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Comment by vore | Hacker News Reader

With regards to mRNA, mRNA is a fragile molecule that is quickly broken down inside the body after injection, so there's unlikely to be much long term risk with mRNA itself.

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An immediate "but if it breaks down fast, how can it do anything?" thought springs to mind.

I know what you mean is "not dormant and doing something for months/years", but at the same time, if it can initiate a modification of immune response, it can do "other things".

I believe we must take the utmost of care at this juncture, and make sure assurances are not construed as in a poor light.

For me the most convincing argument regarding safety is that mRNA vaccines essentially do the same thing that the virus does, just extremely limited in scope (producing just one protein instead of a bunch of them, and not reinfecting more cells).

So, even if producing the proteins turns out to be somewhat harmful long term, it cannot possibly be as harmful as the whole virus.

Assuming that covid infection is inevtable without a vaccine, we really have a choice between getting a little bit of mRNA injected into our cells, and a ton of mRNA injected.

That's an interesting perspective. I've actually had the virus. I'm interested to see what the differential outcome of having the virus and having the vaccination is.

I heard recently that there's a surprising amount of our DNA that's made up of old viruses from our ancestors.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/03/160322100714.h...

There are the viruses which can exploit the DNA involved mechanisms, but a mRNA vaccine is not using these, it uses the processes "downstream."

Holy jeeze. This is why we have the FDA.

The extent to which a molecule is active in your body is only slightly correlated with toxicity. There is zero reason why a fragile molecule can't cause damage before it breaks down.

This is how ended up with thalidomide. They tested it in pregnant lab rats, but the window for birth defects is incredibly short in rats. So everything checked out.

In drug development you can't assume anything without data to back it up.

I agree, but there's not much time we can spend to observe side effects over a long duration of time to have that level of confidence.

The FDA at this point certainly doesn't have the ability to analyze that either, so the best we have is a theoretical understanding.

Your answer is phrased in such a way that I can't help but ask: What about the other molecules in the vaccine?

Are there any notable helpers or adjuvants or preservatives?

Not sure why you’re downvoted - it’s a legit question.

This particular vaccine is literally just a bit of RNA in a blob of fat. The fat sticks to cell membranes, and the RNA pokes through. There's nothing more to it (this is also why it's possible to scale up production so quickly)

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