Vaccine forum warns Prof. Vitarana’s statement could jeopardise vaccination drive

Taking strong objection to a statement made by Prof. Tissa Vitarana that mRNA vaccines such as Pfizer “might be harmful”, vaccine experts have warned that it could create confusion among the public and jeopardise the government’s efforts to vaccinate adults and children to provide protection against the deadly COVID-19 causing virus.

“We assure the safety of these vaccines for use in humans including children,” the Vaccine and Infectious Diseases Forum of Sri Lanka headed by Consultant Paediatrician Dr. H.T. Wickremasinghe said, in a strong statement issued this week, while pointing out that many of their colleagues have already come across parents refusing to vaccinate their children because of Prof. Vitarana’s statements.

These experts are emphatic that the decision to give Pfizer or Moderna vaccines to children has been taken by global experts on vaccinology, taking into account their safety and efficacy, compared to all other candidate vaccines.

Sri Lanka’s Vaccine Forum includes Paediatricians, Immunologists, Microbiologists Virologists and Family Physicians.

Referring to the statement made by virologist Prof. Vitarana that Pfizer being an mRNA may be unsafe, as no one can predict how it would react when injected to a human, the Vaccine Forum points out that mRNA is not a genome. A genome consists of DNAs and mRNA is not the same as DNA.

“The mRNA cannot combine with our DNA to change our genetic code. It is also relatively fragile and once it is introduced into a cell will degrade within 72 hours. RNA can be transformed to DNA by one virus group called retroviruses,” states the Vaccine Forum, explaining that the Human Immune-deficiency Virus (HIV) is a retrovirus. They will do so, by producing a special enzyme called reverse transcriptase. No other virus has that ability.

These experts stress that human cells do not have reverse transcriptase, and, therefore, cannot convert the vaccine mRNA to DNA.

They further state: “In all RNA viral diseases, the virus once it enters the host cell releases mRNA into the cell. Viral mRNA then utilizes host cell processes to produce their proteins. These proteins are then assembled together to form many daughter viruses which, in turn, infect new cells. This is how viruses infect hosts. The process will go on until the body’s defence mechanisms overcome the virus.

“This relationship has been there for many millions of years, even before the existence of man. But there had never been any viral RNA material incorporated into host DNA other than in retroviral infections.

“Although mRNA vaccines are a relatively new technology, they are based on the same ancient premise: delivering mRNA into our cells, which they will use to manufacture a viral protein. But in this technology, it delivers only a small fragment of RNA which is only encoding spike protein of the virus.

“As such it does not produce anything other than the spike protein. It does not produce the virus, but only produces one single protein. The

RNA fragment will be there inside the cell for less than 72 hours.

“The other important consideration is that the mRNA used in vaccine-making is a synthetic mRNA, not the exact viral mRNA.

“In the United States of America, an anti-vaccine group went to the Supreme Court against mRNA vaccines. This group – headed by lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr., nephew of ex-president John F. Kennedy – went to court against a group of scientists including Bill Gates; the infectious diseases specialist and White House advisor Anthony Fauci and many others. The US Supreme Court dismissed the case saying that it is baseless as they could not prove it scientifically. Yet this anti-vaccine group went global saying that these vaccines will change your DNA.

“Our strong advice to the public is that this is a false statement and that there is no scientific evidence whatsoever to prove that any RNA material from a vaccine gets incorporated into our genome.

“Globally there is a rush to make vaccines and other treatment modules using this mRNA technology instead of traditional vaccine manufacturing methods, as it provides very robustly effective, safe vaccines. The manufacturing process is also very cheap and quick.

"There is ongoing research to produce vaccines using mRNA technology against cytomegalovirus (CMV), human metapneumovirus, respiratory syncytial virus, rabies, zika and vaccines against many cancers. This paradigm shift of vaccine research is solid proof of safety.”