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by hashtagmarkup 2047 days ago
This isn't about funding... this is about taking a giant leap into mRNA vaccines, that until now have not been approved for human use. We aren't injecting processed proteins into our bloodstream to trigger and train our immune systems... We are reprogramming our bodies into vaccine factories.
1 comments
collyw 2047 days ago
Not sure what you are being downvoted for. Your tone may seem pretty alarmist (but that has been the norm for anything cornoa related). Otherwise it's true.
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enchiridion 2047 days ago
Not at all and expert, but I think the idea of reprogramming is wrong, as it implies the vaccine is editing DNA (source code).

mRNA vaccines are more analogous to temporarily running a subroutine.

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klmr 2047 days ago
“Reprogramming” actually has a specific meaning in genetics, and it’s not editing of DNA, it’s the editing of (transient, i.e. epigenetic) DNA modifications. It’s definitely true that this is not what RNA vaccines are doing.

But I guess the parent comment was using “reprogramming our bodies into vaccine factories” as a hand-waving description rather than a technically precise term. And that description is then roughly correct: with RNA vaccines, it is correct to say that our bodies are being triggered to produce the actual “vaccine” themselves; namely (at least in one type of RNA vaccine), the body’s cells are translating the injected mRNA to produce antigens, which is what a conventional vaccine contains, and which, in turn, produces an immune response.

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hashtagmarkup 2047 days ago
As a hand-waving technical pedantic, you are literally correct.

But, "literally" actually has a specific meaning in english, and it's not always to be literal.

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polishdude20 2047 days ago
Yeah like letting a craftsman use your backyard shed as a woodshop for a few weeks.
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hashtagmarkup 2047 days ago
Except your "backyard shed" is actually an uncountable number of your cells that are "edited" (changed using the reprogramming abilities inherent to mRNA, but god forbid you refer to it as such) into not being "backyard sheds" anymore, but being factories for spike proteins that can't be stopped other than waiting for the fire to burn out. After a few weeks, you don't get your "backyard shed" back, because the craftsman destroyed it.
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