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Comment by AntiImperialist | Hacker News Reader

>Are there any possible long term side effects of using such an mRNA drug that are yet unanticipated?

I'm not sure but I strongly assume yes.

The MAIN reason for this skepticism is that if it was just possible to introduce RNA such that we could have a net positive benefit against coronavirus, a virus that has existed for almost as long as mammals have, we'd have naturally evolved this ability.

The reason we haven't is because it will introduce more problems than it solves down the line.

It could very well be that with a limited understanding of human immune system, we have stumbled upon a solution to a problem that has affected us for millions of years. So, I think some people should try it. But forcing it on the masses is a terrible idea.

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This take implies that no medicine for deadly diseases can work because otherwise we would have evolved the medicines ourselves.

Also, COVID-19 has not been around "for millions of years." Other coronaviruses, such as the common cold, have. The evolutionary benefits of defense against the common cold are fairly different than benefits against COVID-19. And immunity against one coronavirus doesn't grant immunity against all other coronaviruses.

>This take implies that no medicine for deadly diseases can work because otherwise we would have evolved the medicines ourselves.

That is true. Most of them don't work, not without creating worse problems down the line. Specially, if it's something as simple as creating some proteins that the body can already produce (which is what happens when mRNA vaccine is given). If the solution was as simple, evolution would have found ways to do that.

Currently, some deadly diseases do have some treatments that work... but that comes at HUGE expense i.e. a LOT of energy has to be spent for little gain. It is only possible because there is huge inequality among people and the rich class can afford to spend enormous energy and manpower to treat those diseases. If and when the world becomes more equal, this will no longer be possible (you'd think that "robot slaves" working off of "free energy" would solve that... I don't think that's going to happen but that's a different discussion).

>Also, COVID-19 has not been "around for millions of years."

We can't know that. It could very well be that COVID-19 had infected mammals before and we naturally god rid of it in a few generations. When infections come about, "weaker" individuals die and those with stronger immunity survive and reproduce and the species of COVID-19 might have died out. Some coronaviruses continue to live with us because they don't cause major problems... but there must have been many more which caused major problems and we had had to deal with them differently... and one of them could have been very similar to COVID-19.

But yeah, it could also be that this is the first time we're encountering it. So, let's go with that. My argument doesn't change.

>immunity against one coronavirus doesn't grant immunity against all other coronaviruses

True. However, in millions of years, our immune system has encountered many species and strains of coroviruses, and trained on that data and come up with a much more generalized and long term solution. I'd rather trust that than some random know it all people who think that have a better solution with very limited knowledge of what is going on.

Having said that, I'm not against testing new solutions. It's the scale that bothers me.

Two points, the most effective treatments we have for deadly diseases are vaccines which are effective precisely because they rely on our naturally evolved defences. Antibiotics are a runner up but are eventually rendered ineffective by evolution of bacteria they target. Second, Covid-19 is only new to humans, given time it will adapt to us and will likely attenuate.

> The MAIN reason for this skepticism is that if it was just possible to introduce RNA such that we could have a net positive benefit against coronavirus, a virus that has existed for almost as long as mammals have, we'd have naturally evolved this ability.

We'd have naturally evolved the ability to train our immune systems against specific things it hasn't seen before? How would that POSSIBLY work?

The novelty of this particular coronavirus is sort of the problem here, since people don't already have immunity, so your "millions of years" thing is completely off base.

You seem to be arguing against the possibility of a "universal vaccine" for all viruses but that's entirely not what this is. It's very specifically targeted and the idea that we'd evolve the ability to target things specifically without actually being exposed to them in the same way is plainly nonsense.

Actually, the ability to respond to never-seen-before threats is the whole purpose of the adaptive immune system [1].

> How would that POSSIBLY work?

Through a process called V(D)J recombination [2]. Essentially, every lymphocyte gets a different receptor of random shape, and purely by chance there will be a few lymphocytes with a receptor that matches the shape of the invading viruses (in most cases).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_immune_system

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V(D)J_recombination

> Actually, the ability to respond to never-seen-before threats is the whole purpose of the adaptive immune system [1].

