The covid vaccines are driving mutated variants

[sd_shooter]

Makes sense - we're not injecting people with weak viruses, we're injecting them with something that makes the body think it has a virus.

https://conservativeplaylist.com/2021/07/20/covid-shots-are-driving-mutated-variants/

[wpage]

Who knows. Its going to mutate as it will to survive.

[SPUTTER]

Look up "leaky vaccine".

[as_rocketman]

I was going to reply with "Whoever wrote that is a fool," but then I realized we were talking about Dr. Joseph Mercola, and had to pull stronger language off the shelf.

Immunity from any source could be termed "evolutionary pressure," I suppose, but at that point what matters is the prevalence and attack rate. The more trials, the more chances for a successful mutation.

Vaccination reduces transmissibility, and cuts down both rates. Since SARS-CoV-2 is going endemic whether we like it or not this is probably no longer an issue -- but the idea that vaccination will lead to worse viral diversity is just plain stupid. The only thing it does at a population standpoint is increase the rate at which population acquires effective immunity. On an individual basis, the difference can be much more significant.

I adore that this quack is making an analogy to Marek's Disease in poultry to back up his claims, partly because of the rank stupidity in doing so, and partly because I was one a poultry exhibitor and have some relevant background in this topic. The relevance is zero -- Marek's is an alphaherpes virus and is never cleared by the host. This bears no similarity to coronaviruses. In this situation, it is correct that a modern infection in a bird immunized with an older vaccine will preferentially shed vaccine-competent strains of the virus... big surprise. But those alternate strains are already there. Vaccination does not create them or even enhance them, it just makes them easier to detect. If the vaccine-competent strains are more dangerous overall, they will outperform the original strain anyway over time.

Poultry farmers work on thin profit margins. If vaccination against Marek's were a net negative, they wouldn't do it.

Dr. Mercola is doing this to push his own line of woo health products. His self-interest in this crap is clear. Some twoo believers are simply misguided and well-meaning, but not this time.

[stonefly-2]

The jab doesn't consist of trillions of spike proteins encased in lipid that will allow them to pass the BBB but with the immediate effect of them all flushing to your vascular system because the intent is for the body to generate antibodies to a virus.

You're thinking of how vaccines work.

[Epaphroditus]

https://www.redvoicemedia.com/2021/07/exclusive-dr-david-martin-just-ended-covid-fauci-doj-politicians-in-one-interview/

[UCT]

Wow, now the LARPER is an expert on chickens too.

Did not watch the video but the article is correct, except the commentary on the vaccines being gene modifiers. Testing showed that vaccinated chickens shed more virulent forms of the Marek's virus than unvaccinated chickens. This was expected.

Any non-sterilizing immunity whether natural or induced by vaccine may cause antigenic drift through "immune pressure." This is most evident in the flu virus. ("Results from this preliminary investigation suggested that the evolution of the viral population, as well as the abundance and heterogeneity of minority variants could be influenced by the immune pressure conferred by vaccination."). https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28619173/ ("Recently, our findings suggested the possible effect of vaccine pressure on HA mutations by directly comparing amino acid differences from the corresponding vaccine strains between isolates from vaccinated and unvaccinated patients. It is possible that influenza vaccine pressure selects variants genetically distant from the vaccine strains.") https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5861807/

Anyone who says the vaccine doesn't and won't select for mutations because of immune pressure doesn't know what they are talking about. Wouldn't it have been nice to investigate this issue before vaccinating people???

Topics for research: antigenic drift, original antigenic sin, immune pressure, vaccine pressure.

[as_rocketman]

Wow, now the LARPER is an expert on chickens too.

I was reasonably expert, yes. APA exhibitor, winner of the Avian Bowl at UC Davis Ag Science Field Day, on the poultry committee at the County Fair... I've been out of it for 25 years, though. Why does this surprise you?

More to the point, I had Marek's worsen and run through my flock in the 1980's. The first one was improperly diagnosed as a stroke, and confirmation didn't come until we saw it in hatchlings. I actually know a fair bit about this, entirely by happenstance.

Anyway, you missed the point:

Any non-sterilizing immunity whether natural or induced by vaccine may cause antigenic drift through "immune pressure."

