Why do some people think that vaccines can alter your DNA?
The usual suspects are spreading misinformation online…
Can Vaccines Alter Your DNA?
Although they are mostly talking about the new COVID-19 mRNA vaccines that are being developed, folks can be reassured that none of the vaccines that we routinely use can alter your DNA in any way.
“The original concerns associated with the DNA platform were the potential for genomic integration and development of anti-DNA immune responses. Exhaustive research has found little evidence of integration, and the risk for integration appears to be significantly lower than that associated with naturally occurring mutations”
Ferraro et al on Clinical Applications of DNA Vaccines: Current Progress
Even DNA vaccines don’t alter your DNA.
“Researchers have found that when the genes for a microbe’s antigens are introduced into the body, some cells will take up that DNA. The DNA then instructs those cells to make the antigen molecules. The cells secrete the antigens and display them on their surfaces. In other words, the body’s own cells become vaccine-making factories, creating the antigens necessary to stimulate the immune system.”
NIH on Vaccine Types
Instead, with these newer types of vaccines, the cells take up the mRNA or DNA in the vaccine, and they make the specified proteins or antigens.
Does this make you a genetically modified human being?
Of course not!
Remember, the same kind of thing happens when you get infected with the flu virus. The flu virus and it’s DNA is taken up by your cells, and those cells then start making more viral proteins. That doesn’t mean that you have been turned into any kind of flu/human hybrid though!
Some viruses do alter our DNA though. That’s how the HIV virus is able to “hide” from the cocktail of drugs that have been developed to treat it. And that’s how some viruses causes cancer.
We can’t cure these diseases with a DNA altering vaccine though.
More On Vaccines and Your DNA
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