TO THE EDITOR:

Are you going to get vaccinated for COVID?   If you are, which vaccine are you going to get?  What is the difference between the Pfizer/Moderna/AstraZeneca vaccines?

Vaccines traditionally contain either weakened viruses or purified signature proteins of the virus which when administered fools the body’s immune system into producing antibodies even though there is no disease.  The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are not traditional but are messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines, and the first-ever mRNA vaccines brought to market for human patients.  So what does that mean?  Everyone wants to believe that if something is FDA approved, it’s 100% safe, and if you listen to the makers of these vaccines, you are lead to believe the same, but others will tell you that there may be unique and unknown risks associated with these RNA vaccines, including local and systemic inflammatory responses that could lead to autoimmune conditions.

Now I’m no vaccine expert, but I do believe I’m smart enough and have been on this earth long enough to know when I’m not being given the full story by these “experts”, TV talking heads, (and those with a financial interest), which causes me concern and gives me pause.  Is an mRNA vaccine a form of genetic engineering?  That’s something I would like to know before I take one.

The AstraZeneca vaccine, (yet to be FDA approved as of this writing), is not an mRNA vaccine but is made more like a traditional vaccine from a cold-causing ‘adenovirus’ that was isolated from the stool of chimpanzees and modified so that it no longer replicates in cells. When injected, the vaccine instructs human cells to produce the SARS-CoV-2 (i.e. Covid-19) spike protein — the immune system’s main target against coronaviruses.

To me this one to me sounds safer as it doesn’t “re-program” my genes, but simply tells my body to do what it already knows how to do, produce a protein that will fight Covid-19.

On top of this is the whole controversy concerning vaccines in general, I’m just suggesting that people ask some questions and do a little research before committing to one vaccine or another, or even opting to be vaccinated at all.  

Bret R. Collier

Big Lake, MN