Is it true that you can become infected with prion diseases through the coronavirus vaccine?

There is a widespread belief that the vaccine contains special infectious objects - prions - or promotes their formation in the body of the vaccinated person, causing neurodegenerative diseases and dementia in the long term. We decided to check whether there is scientific evidence to support such fears.

The primary source of information about upcoming side effects of vaccination were people with medical and biological education. American immunologist John Klassen warns of such consequences of mRNA vaccines in his article “RNA Vaccines against COVID-19 and the Risk of Prion Diseases,” which published Journal of Microbiology & Infectious Diseases. Russian microbiologist and reserve medical service colonel Mikhail Supotnitsky reports in his book “COVID-19: a difficult test for humanity” that the S-protein from vaccines can lead to such consequences. French Nobel laureate Luc Montagnier declares, which knows of at least five cases of prion disease that occurred after vaccination with the Pfizer-BioNTech drug.

Information about the connection between vaccines and prion diseases is also disseminated on Telegram-channels, blogs, social networks and even in Media. For example, actress and TV presenter Maria Shukshina asserts: “It has been experimentally shown that the S protein has a prion effect, that is, it causes incorrect folding of proteins in neuronal cells and damages brain neurons. In the blood, it induces the formation of insoluble amyloid clots, which interfere with blood flow and cause vascular thrombosis. In the long term, there is the development of prion brain diseases in vaccinated people. Ignoring this property of the S-protein will lead to the fact that in a few years tens of millions of vaccinated Russians will be diagnosed with dementia and neurodegenerative brain diseases.” About the RNA vaccine reportthat it “causes long-term neurological damage up to and including the fatal Alzheimer's and Lou Gehrig's diseases.” By words Internet users, some vaccinated people experienced dementia literally two days after vaccination.

Prion diseases are a group of neurodegenerative diseases in humans and animals caused by prions, special infectious proteins.

First described The prion disease was a disease of sheep called “scrapie”, which initially manifests itself in skin itching, which causes the animal to itch (scrape), then paralysis and death occur. Scrapie cases were noted back in the 1700s in Europe. In the 1920s, German doctors Hans-Gerhard Creutzfeldt and Alfons Jakob investigated an incurable disease of the nervous system in humans. In particular, they made preparations of the brains of the dead that looked like a sponge due to the death of entire sections of neurons. The disease was later named Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in honor of its researchers.

Only in 1967, American pediatrician Carlton Gaidushek smog relate the clinical picture of another prion disease, kuru disease, and a pathogen not related to previously known bacteria, viruses, protozoa or fungi. Gaidushek studied viral diseases in New Guinea. There he became interested in the disease, which the Aborigines called kuru - in the local language this word meant "trembling" or "spoilage", which indicated a belief in the supernatural nature of the disease. The children and women of the Fore tribe, who practiced ritual cannibalism, were most susceptible to kuru. For several months, the sick person was shaking; because of the trembling, he first lost the ability to stand, then sit, then the trembling gave way to paralysis and death occurred.

The Fore brain preparations sent to Europe were extremely similar to those prepared by Creutzfeldt and Jacob. Their structure was also identified by British veterinarian Bill Hadlow, who indicated that he had observed similar lesions in sheep that died from scrapie. So all these diseases were combined into one group. Carlton Gaidushek and the anthropologist Shirley Glass, who worked there, guessed that ritual cannibalism was the route of transmission of the disease. Out of respect for the deceased, his fellow tribesmen ate him, including his brain, because they believed that his talents would thus be passed on to others. Women and children, who fell ill most often, were preparing the ritual funeral meal, and therefore had more contact with infected tissues. To date, kuru has been almost completely eradicated from the Fore tribe, getting rid of ritual cannibalism. According to various sources, the last death from kuru was recorded in 2005 or 2009 year.

However, the causative agent of the disease remained unknown for a long time; didn't work known antibiotics, it did not die at a temperature of 95 ° C and was not recognized under microscopes of that time. Then Carlton Gaidushek suggested the presence of a certain pathogen, smaller in size than the virus. Only in 1982 was a particle able highlight American doctor Stanley Prusiner, he called it a prion (from the words protein, “protein”, and infection, “infection”). For this discovery he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1997.

