They use DNA printers to produce the RNA. Just like electronic voting machines without a paper trail I do not trust the RNA sequence is the same as what clinical researchers developed.
Can I say what type would be used to do something nefarious? TBH I have no idea, but the possibilities seem limitless. That’s why there’s so much funding around RNA vaccines now - they could potentially cure almost anything.
Compare that with inactive virus vaccines like China’s Sinovac. The ingredients are well-known, you can’t change a dead virus to do anything crazy like alter gene expression, if they added something harmful to the vaccine it would be very obvious. Also China even open-sources their inactive virus vaccine and exports raw materials to other nations to manufacture them: http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2021-01/12/c_139661608.htm
A plot to add some "secret sauce" to a vaccine wouldn't work in that scenario. So I can trust open-source inactive virus vaccines. I can never trust an RNA vaccine until I can verify the RNA code in it. (equivalent of a checksum in software). So until we have DNA printers at home I’m not taking it.
> Just like electronic voting machines without a paper trail I do not trust the RNA sequence is the same as what clinical researchers developed.
And yet you trust the makers of an "inactive" virus vaccine to actually make that virus inactive and not, say, an active vector for some undocumented gene therapy?
> RNA can do more than just produce proteins
mRNA, specifically, cannot. If you had actually read that "reverse engineering" article you linked, you would already know that mRNA has a specific "format" that's different from the other dozen or so kinds of RNA.
> you can’t change a dead virus to do anything crazy like alter gene expression
You assume that it's actually dead. How do you verify that?
> if they added something harmful to the vaccine it would be very obvious
As it would be for an mRNA vaccine.
> I can never trust an RNA vaccine until I can verify the RNA code in it.
> one of my past employers would be happy to send you a quote
Ah - once again most of my problems would be solved if only I was super-rich.
I agree, I should focus on my SaaS company rather than get downvoted on the internet for being antivax. My employer has a vaxx mandate and I'm still acting as if I'm not going to be fired from my dayjob next month. Time to block HN/reddit in my hosts file and get back to work.
If you're that worried about it, the J&J vax isn't mRNA-based. It's a live attenuated (non-replicating) adenovirus that's been genetically modified to express spike protein. Personally I think it's less safe and less effective than the mRNA vaccines, for the same reasons sinovac, sputnik and the AstraZeneca vaccines:
When you have a whole attenuated or dead virus, your immune system will generate a slew of different antibodies against various parts of it, many of which will not prove effective at neutralizing it. Whole virus vaccines have a higher risk of generating antibody-dependent enhancement should you encounter the live virus, and higher risks of generating antibodies that may end up attacking your own cells. This is the reason the AZ and J&J vaccines have, in some cases, caused myocarditis as well as damage to platelets. It's a crapshoot what antibodies you'll develop because the target surface is so large. At least by targeting one protein you know you'll develop antibodies that are likely to neutralize the virus, and you won't develop random ones that don't and could be harmful.
As to the idea that Moderna and Pfizer would intentionally add some RNA sequence to generate nefarious proteins, first of all there's no evidence that unwanted proteins are being generated, and secondly, why? I mean, do you think they're out to get you? Why would a company the size of Pfizer, for whom the entire covid vax rollout represents only about 10% of their annual gross, risk destroying their company to try to put some harmful protein into a third of Americans? Surely both companies couldn't be doing the same thing, since they developed their mRNA independently of one another. Wouldn't we see some drastic uptick in some weird thing just in people who got one mRNA vaccine or the other? When a tiny fraction of a percentage of people who got the J&J vax started getting blood clots, the vaccine was temporarily halted. Surely some country in the world would be banning the Pfizer or Moderna shots now if there were any such side effects.
I'm curious where you think there's an attack surface for RNA-based vaccines that doesn't also apply to dead-virus vaccines.