New Pre-Print Shows mRNA Vaccines Depress Adaptive Immunity and Some Changes Can Be Inherited by Offspring

But what does it mean?

A couple of days ago I tweeted a link to this post by the brilliant brains behind the Arkmedic blog who brought my attention to this pre-print at BioRXiv from researchers at Thomas Jefferson U in Philadelphia. The paper reports on several experiments conducted on mice with an mRNA-based influenza vaccine candidate. The tweet started to go viral, and within a few hours I had a couple hundred new followers and tens of thousands of impressions. But the tweet contained a significant error, so I decided to delete it, as I do not want to spread false information. Problem was I wrote the tweet before reading the paper myself, relying solely on that blog post. Lesson learned. I promised an update and correction, so here I am.

The paper in question is titled “Pre-exposure to mRNA-LNP inhibits adaptive immune responses and alters innate immune fitness in an inheritable fashion."

They found that mice given the mRNA vaccine and then exposed intranasally to the influenza strain it coded for were more resistant to infection than the unvaccinated mice. Great, just what you’d hope for. Problem is, the rest of their findings showed that mRNA injections inflict catastrophic damage on the immune system.

mRNA Injections Depress Adaptive Immunity

First, they found that mRNA injections depressed the mice’s adaptive immune system (antibodies and B-cells) following inoculation. They did this by giving the mice an mRNA vaccination for an unrelated disease, then exposing them to influenza and examining their immune response. They found that mice injected with either loaded or empty injections of LNPs showed an equal decrease in antibody and B-cell levels, compared to those injected with a placebo (PBS). “Thus,” the authors conclude, “these data suggest that pre-exposure to this platform can inhibit subsequent adaptive immune responses and that the LNPs play a critical role in this.”

They found this suppressive effect on antibody and B-cell production lasted between 4-8 weeks for antibodies and for B-cells at least 8 weeks (which was the cutoff for the study). They also found evidence suggesting the the effectiveness of the mRNA vaccination wanes with successive shots.

mRNA Injections Increase Susceptibility to Other Infections

They then exposed the mice injected with the influenza vaccine to either the influenza strain or to Candida albicans, a strain of yeast responsible for Candida infections. As noted above, compared to uninjected mice, the injected mice did a better job fighting off influenza infection. However, they did worse fighting off Candida infections:

“the mRNA-LNP exposed mice showed significantly diminished resistance towards Candida albicans infection. They lost significantly more weight (Figure 5D) and we detected approximately a log higher CFU counts in their kidneys (Figure 5E), which are the target organs in this mouse model of disseminated candidiasis. Thus, these data suggest that pre-exposure to mRNA-LNPs might alter innate immune fitness.”

They cite another pre-print I referenced in my comments to the FDA’s VRBPAC committee on continued booster doses, which also shows a devastating impact of the mRNA vaccines on the immune system, titled “The BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 reprograms both adaptive and innate immune responses.”

Immune Changes Can Be Inherited

OK, now here we get to the biggest bombshell in this paper. They vaccinated male and female mice and had them breed: one pair where neither parent was exposed to the mRNA vaccines, one where both were, one where mom was but dad wasn’t, and one where dad was but mom wasn’t.

The pups were then exposed intranasally to influenza to see what happened. What they found was that all the mice who had one or more parent vaccinated had a better response to influenza than the ones born to two unvaccinated parents. The ones with the mother vaccinated did better than the one with just the dad vaccinated, but even those pups did better than pups with both parents unvaccinated. The heritability waned with successive litters born to the original pair, but by the 4th litter those with a vaccinated mother still saw increased protection.¹ There was variation across the pairings in how quickly the effects waned across successive litters.

OK, but what about the immune suppression and increased susceptibility to other infections, like Candida, that we saw in their parents? Well, I guess the researchers ran out of time or money, or they got bored, because they didn’t bother to check! Or if they did check (why would they not?), they didn’t like what they saw and left it out of the paper. Whatever the case may be, the bottom line is we don’t know if the destructive effects of the vaccination were passed on to offspring.

Furthermore, we don’t know the mechanism by which those traits were passed on. The researchers speculate that the mRNA injections may have made epigenetic changes that were passed on. Epigenetic changes here basically means that although the DNA code remains unaltered, there is a change to the process by which the cells produce proteins from genetic instruction — how the body reads and processes that code, basically. Here is an article Arkmedic shared on transgenerational epigenetic inheritance.

Nevertheless, Arkmedic, who is eminently qualified to weigh in on this paper, favors the hypothesis that the injections induced genetic changes and views the epigenetic mechanism claimed by the researchers as very tenuous—but notes that even if it is epigenetic, it must be affecting germ cells (sperm and eggs). Epigenetic changes to the germ cells is still a very big deal whose full repercussions are unknown.

Some have claimed that the inherited response is due to antibodies passed from the mother to the pups, for example through breastmilk. And that is likely part of the story, but it cannot explain why the pups born to vaccinated dads but not vaccinated moms also had an improved immune response to influenza. Nor why the pups born to 2 vaccinated parents had a better response than those born only to vaccinated mothers. So long story short: the protective immune effects are inherited even if just the dad is injected, so this cannot be simply about moms passing antibodies to their babies.

We don’t know if the detrimental effects of mRNA injection on the immune system are inherited because the authors didn’t test for that — but the precautionary principle demands that we assume so until proven otherwise. We also don’t know the mechanisms of how immune protection is passed on or whether there are genetic changes made or purely epigenetic ones. Nor do we know anything about the nature of those epigenetic changes and how they are inherited. But hey, safe and effective, right?

1. The error in my tweet concerned this issue — I stated that the successive litters were successive generations (with 4th generation being the great great grand kids, but in fact it was just a 4th successive litter from the same parents).