To date known five human diseases that are caused by prions: the already mentioned Creutzfeldt-Jakob and kuru diseases, as well as Hertsmann-Straussler-Scheinker syndrome, variable protease-sensitive prionopathy and fatal insomnia (all three are predominantly hereditary in nature, and there is no cure for them). In animals, prions are responsible for the occurrence of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, including bovine spongiform encephalopathy (popularly known as mad cow disease). Now prion diseases have It has a 100% mortality rate, and it usually takes about 30 years from infection to the onset of symptoms; however, there are also more rapidly developing forms.

A prion is a protein whose production is encoded on chromosome 20, whose normal form can spontaneously or under the influence of external factors change its chemical composition, causing neurodegenerative diseases. Alzheimer's and Lou Gehrig's diseases (also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, ALS) are not prion diseases. The main reason for the first one today is considered sediments beta-amyloid, a peptide whose precursor protein encoded not in the 20th, but in the 21st chromosome. The cause of ALS has not been definitively established, about 20% of cases are hereditary, related with mutations of the superoxide dismutase-1 gene, located again, not in the 20th, but in the 21st chromosome.

Because the claimants were talking about different vaccines and lumping together prion and other neurodegenerative diseases, we will look at the four claims separately:

— S protein-based vaccines cause prion diseases;
— vaccines based on S protein cause neurodegenerative diseases, in particular Alzheimer’s and Lou Gehrig’s diseases;
- mRNA vaccines cause prion diseases;
— mRNA-based vaccines cause neurodegenerative diseases, in particular Alzheimer's and Lou Gehrig's diseases; 

Vaccines based on S-protein include those used in Russia "Sputnik V", as well as some Western ones, for example AstraZeneca And Johnson & Johnson. The S protein is not even close in structure to the PrPC protein (normal prion protein) or the PrPSc protein (disease-associated prion protein). The most obvious difference between them: S protein consists of of about 1300 amino acid bases, and PrPC - only out of 208. A non-prion protein cannot have a prion effect.

The most detailed report on adverse events from vaccines, which includes data on S-protein-based drugs, was issued by the Argentine Ministry of Health. In total, it analyzed possible side effects after more than 13 million doses of Sputnik V and 14 million AstraZeneca. However, none of these vaccines, according to the report, caused the development of Alzheimer's disease or Lou Gehrig's disease. It’s worth noting right away that there is no mention of prion diseases either. Thus, no scientific evidence supports the theories outlined by Mikhail Supotnitsky.

mRNA-based vaccines are not used in Russia. This class of vaccines presented two drugs: the American Moderna and the German-American Pfizer - BioNTech. The US VAERS Adverse Event Reporting System does not report any prion or neurodegenerative diseases resulting from vaccination with mRNA vaccines. reported American fact-checking resource PolitiFact Martha Sharan, representative of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The American Alzheimer's Association strongly recommends vaccinate patients with this disease.

Prion disease, particularly Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, has four causes of development: sporadic (the gene mutates on its own) - about 85% of cases; hereditary (the gene is initially more prone to mutation) - according to various estimates, from 5% to 15%; iatrogenic (infection with a mutated prion occurs from the outside, for example, during cannibalism among the Fore or during a poorly performed medical procedure) - less than 1%; new, variant (when eating meat from infected livestock) - 178 cases are known in the UK and 53 abroad. It is logical that only the iatrogenic form can be at least somehow connected with vaccination. However, this is refuted by several facts.

More Carlton Gaidushek suffered failed in trying to infect animals by injecting blood and muscle particles and even brain preparations from dead humans. First successful programmed case of infection happened, only when he injected the pulp from the cerebellum of a victim of kuru directly into the brain of the experimental chimpanzee Georgette. Moreover, brain cells are not part of those cell lines that really were used during the development of almost all currently known coronavirus vaccines.

Moreover, most of the finished drugs (in particular, the Sputnik V vaccine based on the S protein used in Russia, the AstraZeneca S-protein vaccine not used in Russia, as well as the Moderna and Pfizer - BioNTech based on mRNA technology) cleared from cellular lines chromatographic method. Moreover, the lines used in the development of these vaccines, mainly HEK (Human Embryonic Kidney) 293, belong, as the name suggests, to embryos (the congenital form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is not known to science), therefore, they cannot be infected with a prion. In addition, the HEK 293 line has been used since 1973, that is, for 48 years, and not a single case of the development of the disease due to vaccination has been recorded.

