your immune response only lasts a certain amount of time and then you're left with immune memory. Right.

So, your immune system is not going to suddenly freak out 10 years from now because you had a COVID vaccine and caused some crazy thing to happen. It just doesn't work like that. That's what we've observed with every vaccine. It's always within eight weeks after you get the dose.

So...

Is that including things-? Sorry to interrupt you. Is that including things like the blood clot issues and myocarditis, pericarditis that's happening with and, you know, very, very, very small percentage of people, it's like one in a few million people, right, with these different vaccines.

Yeah, I was actually going to go into that next because if you remember back in April of 2021, around that time, when the Johnson and Johnson vaccine was rolled out in America it was pretty quick, a few weeks, I think. I don't remember exactly how fast, but it was a few weeks before they realised that out of the six million doses that have been given at that time, they had six cases of blood clotting that was serious.

And it was at that point that they said, let's pause. Let's wait a week, let's see if these blood clots continue after we pause the JNJ shot so that we can be sure that the vaccine is actually causing it. And let's use this time to figure out how to detect and treat this. And that's what happened.

So, they saw- They were- They concluded that the blood clotting issue was in fact from the vaccine, and they got a better idea of how to treat it. So, unfortunately, you know, some have died from the JNJ shot. I think, the last number that I was aware of was nine people out of millions of doses given. And we don't want to just dismiss that, we want to say, how do we make these vaccines safer?

And as you can see from that story, you know, that's what they, meaning the public health officials, the pharmaceutical companies, that's what they're trying to do.

I think a big, big part there was the education, right, of being like, as soon as- Like, when I walked in to get vaccinated for the first time it was, here are two pamphlets. Read them. Now we're going to take you into a room, you need to sit down with a nurse. The nurse is going to tell you about the risks, and you know, she's going to say, do you wish to proceed?

Now that you know the information you need to sign- Like, so it wasn't just here's the vaccine, F-off. It was a full process of look, here are the risks. You need to make an educated decision based on this. If you have no medical issues or allergies that would otherwise make us think the vaccine could cause these issues in you, then you know, it's your choice at the end of the day.

It was mind blowing because, yeah, for- I made a video about like why I regretted getting AstraZeneca, and it was kind of a bait and switch where I showed that, you know, look, I was scared because of the blood clots. But then when I actually looked at the stats, it was like getting into a car I have 44 times more like probability of dying than if I were to get the vaccine and, you know, die from blood clots, so.

And yet I never think about that risk, right, of getting into a car and going driving, but it's much more likely that I'll die in that. It would- It's almost like- I feel like it's one of those arguments where someone's driving a car and then they suddenly hear about how an airbag killed someone by snapping their neck when the car accident happened, and they say, well, screw that, I'm riding a motorbike from now on.

And your kind of like, you've just increased your chances of dying 36 times, but it's not going to be from an airbag. So, yeah, you're right, you know? But...

Exactly.

And so, it feels like that with the vaccine, right, where you're sort of like, okay, look, yeah, 100% there are these very, very rare cases where people unfortunately have passed away from myocarditis and blood clotting. But not taking the vaccine your chances of dying from COVID are very, very high, I mean, at least if we don't adjust the age.

Exactly. Yes. And- Yeah, so I think, you know, the fact that one in a million blood clot case was caught early on should hopefully tell people that these post-market monitoring systems are working and that they're acted upon because again, the JNJ shot was paused and then recommendations were made.

And now even there's a preferential recommendation for children to get mRNA vaccines instead of the JNJ shot, because there is that minuscule risk of blood clotting.

Yeah.

And the other thing, you mentioned education, it's- That's also something that can really, you know, 1) dispel fear, but also be really helpful, because if someone were to... (distorted) ...Of that blood clotting issue with something like the JNJ shot. If they know what to look for, if they know that, okay, if I start to feel pain and I start to feel light-headed or this or that, then I know to go to the doctor, and then...

Exactly.

...Get treatment sooner and you could possibly save your life. So, it's much- Again, it goes back to like doing the work of understanding all of these things rather than just reading the headline about how blood clots are associated with the JNJ shot and being afraid of that.

But then at the same time not recognising the risks of the thousands and hundreds of thousands and millions of people who are suffering and dying of COVID, you know, over the course of the pandemic.

Yeah, it is, difficult too, I think, because people are- Going back to what we were talking about with science education at the start. They're not equipped to understand that ambiguity and that you have to kind of 1) do the work to understand why the information you're receiving is right or wrong.

But then quite often there are trade-offs. Nothing is black and white. There's never, really ever a "this is perfect and there's no side effects, and this other thing is imperfect and absolutely horrible." It's always going to be like, well, you need to decide based on your personal situation, what you need to do. I'm aware of your time. Are you okay to hang around for a little bit longer or have you gotta bail?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think we- Sorry, we've gone- I've gone into a lot of stuff here, a lot of rambling, but...

No, no, no. I appreciate it.

I forgot to ask just before while we're on the vaccine thing. When I was talking to my friend and I mentioned that I changed my mind on vaccinating my children based on the science, he freaked. He absolutely freaked out and was like, why the hell would you do that? That's child abuse. You're a horrible human being. What-? What does the science say about- I guess, you know, there's going to be a trade-off.

But the- Now, at least based on the limited amount of research that I've done, it seems like it's a better option to have your children vaccinated against COVID, the argument being that they're going to come across it eventually. Why would you take the chance? And they could transmit it to other people. Anyway, what are your thoughts on that and what does the science sort of have to say now about having children vaccinated?

Yeah, definitely. So, I mean, I have a nine-month-old right now, and my plan is to get her vaccinated as soon as I can, essentially for the reasons you talked about, but I can elaborate on it a little. We know that SARS-CoV-2 is a virus that's going to be with us for a very long time, if not forever. It's not going to go away; our children are going to come into contact with it eventually.

