Jack C. Askins, M.D.: Vaccine Status or Immune Status?
by Jack C. Askins, M.D.
What is more important, vaccine status or immune status? Most people believe a vaccine is to establish immunity to a pathogen. Prior infection has resulted in immunity throughout human history. If a person is immune to a virus, clinical infection is avoided and replication and transmission of the virus is prevented. Simple question with a straightforward simple answer based upon known science. With the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, the answer is not quite so simple. Natural immunity has always been the gold standard to which vaccine development has been compared….. until the past 18 months. There has been a full-court press to promote the mRNA inoculations, unlike anything I have ever seen. Government and big business have taken over what has always been the responsibility of known science, researchers, and physicians.
Prior infection by the SARS-CoV-2 virus results in natural immunity. At least 75 years of virology and immunology has established the fact that natural immunity is at least as good and usually better than vaccine immunity; true in the past and true now. Natural immunity is broad, robust, and durable and usually will last years to a lifetime. Conversely, the mRNA vaccines appear to wane after 5-6 months. Even the CDC and the NIH agree they do not know how long the mRNA vaccines will provide “protection”. The CDC even went so far as to redefine a vaccine as a drug that provides “protection” but not immunity in the historic and traditional meaning of the word.
I compiled bullet point facts with references on natural immunity and that provided by the “vaccines”.
Bullet point facts concerning what is known about natural immunity:
• Natural immunity recognizes the full complement of SARS-CoV-2 proteins and thus provides protection against a broad array of variants. [1-4]
• Studies have demonstrated prolonged immunity with respect to memory T and B cells, bone marrow plasma cells, spike-specific neutralizing antibodies, and IgG+ memory B cells following naturally acquired immunity. [1-4]
• People who have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 typically generate T cells that target at least 15-20 different fragments of coronavirus proteins. [12]
• The current vaccines result in the creation of antibodies against one specific virus spike protein programmed by the mRNA injection. [12]
• The spike protein on the virus is prone to mutate to escape the vaccine; the other myriad proteins targeted by T cells in natural immunity patients do not appear to be involved in the rapid mutation into the variants that are reducing vaccine effectiveness. [12]
• Multiple studies have confirmed that reinfections are rare in patients with natural immunity and are less severe than first-time infections. [5,6]
• Recent Israeli study included 187,549 unvaccinated persons with natural immunity: only 0.48% were reinfected; 0.02% were hospitalized; 0.008%were hospitalized with severe disease; only one died and he was over 80 years of age. [7]
• Based upon such evidence, many scientists and clinicians have concluded natural immunity and protection against COVID following recovery from infection is long-lasting. [8, 38]
• 1359 Cleveland Clinic employees previously infected, unvaccinated: no occurrence of re-infection in a 10 month follow-up from time of infection. [20]
• There is a growing body of literature supporting the conclusion that natural immunity not only confers robust, durable, and high-level protection against COVID-19, but also better than vaccine induced immunity. [13-17,19, 39]
• 23 patients who had recovered from SARS-CoV-1 still possess CD4 and CD8 T cells 17 years after infection during the 2003 epidemic. [9]
• A paper in Nature from 2008 found that 32 people born in 1915 or earlier still retained some level of immunity against the 1918 flu strain – 90 years later. [10]
• Robust durability of natural immunity is well established. Narrowly focused vaccine immunity appears to be waning at 6 months. [11]
• Natural immunity is the gold standard for effectiveness and durability to which researchers compare during vaccine development. [11]
Bullet point facts concerning what is known about the mRNA injections:
• The mRNA vaccines cause our cells to produce a specific Covid virus spike protein to which our immune system produces IgG and IgM humoral antibodies.
• IgA mucosal defense antibodies are not produced and durable T cell immunity is questionable following vaccination.
• Antibody Dependent Enhancement can increase the lethality of the Covid infection when non-neutralizing antibodies are produced by the vaccine and as the virus mutates to variants. [26]
• Although initial claims of Pfizer efficacy was 90-95%, that is down to 39% in the Israel study and 42% in the Mayo Clinic data. [27, 36]
• Approximately 30% of people who receive the mRNA shot may not develop adequate protection against the Covid-19 virus. [31]
• Duration of effectiveness appears to be 5-8 months.
• Necessity for boosters has been claimed by the CDC.