At the same time, in the history of mankind there have been cases of infection with prion diseases during medical procedures. For example, in France, as a result of infection in the 1980s died 110 children (children who were stunted were injected with a drug from the pituitary gland of animals with mad cow disease), and four case infections occurred due to blood transfusions between 1996 and 1999. Since then, there have been no reports of any cases of iatrogenic transmission of the disease. Separately, it is worth noting that authoritative American medical resources even before the start of the new coronavirus pandemic had to allay citizens' concerns about whether the vaccine could become a source of bovine prions. The answer is clear: no, it cannot. Serum obtained from cow tissue can actually be used in vaccine production. However, prions are found only in the brain, spinal cord, brain, and retina. The serum uses fetal blood. Not only are prions not contained in the blood at all, but the placental barrier also provides a filtering function, making it impossible for prions to be transmitted from an infected animal to an unborn embryo.

The skin and connective tissue that is used to make the gelatin on which the cell culture is grown cannot contain prions either. Separately, scientists note that “transmission of prions has never been documented after intramuscular or subcutaneous injection of the vaccine.” CDC back in 2000 released document stating that “there is not a single piece of evidence linking Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and vaccination.” They called the risk of getting sick after vaccination only “theoretical,” emphasizing that the benefits of vaccination significantly outweigh it.

It is also worth considering where and who published this false information about the connection of vaccines with prion and neurodegenerative diseases. The story of this connection regarding mRNA vaccines was published by Jon Klassen in the journal Microbiology & Infectious Diseases, which is a so-called "predatory magazines" from Jeffrey Bill's list. They take money from authors for publications, but do not provide the necessary editing and scientific review. That is, information published in such a journal cannot be trusted in principle. Separately, it is worth noting that the impact factor of this journal amounts to only 0.29. 

The scientific community also has complaints about the text of the article. Yes, author writesthat the mRNA vaccine "has been analyzed to contain sequences that induce the folding of TDP-43 and FUS into their pathological prion structures, leading to the development of ALS, anterior temporal lobe degeneration, Alzheimer's disease and other neurological diseases." However, in the study itself there is no data demonstrating what kind of analysis was carried out. Scientist and science popularizer David Gorski criticizes Jon Klassen's work: "Seriously, how did he do that? He doesn't speak. He simply claims to have "analyzed" the mRNA sequence encoding the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein used in the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, but does not explain how he did this. He does not provide any data demonstrating how this sequence activates TDP-43 and FUS." The American Council on Science and Health also released a refutation article in which he examined the main theses of the author of the material. 

If you look closely at Klassen's biography, you can find his and earlier anti-vaccination statements in it. In particular, in 1999 he claimedthat there is a connection between flu vaccination and type 1 diabetes. At the same time, in the Standards of Medical Care for Diabetes, released The American Diabetes Association emphasizes the importance of immunizing this population against influenza. Johns Hopkins University Vaccine Safety Institute did even a systematic review of 13 studies showed there was no link between the flu shot and diabetes. In addition, Klassen actively disseminates information about refuted the science behind the link between vaccinations and obesity, as well as the development of autism in children. Klassen's ideas are active promotes anti-vaxxer and sponsor of this movement Robert Kennedy Jr., more about whose activities and earnings on this topic can be found read from our colleagues.

Luc Montagnier, although he received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2008, was more than once caught fact checkers on the spread of misinformation. He does not confirm his words about five people infected with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. IN report CDC has no such data on adverse events. The very picture of the disease (clinical symptoms develop many years after infection) contradicts the words of the Nobel laureate.

Mikhail Supotnitsky does not have the same scientific recognition as Luc Montagnier, and has not published his theory in scientific journals. He published his book at the Russian Panorama publishing house, which, according to a statement on website, cooperates with “universities and academic institutions.” Despite the title of colonel of the medical service and the position of deputy editor-in-chief of one of the scientific journals of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, he adheres to not recognized scientific community's views on the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In his book, he also adheres to a point of view about antibody-dependent enhancement.

To summarize: Alzheimer's and Lou Gehrig's diseases are not prion diseases at all. S protein or mRNA vaccines are unable to cause either these or true prion diseases. The scientists spreading these stories have already been noticed more than once by fact checkers in conspiracy theories, their works are published in non-authoritative publications, and the hypotheses they put forward are not confirmed by the scientific community.

Fake

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. Do vaccines really change our DNA?
2. Robert Kennedy and his anti-vaccination lobby - dossier
3. How to check scientific evidence
4. Paevsky A., Khoruzhaya A. That's cholera! History of diseases from syphilis to leprosy
5. How to navigate scientific information during a pandemic. Interview with Alexey Vodovozov