But the poster I was responding to was claiming that our immune system should have evolved the ability to not respond to those threats, but anticipate their specific forms without seeing them. That vaccination as a concept is hogwash because if it was useful, we'd have done it through evolution. But that's plainly nonsensical - we wouldn't need a system that functioned by random variation if we evolved the ability to know what the real targets would be, but we couldn't do that without specific knowledge, which we can't get without being exposed to the things, by which time ... it's too late to have then already built the specific defenses.

And during the time that takes you're suffering the consequences of a viral infection. Majormajor was replying to a comment suggesting that it might somehow have been possible to evolve the equivalent of a COVID-19 vaccine, which allows your immune system to adapt without experiencing a viral infection. What couldn't possibly work is for your body to already naturally be immune before experiencing the virus.

>We'd have naturally evolved the ability to train our immune systems against specific things it hasn't seen before?

See my response to another comment. We must have dealt with countless species and strains of coronaviruses already. So, our genes have a lot of training they need. Even if we haven't trained for this particular strain or species, we will most likely fare better than the solution that has never been tried ever.

What if the children of those vaccinated turn out to be much weaker against other common antigens start dropping dead? It will set humanity back by a lot.

These are not exaggerated hypotheticals. These are VERY REAL possibilities: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5607155/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK233000/

>since people don't already have immunity, so your "millions of years" thing is completely off base.

We do. Most people are completely unaffeted by the virus. It's a relatively small percentage that has severe problems. To endanger EVERYONE because a small percentage is affected is downright retarded. Having said that, I'm not at all against trying different things out. The best way to roll it out would be to do it over a VERY LONG PERIOD, spanning generations. And most importantly, keeping significant number of people completely unvaccinated. This has not been a problem until now because big enough population chose to be unvaccinated. However, the scale of current problem might mean that this could change... which is terrifying.

Look, I'm more willing than most to agree that forcing a medical procedure on the masses is a terrible idea. I'm even more willing than most to agree that not every vaccine will have a sufficient cost/benefit trade off for everyone. I have low-exposure and low-risk to COVID so I'm content to wait a while for the vaccine. I have questions in my mind about how we're so sure that a big shot of mRNA can't somehow cause a risk of birth defects, etc. But...

>> The reason we haven't is because it will introduce more problems than it solves down the line.

This is just not sound reasoning, and it's a terrible argument against the vaccine. Have you ever taken antibiotics? Or have you ever benefited long-term from anything medical that we didn't "evolve" through natural selection? Because I sure as hell have. How does this not apply to other vaccines, which have clearly saved an astonishing number of lives, and have, almost without exception, not produced the kind of long-term existential threats to humanity you seem to be hinting at.

>How does this not apply to other vaccines, which have clearly saved an astonishing number of lives, and have, almost without exception, not produced the kind of long-term existential threats to humanity you seem to be hinting at.

It does apply to all vaccines. Vaccines bias the immune system, which has evolved to be general enough to deal with problems that generally come our way. This bias caused by vaccines results in better performance against those specific viruses but comparatively worse performance against most of anything else. This can also result in auto immune disorders down the line:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5607155/

Generally, this bias also happens naturally when viruses infects populations. But the tradeoff is mostly worth it when the virus is still at large... and the natural population is optimized for wide variety of attacks because the immune systems are biased in many different ways in the first place, so even after a pandemic, the resulting population will still have a varied enough immune systems.

Large scale vaccinations bias the population in a very few particular ways. When vaccines for multiple viruses are given to everyone, the immune systems become more and more similar than it would ever happen naturally. So, mass vaccinations make us more fragile as a species against future pandemics, not to mention the autoimmune disorders that also happen as a result.

Given that vaccines have unintended consequences, you probably agree that targetted vaccinations are effective i.e. what if we could vaccinate exactly those who will get infected right before they get infected? That way, we could help them fight the infections better while not affecting anyone else. Right? That is how the immune system already works. It starts the fight right after it detects the infection.

Sometimes, the immune response is not appropriate and can cause more problems than it solves. The same can happen with vaccines.

Sometimes, the immune response may be appropriate but is not sufficent to save the host. The same can happen to vaccinated individuals. It can be argued that the headstart that one gets because of early vaccination might make it worth it... but you also have to consider how many will be vaccinated even though they never really get infected and how many will be missed anyway... and there is also a cost to determining these things. So, overall, it is highly unlikely to be worth it.

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