Could mRNA Vaccines Permanently Alter DNA? Recent Science Suggests They Might.
Research on SARS-CoV-2 RNA by scientists at Harvard and MIT has implications for how mRNA vaccines could permanently alter genomic DNA, according to Doug Corrigan, Ph.D., a biochemist-molecular biologist who says more research is needed.
Over the past year, it would be all but impossible for Americans not to notice the media’s decision to make vaccines the dominant COVID narrative, rushing to do so even
before any coronavirus-attributed deaths occurred.
The media’s slanted coverage has provided a particularly fruitful public relations boost for
messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines —
decades in the making but never approved for human use — helping to usher the
experimental technology closer to the regulatory finish line.
Under ordinary circumstances, the body makes (“transcribes”)
mRNA from the DNA in a cell’s nucleus. The mRNA then travels out of the nucleus into the
cytoplasm, where it provides instructions about which proteins to make.
By comparison, mRNA vaccines send their
chemically synthesized mRNA payload (bundled with spike protein-manufacturing instructions) directly into the cytoplasm.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and most mRNA vaccine
scientists, the buck then stops there — mRNA vaccines “do not
affect or interact with our DNA in any way,” the CDC says. The CDC asserts first, that the mRNA cannot enter the cell’s nucleus (where DNA resides), and second, that the cell — Mission-Impossible-style — “gets rid of the mRNA soon after it is finished using the instructions.”
A December
preprint about
SARS-CoV-2, by scientists at Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), produced findings about wild coronavirus that raise questions about how viral RNA operates.
The scientists conducted the
analysis because they were “
puzzled by the fact that there is a respectable number of people who are testing positive for COVID-19 by
PCR long after the infection was gone.”
Their key findings were as follows: SARS-CoV-2 RNAs “can be reverse transcribed in human cells,” “these DNA sequences can be integrated into the cell genome and subsequently be transcribed” (a phenomenon called “retro-integration”) — and there are viable cellular pathways to explain how this happens.
According to Ph.D. biochemist and molecular biologist
Dr. Doug Corrigan, these important findings (which run contrary to “current biological dogma”) belong to the
category of “Things We Were Absolutely and Unequivocally Certain Couldn’t Happen Which Actually Happened.”
The findings of the Harvard and MIT researchers also put the CDC’s assumptions about mRNA vaccines on shakier ground, according to Corrigan. In fact, a month before the Harvard-MIT preprint appeared, Corrigan had already written a blog
outlining possible mechanisms and pathways whereby mRNA vaccines could produce the identical phenomenon.
In a second
blog post, written after the preprint came out, Corrigan emphasized that the Harvard-MIT findings about coronavirus RNA have major implications for mRNA vaccines — a fact he describes as “the big elephant in the room.” While not claiming that vaccine RNA will necessarily behave in the same way as coronavirus RNA — that is, permanently altering genomic DNA — Corrigan
believes that the possibility exists and deserves close scrutiny.
In Corrigan’s view, the preprint’s contribution is that it “validates that this is at least plausible, and most likely
probable.”
Reverse transcription
As the phrase “reverse transcription” implies, the DNA-to-mRNA pathway is not always a one-way street. Enzymes called reverse transcriptases can also
convert RNA into DNA, allowing the latter to be integrated into the DNA in the cell nucleus.
Nor is reverse transcription uncommon. Geneticists report that “
Over 40% of mammalian genomes comprise the products of reverse transcription.”
The
preliminary evidence cited by the Harvard-MIT researchers indicates that endogenous reverse transcriptase enzymes may facilitate reverse transcription of coronavirus RNAs and trigger their integration into the human genome.
The authors suggest that while the
clinical consequences require further study, detrimental effects are a distinct possibility and — depending on the integrated viral fragments’ “insertion sites in the human genome” and an individual’s underlying health status — could include “a more severe immune response … such as a ‘
cytokine storm’ or auto-immune reactions.”
In 2012, a study
suggested that viral genome integration could “lead to drastic consequences for the host cell, including gene disruption, insertional mutagenesis and cell death.”
