I don't know where to start

[derien]

One of my co-workers is leaning toward getting the COVID vaccine, but wants to know about this magnetism rumor. I told him it was a lie, but he says he's seen videos. I told him how they faked up those videos (small objects often stick to the skin) and why (because they'd told other lies and wanted to support those), and he said he'd still like to know what's IN the vaccine. I said "What does it matter? I'm not a chemist, I can't tell you what these substances do." The CDC saying it's safe means very little to him, and I do get being leery of our governmental agencies telling us things are 'safe'. We have a long history in this country of gov't saying that and then years later finding out that they were lying through their teeth. But what else can I say? I can't disprove this claim because I can't even get a handle on where to start with something so outlandish. Any ideas?

This on a backdrop of one of our other coworkers being in the hospital with COVID. Still not in a coma, but on oxygen. And she's young. We've been so lucky so far, in my work group.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Must admit I did a sort of wait and see...
if anyone I knew had bad reactions or died ...
so far.. no has. Now I'm waiting on the booster......
I also waited to see if my cousin (who has a PHD in Biophysics)
thought it was safe and was getting a shot ....yes to both.
I can see why someone in a lower risk group might not be as open-
they are typically not high risk and they have to live a lot longer
with any long haul effects of the shots.
It is sad that this like many things has become so political.
My process was much more of a plus/minus thing....
Risks\benefits.... if I was young might weigh it differently.
Try not to judge your co-worker....there are reasons to be concerned ....(some of which
you touched on)
LTA

[derien]

But risk benefit to me looks like the virus would be much worse, at his age, and easy to get in our environment.

[(Anonymous)]

Your coworker can get the lowdown on all three of current
vacs. online
I didn't want J&J because their process is different.
I read about the process, make up, Etc.
But it is online, and though not a scientist I was able to
glean enough......but really it came down to ....didn't want to die
on oxygen....still don't. Our rates are crazy high -about 1/3 are break thru.
LTA

[derien]

At least breakthrough cases are much less severe, typically.

[(Anonymous)]

ok I found what he is talking about
online- with both sides of the issue ....
strange enough -just heard that over 100 NASA folks
are refusing vac..... also a lot medical folks are refusing ...
they are not stupid people -though one could make the case that someone
willing to ride into space on lowest bid may think differently than I
LTA

[derien]

Unfortunately I suspect many intelligent people have gotten confused by the huge amount of misinformation that is circulating.

[camwyn]

I'm mildly curious as to whether your co-worker drinks Pepsi, or Coke, and if he does, whether he can tell you everything on the ingredient list without looking at the can. Or, medically speaking, if he takes Robitussin when he has a cold, or Flonase or Claritin when he has allergies.

I mean, yeah, he's not injecting these things specifically into his blood, but it's disingenuous to say 'I want to know what's in it!' and then go and stick a bunch of other stuff in your face when you've never looked at the ingredients list on those, either.

Having said that, if you want detailed specifics (skip to the end if you want something more general about ingredients) the following is from Moderna's own vaccine documentation:

"The Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine contains the following ingredients: messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA), lipids (SM-102, polyethylene glycol [PEG] 2000 dimyristoyl glycerol [DMG],
cholesterol, and 1,2-distearoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine [DSPC]), tromethamine,
tromethamine hydrochloride, acetic acid, sodium acetate trihydrate, and sucrose."

Messenger ribonucleic acid is the big one, obviously. It sounds important and scary, and while it is important, it's not as scary as people might think. Essentially, when your body's cells need a protein made to get something done in the body, there's a long and complicated chemical process involved. The body's genes- the DNA- are read off and transcribed into a separate molecule, which is messenger RNA. This molecule then gets used as a template to create a protein by other cellular processes. The messenger RNA in the COVID vaccine is used to tell the body 'hey, make these weird foreign proteins, please'. When the body does so, the immune system goes 'shit, I don't recognize that, we need to attack that'.

Messenger RNA doesn't actually change anything in the person's genes, and doesn't touch anything in their DNA. If DNA is a huge library of carpentry patterns and designs, messenger RNA is equivalent to pieces of paper used to trace the specific patterns from the originals, and the proteins produced are what happens when these pieces of paper are applied to pieces of wood and the carpenter cuts out the correct shape by running their band saw around the outlines of the paper.

Or, to put it in a more visual format: "Why would my body attack something it made itself?" (Note: this works best if your coworker has seen Star Wars)

SM-102 is a synthetic lipid, a type of molecule used to ensure that other molecules dissolve in water, basically. They're generally types of fats, such as cholesterol, fatty acids, waxes, and vitamins like A, D, E, and K. SM-102 has been used for chemical reactions since 2017.

Polyethylene glycol [PEG] 2000 dimyristoyl glycerol [DMG] is another synthetic lipid. This one's been used for the preparation of anti-cancer drugs in the past, mostly for drugs to deal with forms of carcinoma, as a means of coating the molecules to get them more easily past cell membranes. It's used in a couple of mRNA vaccine preparations, not just Moderna.

Cholesterol is a naturally occurring lipid compound as old as kingdom Animalia. It's an essential component of all animal cell membranes. The amount present in a vaccine dose or doses is nowhere near enough to make a difference in serum cholesterol levels.

1,2-distearoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine [DSPC] is another naturally occurring lipid that happens to be a component of cell membranes, although this one appears in plant cells as well as animal.

Tromethamine hydrochloride is an acid stabilizer used to keep the shot's ingredients stable. It's been used pharmaceutically as a drug called Tham to help people with metabolic acidosis get their bodily pH back to normal.

Acetic acid... well, that's white vinegar, basically. It's there as one of the safest preservatives around. This is why the tromethamine hydrochloride has to be there, to keep reactions from happening between the acetic acid and everything else while still allowing the acetic acid to act as a preservative.

Sodium acetate trihydrate is the powdered salt form of acetic acid. Same deal- it's there for preservation purposes. If your co-worker has ever eaten salt and vinegar potato chips, this is what they use to produce the vinegar taste.

Sucrose is good old fashioned sugar. Like, from sugarcane and sugarbeets. I am not entirely sure why it is used in an injectable vaccine, because its most common use in medicine is in stuff taken orally, but sucrose has been used in injectable iron deficiency treatments for patients with chronic kidney disease for decades. (seriously, I made the mistake of trying to search for 'sucrose medicine injection' and there's like three pages straight of writeups on iron sucrose injections.) Not a particularly dangerous thing.

Please note that I do not have a medical, chemical, biochemical, or biological degree. I had planned to go into public health, but you have to do well in statistics for that, which, hahaha, no.

Now, if you did the skipping, from the University of Cincinnati Health Pharmacy Team:

https://www.uchealth.com/en/media-room/covid-19/a-comprehensive-list-of-all-covid-19-vaccine-ingredients

The UC Health Pharmacy team breaks down the ingredients of the Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson (Janssen) vaccine ingredients — why they’re included, and where else you might see them.

[derien]

Wow. I guess I should have expected you would know. Thank you so much!

[camwyn]

I temped for several pharmaceutical companies- mostly in the marketing department of their consumer goods divisions- and for a company that conducted FDA phase 3 human trials for a while. I also had a fascination with teratology and mutagenics for a long time. When I get a document with a drug company name on it, I read the details. And when it's something like this, I keep the document around just in case.