A word about mRNA vaccines

I note that many people are concerned that mRNA vaccine technology has never before been approved for use in humans. They worry about unknown risks and nasty surprises, and are reluctant to accept the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.I am actually not worried about it, and I ' ll try to explain why. First I ' ll just note that this technology has been under development for decades, and has been tested extensively in animal models and experimentally in humans before the large-scale clinical trials that have led to Emergency Use Authorization. So there is a lot of evidence for safety, although it is true that the follow-up time for the clinical trials is so far less than is usually required for full approval. The trial subjects are still being followed so we will get a signal if anything untoward might happen -- but there is very good reason to be confident that it won ' t. This is pretty technical, and it ' s hard for people who haven ' t studied a lot of biology to get this stuff sometimes, but I ' ll do my best. Many readers will already know this, others may not. In animal cells (also plant cells, actually) the DNA in the nucleus, that kind that ' s in our chromosomes, contains instructions for making proteins. In simple terms, one gene consists of the instructions to make one protein. Proteins are long chains of smaller molecules called amino acids.  The instructions consist of three unit combinations of four different " letters, " which are also specific small molecu...
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: American Health Source Type: blogs