First, sorry about my slowing down of blogs but my life is so crazy busy right now. Most of my free time was spent getting my new book out, Breaking Free, which is now available on Amazon. I am getting great feedback on it, helping tons of people heal and move towards improved drug-free health. If you want to check it out, click here .
This blog is going to be a little different, going through the decision process I went through that led me to getting the MRNA vaccine from Pfizer. Now, I am not trying to convince anyone of anything. I spent months agonizing and researching this issue because I hate drugs and vaccines and believe in keeping the immune system strong instead of using modern technology to boost it or tweak it to do our bidding, and possibly harming us in the process. My health is stellar and I work hard on it. The last thing I wanted was to possibly impact that in some negative direction through a relatively new untested experimental drug that uses your biology to produce a foreign protein, in fact, not even one that is part of the invading virus (more on that later). So as you can imagine, this was a very tough and emotional decision for me.
And I apologize. This is going to get technical. There is no way around it. How else can I describe the mind-blowing vaccine technology and how it ends up protecting us and possibly harming us? And believe me, the science is not conclusive on this and scientists, like myself, do not all agree on this. So it ends up being a risk/benefit decision for all of us. And since we are all different with different disease states and conditions, you must have the freedom to make that decision for yourself.
So here were my concerns:
1) Hacking our cellular machinery to produce a foreign protein. We know so much now about how we make protein that labs are able to make a code composed of the right elements in the right order that is read by the cell that in turn generates a protein similar to the spike protein on the COVID virus. As far we know, this is not messing with our DNA or genes, but rather the process that goes on after our DNA is read and transcribed into the appropriate proteins. So now we have proved that we can cause our cells to make designer proteins that we can code for in a lab. And we know we can get that code into the cells using the right fats that escort the code through the cell wall and into the right machinery that read the code and produce the desired protein. This is at once scary as hell, and absolutely miraculous. And we were able to decompose the spike protein to see what it was made of, and find out how it worked to not only latch on to our cells, but then change its physical shape to then allow penetration of certain parts of the virus into our cells. So to avoid doing the same thing with our designer protein, we caused the cell to build a slightly different protein that could bind to the cell wall but not allow it to change its shape, thus removing the potential to allow anything to penetrate the cell wall but at the same time, being close enough to the viral spike protein so that antibodies that formed in our blood stream by our immune system would be good enough to recognize the actual viral spike protein and fight it off. So, besides the fear of hijacking our protein production process and any possible down stream effects of that, I also was concerned that we produced a Frankenstein protein that is a little different from the actual viral protein, hoping that it could not damage anything more while helping to build immunity by causing the immune system to produce anti bodies that kill the virus itself.
As it turns out, the vaccine produces this protein which mostly expresses on the outside of the cell it came from and stays there, without spreading throughout the body and binding to other cells, which could cause some harm, mainly in the area of altered blood pressure. Let me try and explain (if you are interested). The virus spike protein binds to the a receptor on your cell called the ACE2 receptor, then changes form and allows viral penetration into the cellular DNA, which then becomes a viral production factory. Score two for the virus: We need the ACE2 receptors on our cells to help control blood pressure (so the virus is binding to that and keeping it from doing that function) and 2) also, the virus is able to use this as a bridge to get into our DNA and replicate itself. So, the vaccine-produced protein does two good things, one, it stays on the outside of the cell wall, not binding to the ACE2 receptors plus because of its design, does not change shape. But, here is the rub, once the immune system attacks the cells with the vaccine-produced protein, the protein could be released and be free floating in your blood stream and then bind to your ACE2 receptors elsewhere in your body. But at the very low level that we have seen in the body through various studies (which has been detected in lab experiments), could this harm you? Most people do just fine and have very little reaction past a couple of days beyond the vaccination days. Some have more severe reactions for 5-6 days, then it all clears up. Long term effects from this particular type of damage? Probably not because the vaccine is used up, a certain amount of spike-like protein is made, most of it stays put on our muscle cells around the injection site, and that is the end of it and we have trillions of cells in our body so only some of them would be affected. On balance, the benefit seems to outweigh the risk. The risk is that if you get infected with the virus, your own body is converted into a virus production machine, spreading an unlimited amount of spike protein throughout your system, until your immune system catches up and destroys the virus or your dead before that happens or you are left with months of recovery (long haulers).