Bingo. The point is that vaccination doesn't introduce a spooky new mechanism for selection, because it's competing with natural immunity that would be similar. That's not so for Marek's. Marek's also has worsened, but it's not so much due to vaccination as it is the emergence of a global chicken monoculture in the 1970's onward. Behavior drives pandemics, both in people and in chickens. Now, you could argue that Marek's vaccines helped enable the emergence of our current chicken planet... but that's a more complex discussion.

Instead, the best way to control emergence of new variants is to reduce the total number of infections. Vaccination is a net positive in that respect. Total quarantine would be better still, but I trust you'll agree that's not remotely workable.

[Sousuke]

I was going to reply with "Whoever wrote that is a fool," but then I realized we were talking about Dr. Joseph Mercola, and had to pull stronger language off the shelf.

Immunity from any source could be termed "evolutionary pressure," I suppose, but at that point what matters is the prevalence and attack rate. The more trials, the more chances for a successful mutation.

Vaccination reduces transmissibility, and cuts down both rates. Since SARS-CoV-2 is going endemic whether we like it or not this is probably no longer an issue -- but the idea that vaccination will lead to worse viral diversity is just plain stupid. The only thing it does at a population standpoint is increase the rate at which population acquires effective immunity. On an individual basis, the difference can be much more significant.

I adore that this quack is making an analogy to Marek's Disease in poultry to back up his claims, partly because of the rank stupidity in doing so, and partly because I was one a poultry exhibitor and have some relevant background in this topic. The relevance is zero -- Marek's is an alphaherpes virus and is never cleared by the host. This bears no similarity to coronaviruses. In this situation, it is correct that a modern infection in a bird immunized with an older vaccine will preferentially shed vaccine-competent strains of the virus... big surprise. But those alternate strains are already there. Vaccination does not create them or even enhance them, it just makes them easier to detect. If the vaccine-competent strains are more dangerous overall, they will outperform the original strain anyway over time.

Poultry farmers work on thin profit margins. If vaccination against Marek's were a net negative, they wouldn't do it.

Dr. Mercola is doing this to push his own line of woo health products. His self-interest in this crap is clear. Some twoo believers are simply misguided and well-meaning, but not this time.

I mentioned this in a thread probably a month ago, but one of the primary drivers of mutations is likely persons in hospital for long periods of time on anti-viral drugs where the virus has time to adapt in a body over months. Given that vaccines have to a degree started to break the link the between infection and hospitalization, it seems pretty backwards to blame the vaccine.

As you've said, if the vaccines drive certain variants to near extinction leaving another variant to infill, that's just natural selection....they aren't 'creating' new variants.

[Sousuke]

Who knows. Its going to mutate as it will to survive.

Eventually the mutations will no longer add much to the competitiveness of the virus and it will reach 'peak fitness'.

[sd_shooter]

I mentioned this in a thread probably a month ago, but one of the primary drivers of mutations is likely persons in hospital for long periods of time on anti-viral drugs where the virus has time to adapt in a body over months. Given that vaccines have to a degree started to break the link the between infection and hospitalization, it seems pretty backwards to blame the vaccine.

As you've said, if the vaccines drive certain variants to near extinction leaving another variant to infill, that's just natural selection....they aren't 'creating' new variants.

So why would it not be the Vax as well? All those TX Dems showed that you can have a plane full of people, all vaxxed, yet some variant infected a large number of them. That strain is now resistant to the vax (and hopefully infected Biden's entire cabinet.)

[as_rocketman]

So why would it not be the Vax as well? All those TX Dems showed that you can have a plane full of people, all vaxxed, yet some variant infected a large number of them. That strain is now resistant to the vax (and hopefully infected Biden's entire cabinet.)

There's no evidence they've been infected by a new strain. All that happened is that some of them had poor immune response to vaccination (or lied about getting vaccinated, that would be interesting), which is entirely expected among a sizable group of people.

The newspapers try to blame every new outbreak on "Variants," but that's rarely supported.

While we're worrying about accidentally creating reservoirs that promote genetic drift, we might as well do it properly and note that SARS-CoV-2 is cross-infective to a large number of other species. We may actually have a problem here. No need to make up fake reasons not to vaccinate.

[Sousuke]

So why would it not be the Vax as well? All those TX Dems showed that you can have a plane full of people, all vaxxed, yet some variant infected a large number of them. That strain is now resistant to the vax (and hopefully infected Biden's entire cabinet.)

The dominant variant (if they caught the Delta version) came out of country with a very low vaccine rate for one. In fact, the variant surfaced in December before India really even started their vaccine program.