Jan
3
How Did We Get COVID-19 Vaccines So Quickly?
“The remarkable confluence of the COVID-19 pandemic with the advances in mRNA vaccines has one of two possible explanations: It’s either a fortuitous accident or a reflection of God’s providential timing and faithful provision to humanity.” — Dr. Fazale Rana, V.P. of Research and Apologetics, Reasons to Believe
To be honest, I have not yet made up my mind completely regarding taking a COVID-19 vaccine once it becomes available. I’m mostly in favor of it, but then I hear or read something that causes me a bit of concern. One of those things is simply realizing how quickly the first two vaccines were developed (roughly 11 months) in contrast to the usual development time for such vaccines (4+ years). Shouldn’t we be worried that they might not have been sufficiently tested in human trials? Did the developers cut corners? Even some front-line workers are concerned!
Fortunately, biochemist Dr. Fuz Rana published an article just before Christmas in which he addressed this. It’s a good article (even if you skip past most of the details about how mRNA vaccines work), but here is a particularly relevant section:
“Even though the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines represent the first-ever mRNA vaccines used on humans, they took nearly three decades to develop thanks to the tireless efforts of life scientists and biomedical researchers. This developmental history includes numerous studies in which their safety has been assessed, leading to significant improvements in vaccine design, ensuring that any adverse reaction to mRNA vaccines is negligible.
This concerted effort has paid off. And, in large measure, these previous studies have made it possible for the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna scientists to rapidly develop their COVID-19 vaccines. At the point when the COVID-19 outbreak was declared a pandemic, researchers had already developed mRNA vaccines for a number of viral pathogens and tested them in animal models. They had even progressed some of these vaccines into small-scale human clinical studies that included safety assessments. Bioengineers had already started work on pilot scale production of mRNA vaccines, along the way developing GMPs (Good Manufacturing Practices) for the manufacture of mRNA vaccines.
In effect, when the pandemic broke, all the researchers at Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna had to do to develop their COVID-19 vaccines was to know the right sequence to use for the vaccine’s mRNA. In other words, the scientific and biomedical communities just happened to be poised and ready to go with mRNA vaccines when the first outbreaks of COVID-19 appeared around the world.”
Also helpful is this interview Dr. Rana did a few days before publishing his article.
Starting around 6 minutes into the video, Dr. Rana is asked about the riskiness of the vaccines. His response:
“We have to remember that these vaccines were given emergency approval, simply because we’re in the midst of a pandemic. And, the regulators looked at the data and saw how effective the vaccines were and didn’t see anything that really indicated that they would be unsafe on a large scale.
With any kind of medical treatment including vaccines, there’s always potential for side-effects. You never can really escape that. And so, the biggest concern that I’ve seen is for people that are hyper-allergenic, who respond to things by developing allergies really quickly. They might be susceptible to an allergic reaction to the vaccines. As you mentioned, in both the Moderna and the Pfizer studies, four individuals developed Bell’s palsy. It could be due to the vaccine, or it could just simply be happenstance. So, that clearly isn’t understood.
And so, I imagine we will see side-effects emerging over time as these vaccines are used more broadly. But, I think those side-effects are only going to affect a relatively low number of individuals. So, as a whole, I think these vaccines really are safe.”
That’s some good information, and I appreciate Rana’s explanations and candor. It definitely helps alleviate some concerns, and I’ll keep it in mind when considering the situation. I’m not too concerned about myself, so if it takes awhile before I’m on the list of approved people to get the vaccine, I don’t mind waiting while other potential side-effects present themselves in the larger population. Maybe one or more of the vaccines can be improved even further….