2) Pulling some RNA back into our DNA. Normally, DNA is a code that is read by RNA, then RNA goes off to make the right protein. But there is something called reverse transcriptase, a natural part of your cellular processes that occurs in some cases, like rebuilding your telomeres, that pulls RNA back into the DNA and changes your DNA code. The last thing I wanted was to embed this MRNA from the vaccine into my DNA, to result in an endless production of some weird protein in my system. However, every real piece of science I have read says that this is not possible and would be very unexpected based on our current understanding of how this process works. Do we know everything about cellular biology? Not even close. Could it happen? Possibly, but it would violate our current knowledge of how RNA influences DNA. The risk of this is low.
3) Metals in the vaccine. Many vaccines have metals like aluminum to stimulate our immune systems to react to the vaccine agent. This is one reason I avoid vaccines. I look closely at the vaccine content and the MRNA vaccines use a different method, not metals, to stimulate the immune system to react to the protein produced from the vaccine, so that is good.
4) Allergic reactions to the vaccine. Many people are highly allergic and/or reactive to foreign substances to the body. This could be caused by a number of factors, including histamine intolerance. I myself have bad seasonal allergies so I was concerned about that. But I figured if I took an anti-histamine before my shot, I should do pretty well on that score. But some very educated doctors on histamine intolerance who have that condition, will not take the shot for fear of severe reactions. So if you have Mast Cell Activation Syndrome or some lesser form of histamine intolerance, you may want to think twice about this vaccine, or least prepare your system with some antihistamines prior to the shots.
5) Adverse Events. The CDC has an adverse events reporting data base that is open to anyone who wants to report a bad reaction to the vaccine, including deaths. And to date, there have been several thousand reported deaths within a few days after the vaccine. This is certainly a concern, even though over 150 million doses have been given and only a few thousand deaths reported. But who wants to be among those few deaths? Not me.
On the other hand, thousands of deaths occur in the U.S. every day, many of them totally unexpected with no warning. And there is no proof that the vaccine caused the death. And if it did, there is no information on what else was going on with that person before the vaccine. The vaccine could have been the straw that broke the camels back in a person that was already deathly ill. We just don't know. More research into each reported death needs to occur from, I am sure, an already overburdened CDC staff.
6) New, untested, experimental vaccines. As it turns out, the technology has been in development for many years with some breakthroughs in last few years on delivery methods on getting the MRNA into the cells using the right fats to escort the MRNA through the cell walls and into the protein making machinery. Although you could have an allergic reaction to the fats, many roadblocks have been erased from some very smart technologists to make this happen. But it certainly did not happen over night. Does that mean it is safe? Could be. Could be the greatest biological achievement of mankind, leading to breakthrough treatments for many protein-related diseases. And the timing for these breakthroughs could not have been better. Or, these vaccines could have long term effects we do not predict or are not aware of. That is a risk. The benefit is obvious, it could protect you from serious and life-threatening reactions to the this latest variant and probably more variants to come, perhaps with new vaccines.
Overall thinking. My final thinking was: This new variant is bad. And with the drop in mandating masks for those that have been vaccinated, this is like giving a license to those who are not vaccinated to not wear a mask in public, because, who is checking? No one! So now you are going to have a situation where the variant is going to take off because of the unvaccinated anti-maskers. So there will be no end to this thing, cases will grow, at least in the near term, I don't want to be a 67 year old catching the latest variant, far more deadly than the original. That is what finally forced my hand into getting the vaccine, where the benefit outweighed the risk, almost against my will and basic principles that my immune system, if strong, should protect me, since I am in stellar health with everything I do to keep my immune system strong ( a lot of stuff!!). It was a tough, very tough decision and very emotional, getting those shots, being a naturalist and against vaccines to begin with. But there it is. Now, I am glad I did it. I only had mild symptoms and feel good now that at least if I get it, I will not die from it. And I feel good enough now to fly and see folks I want to see. But I still wear a mask when going inside with the public.
Hope this helps your thought process and leads you to the best decision for you.
Yours in health all ways...