Comment on Mandates vs. Religious Exemptions by Sean Pitman.
What I’m saying is that this research isn’t relevant to real life when it comes to the actual risk of the mRNA vaccines turning themselves into DNA and then integrating themselves into the human genome. That simply isn’t a valid concern for several rather obvious reasons.
First off, you have to understand how this research was done. They took hepatic cancer cells, not normal human cells, and exposed these highly atypical mutated cells to large amounts of Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine in vitro. Then, they detected that the mRNA sequences had been decoded and that spike proteins were being produced – as expected. No surprise here. Then, they demonstrated that some DNA copies had been made of the mRNA via the reverse transcriptase in the cancer cells – knowing that cancer cells often produced increased quantities of reverse transcriptase. That’s it. That’s all that they demonstrated. But how is this relevant to real life? – to any kind of real risk for the mRNA vaccines? I’m not making this up. What the authors did was to deliberately set up an experiment with a highly mutated cancer cell line that they knew, ahead of time, would produce an outcome that doesn’t reflect what happens in real life with normal human tissues.
“Huh-7 is an immortal cell line composed of epithelial-like, tumorigenic cells. The majority of Huh-7 cells show a chromosome number between 55 and 63 (mode 60) and are highly heterogeneous… The cell model that we used in this study is a carcinoma cell line, with active DNA replication which differs from non-dividing somatic cells.”
Note that “Huh7 cells” specifically show “changes in gene expression of long interspersed nuclear element-1 (LINE-1)” – which is an endogenous reverse transcriptase. LINE-1 retrotransposons are necessarily active during embryogenesis are aberrantly active in tumorigenesis. cancer cell genomes substantially overexpress L1 (Link). L1 expression is directly related to the cell’s DNA damage response (Link). L1 levels are even being proposed as a biomarker to cancer screening (Link).
This is why these authors used these particular hepatic tumor cells. However, that is not enough, as reverse transcriptase does not integrate the DNA strands thus produced into the human genome. A second enzyme is needed – an integrase. Integrases insert the double-stranded DNA produced by reverse transcriptase into the host’s chromosomal DNA. And, this particular step was not demonstrated in this study since the required integrase enzyme wasn’t shown to be produced by these hepatic cancer cells (since integrase is produced by retroviruses, not human cells).
Clearly, then, what the authors of this paper did not demonstrate is that there is a real risk of any kind for actual humans in real life. In short, there is no significant risk of getting the mRNA vaccines to alter the human genome – given that the mRNA vaccines are injected into the deltoid muscle and locally taken up by these muscle cells, not cancer cells. These muscle cells, unlike the hepatocellular cancer cells, have no significant levels of reverse transcriptase or integrase production.
This is basically the same thing as with the last article you cited with concerns over the mRNA vaccines altering the human genome. Such concerns simply aren’t based on the weight of reasonable scientific evidence, which is abundant.
See also the interesting commentary about this by David H. Gorski, MD, PhD: Link
Sean Pitman Also Commented
Mandates vs. Religious Exemptions
I’m just saying is that if you think that what you say on blog sites like this one doesn’t really affect people, especially when you present yourself as an MD, you’re mistaken. I know that people have been influenced against taking the mRNA vaccines by what you’ve said here in this forum. You’re not simply being neutral in what you’ve posted. You do, in fact, come across as being opposed to the mRNA vaccines – also noting that you didn’t get vaccinated yourself and chose to get infected by the live COVID-19 virus without pre-established vaccine-based immunity. You’ve also come across as being strongly against any response by me to the articles that you’ve referenced where I point out how these papers really do not actually undermine the efficacy and/or the relative safety of the mRNA vaccines. Clearly, you don’t come across as being neutral on the topic.
And, such comments have an effect on people – they really do. While that upsets me, again, it’s more important to me to allow for those who disagree with me to also post their comments rather than to only allow what I personally think is true to be posted.
Beyond this, no one is twisting your arm to post our comments here. You can post or not post as you wish. That’s entirely up to you. But, don’t expect that I won’t push back when you post comments that I think will increase the risk of those who read what you have to say…
Mandates vs. Religious Exemptions
The difference between us is that I see people in the ICU, as does my brother-in-law Dr. Roger Seheult (a pulmonologist in S. Cal.). You might see the occasional person die from COVID-19, but those who work ICUs in larger medical centers see far too many people die from COVID-19 – to include young people (not just those in nursing homes). You might offer the vaccine to those whom you see, but if you present arguments to them like the ones you’ve presented here, such advice most certainly does result in increased injuries and even death. For me, that’s a big deal. You might call it “weird and overly dramatic” if you want, but for me the effort to save lives and reduce injuries is neither “weird” nor “overly dramatic”. I mean, that’s why I do what I do…
Now, you say, “The discussions that I have on blogs like this are my personal thoughts and concerns. They don’t reflect the way that I actually practice primary care medicine on a daily basis.”
That would be great if this were a private conversation, but it isn’t. It is a public conversation and your words have an impact on the hundreds who read this blog every day. I mean, in a very real sense, especially given that you include your title “MD” with your name, and often point out that you are a medical doctor when you post to this blog, you are, in fact, practicing medicine when you post public comments like you do. You cannot simply say, “I don’t actually follow my own advice that I post in blogs when I practice primary care medicine on a daily basis.” Your influence simply isn’t limited to what you do face-to-face with patients in your clinic. Your influence also extends to what you say and do in front of people outside of your daily medical practice.
Mandates vs. Religious Exemptions
Well, I’m glad you go at least this far… although I still think that the kinds of arguments you present here really do put people’s lives and health at increased risk. I know you don’t agree, but that’s how I see things from my own perspective.
Now, I’m fine with you, and those who think like you, having the ability to freely share your opinions – despite how mistaken and damaging I personally think these opinions may be. That’s just the nature of living in a free society – which I think is far more important than restricting the freedom of speech.
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Thank you Ariel. Hope you are doing well these days. Miss seeing you down at Loma Linda. Hope you had a Great Thanksgiving!
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Thank you Colin. Just trying to save lives any way I can. Not everything that the government does or leaders do is “evil” BTW…
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Only someone who knows the future can make such decisions without being a monster…
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Where did I “gloss over it”?
Review of “The Naked Emperor” by Pastor Conrad Vine
I fail to see where you have convincingly supported your claim that the GC leadership contributed to the harm of anyone’s personal religious liberties? – given that the GC leadership does not and could not override personal religious liberties in this country, nor substantively change the outcome of those who lost their jobs over various vaccine mandates. That’s just not how it works here in this country. Religious liberties are personally derived. Again, they simply are not based on a corporate or church position, but rely solely upon individual convictions – regardless of what the church may or may not say or do.
Yet, you say, “Who cares if it is written into law”? You should care. Everyone should care. It’s a very important law in this country. The idea that the organized church could have changed vaccine mandates simply isn’t true – particularly given the nature of certain types of jobs dealing with the most vulnerable in society (such as health care workers for example).
Beyond this, the GC Leadership did, in fact, write in support of personal religious convictions on this topic – and there are GC lawyers who have and continue to write personal letters in support of personal religious convictions (even if these personal convictions are at odds with the position of the church on a given topic). Just because the GC leadership also supports the advances of modern medicine doesn’t mean that the GC leadership cannot support individual convictions at the same time. Both are possible. This is not an inconsistency.