It could be when they're still young or it could be, you know, in the middle of their lives that they first encounter it. And no matter what the case may be, you would want to protect them, right? Because I mean, I can't imagine my child being infected with COVID and possibly needing to go to the hospital. I mean, I know- I actually do know parents who have had their toddlers go to the hospital for COVID.

It's not fun, it's not something that I would want for anybody. So, we know that COVID vaccines are actually really safe for younger age groups, for age groups 5 to 11. I believe last time I looked at the data you'd be hard pressed to find any cases of myocarditis, it had a very good safety profile.

And right now they're testing- They're doing a little more tests for ages 2 to 5 in America, but for ages 2 and under, the safety profile was also really good and the effect- The efficacy was really good. They had a really good immune response. For ages 2 to 5, the immune response wasn't so great because essentially it has to do with dosing. Children are getting a lower dose than adults for the COVID vaccines.

Proportionately or overall?

Overall, so it's about a third of the dose for Pfizer, at least. So, it looks like that one third dose for small children under 2 is enough, induces enough of an immune response. But for children who are a little bigger 2 to 5, it looks like it's not quite enough, so they're tweaking it a little bit right now. Anyway, that's a little bit more of a tangent...

What would you say to people who would say, you know- And this is one of these sort of responses I get. The only people dying of COVID are old and weak.

You know, it's not going to be your children, it's not going to be healthy people up to the age of 50 or 60. So, again, 1) that the vaccine is pointless for anyone who's healthy and how you determine that, I don't know. And it's pointless for children. What are the kind of arguments or what's the science have to say about that?

Yeah, I hate that. I hate that. It's...

Well, my first response is always, don't you know anyone who's old and weak? Like.

Yeah, I mean that is the first response that I would say. I mean, it's totally insensitive to the people who are old, to the people who are vulnerable. You know, I- I mean, my parents are, what, in their late sixties, early seventies now. They could easily live another 20 years, if COVID came along now and took them away. Man, that would suck. I would- I'd be devastated.

Well, I've got two grandparents in their 90s and I think I worked out that if they both got COVID, there'd be a 30% chance one of them would die. Like, it was like 50% chance that if you were over 19, you got COVID, you die. And I'm like, are you really willing to roll that dice? Like as a grandson, as a great grandson. Like.

Yeah, and you don't want that. Why? The idea that people could just be cold to that, like, oh, like, oh, well, you're old. You're SOL, whatever. Like, that's so- I don't know, that's just so cold to me. So, yeah, you don't want people who are a little bit older to die, that still matters.

And then also, it's- I'd say that younger people are dying, too. Right. There was a paper even back in 2020, showing that in the US, there was a significant excess death in the age group of like 25 to 44. So much so that it was greater than the number of opioid deaths in that age group, which is pretty significant.

So, younger people are also at risk. You know, I think in the US- I think we're approaching a thousand children have died in the US of COVID at this point, confirmed. That matters, I'm sure those thousand families, I mean, you think of how many people a thousand people...

Yeah.

...Is. That matters. I don't think you can just dismiss that.

Well, and how I do- How do you not- How do you know whether your child won't become quote unquote "weak", you know, in the future, if you decide, okay, I'm not getting them vaccinated. And then next week, God forbid, they end up with, you know, a disability or a disease or something that leaves them vulnerable to it. And then they come into contact with COVID shortly after, before they have a chance to be vaccinated.

Again, you're effectively having to decide, are you willing to roll that dice on your kid, you know, into the future and you have to weigh up the benefits. If there's very, very little chance of the vaccine actually causing any harm, let alone killing the child, but there's, you know, bigger payoffs that, again, you have to obviously do the work and see what the science says.

You just make as a gambler; you should just be making the most educated decision based on what's going to prolong their life.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think that- There's a Doctor, Paul Offit who puts it best, he says that a choice to not vaccinate is a choice to take more risk.

Yeah.

And that's regardless of age group, because even if you, like, even not thinking about deaths, beyond deaths, you know, COVID isn't harmless. COVID can have several adverse health effects, many of which we don't fully understand yet.

This is long COVID, right?

Long COVID and also- I just released a video earlier this week where I reference a paper that followed veterans who had COVID for one year, they followed them for one year, and they found that veterans who, among this group, ones who are hospitalised or went to the ICU, their risk of cardiovascular disease or outcomes was significantly increased within that year.

So, risks of heart attacks, risks of ischaemic strokes, risks of- Oh, my God, I'm blanking on these words right now. Risk of arrhythmia. That's what I'm looking for. Myocarditis goes in there as well. All of those things were greatly increased in the year following COVID infection for these people. And that's significant, that's going to increase risk and also health burden.

So, that's in addition to the long COVID things that people are more familiar with. Children are vulnerable to something called multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children. It's something where essentially after someone is infected with COVID and the virus is getting cleared, they're feeling- They're starting to feel better. Suddenly, their immune system has a big reaction and that throws everything out of whack and causes a lot of problems.

And that's happened in a lot of children as well, so it's not good. It's not fun. And if you can avoid that, why not do it?

Yeah, I think that's it, you need to do the work. Go in and find out what the pros and cons are, and yeah, based on what I understand now, I feel like there are way more cons to not having your children vaccinated, to having them vaccinated. So, yeah, where can people find out more about you and what you're doing if they want to check out your channel and everything like that?

Yeah, so I'm on YouTube. My YouTube channel is "Debunk the Funk with Dr Wilson". I'm on Twitter "@Debunk_the_Funk". My Facebook page is "Doc Wilson debunks" and I'm on Instagram as well, I think that's also at "debunk.the.funk". But if you want to get in touch with me, I have my contact information for the accounts that I check regularly in the description of all my videos.