• Both Pfizer and Moderna vaccines currently appear to reduce the severity of illness and mortality rate but not prevent replication within the body or reduce viral nasal load and transmission (infectivity). [CDC declarations, multiple news reports]
• Vaccine immunity only targets the spike-protein of the original Wuhan variant, whereas natural immunity recognizes the full complement of SARS-CoV-2 proteins and thus provides protection against a greater array of variants. [Hooman Noorchasm noorchasm.medium.com]
• Canadian study reported 9/16/2021 the “incidence of myopericarditis overall was approximately 10 cases for every 10,000 inoculations with mRNA vaccine. [22]
• This year’s Covid surge numbers are larger than last year due to emergence of variants defeating the current mRNA vaccines.
• Israel and the UK were highly vaccinated and their recent hospitalizations and deaths have been mostly in the vaccinated population.
• UK Public Health data from 9/23/2021: Current Covid-19 deaths are over 3,000% higher than this time last year. 80% of those dying had the Covid vaccine. [21]
• Mass vaccination in the midst of a pandemic has not been recommended by virologists and immunologists due to the promotion of variants as the virus works to escape the vaccine and replicate within the vaccinated host.
• A recent large Japanese study predicts the virus will mutate itself to be completely immune to the vaccine and will likely become more virulent. [24]
• None of the vaccines in current application have been systematically or adequately tested for safety or efficacy in individuals who have previously been infected and recovered from SARS-CoV-2. In fact, Covid survivors have overall been largely excluded from Phase III vaccine clinical trials. [37]
• People with natural immunity are at increased risk for vaccine injury to include thrombosis and multisystem imflammatory syndrome. [25, 28, 29, 32]
• Mandated vaccination represents baseless DISCRIMINATION against already immune but unvaccinated persons being treated as inferior to the “fully vaccinated”. [30]
REFERENCES
[1] Jennifer M. Dan, et al., Immunological memory to SARS-CoV-2 assessed for up to 8 months after infection, SCIENCE (Feb. 5, 2021) (finding that memory T and B and B cells were present up to eight months after infection, noting that “durable immunity against secondary COVID-19 disease is a possibility for most individuals”).
[2] Jackson S. Turner, et al., SARS-CoV-2 infection induces long-lived bone marrow plasma cells in humans, NATURE (May 24, 2021) (study analyzing bone marrow plasma cells of recovered COVID-19 patients reported durable evidence of antibodies for at least 11 months after infection, describing “robust antigen-specific, long-lived humoral immune response in humans”); Ewen Callaway, Had COVID? You’ll probably make antibodies for a lifetime, NATURE (May 26, 2021), https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01442- 9 (“The study provides evidence that immunity triggered by SARS-CoV-2 infection will be extraordinarily long-lasting” and “people who recover from mild COVID-19 have bone-marrow cells that can churn out antibodies for decades”).
[3] Tyler J. Ripperger, et al., Orthogonal SARS-Cov-2 Serological Assays Enable Surveillance of Low-Prevalence Communities and Reveal Durable Humoral Immunity, 53 IMMUNITY, Issue 5, pp. 925-933 E4 (Nov. 17, 2020) (study finding that spike and neutralizing antibodies remained detectable 5-7 months after recovering from infection).
[4] Kristen W. Cohen, et al., Longitudinal analysis shows durable and broad immune memory after SARS-CoV-2 infection with persisting antibody responses and memory B and T cells, MEDRXIV (Apr. 27, 2021), https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.19.21255739v1 (study of 254 recovered COVID patients over 8 months “found a predominant broad-based immune memory response” and “sustained IgG+ memory B cell response, which bodes well for rapid antibody response upon virus re-exposure.” “Taken together, these results suggest that broad and effective immunity may persist long-term in recovered COVID-19 patients”)
[5] Nabin K. Shrestha, et al., Necessity of COVID-19 vaccination in previously infected individuals, MEDRXIV (preprint), https://www.medrxiv.org/content
10.1101/2021.06.01.21258176v3. (“not one of the 1359 previously infected subjects who remained unvaccinated had a SARS-CoV-2 infection over the duration of the study “and concluded that those with natural immunity are “unlikely to benefit from covid-19 vaccination”).
[6] Laith J. Abu-Raddad, et al., SARS-CoV-2 reinfection in a cohort of 43,000 antibody-positive individuals followed for up to 35 weeks, MEDRXIV (Feb. 8, 2021), https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.15.21249731v2 (finding that of 129 reinfections from a cohort of 43,044, only one reinfection was severe, two were moderate, and none were critical or fatal); Victoria Jane Hall, et al., SARS-CoV-2 infection rates of antibody-positive compared with antibody-negative health-care workers in England: a large, multicentre, prospective cohort study, 397 LANCET: 1459- 69 (Apr. 9, 2021), https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33844963/ (finding “a 93% lower risk of COVID-19 symptomatic infection… [which] show[s] equal or higher protection from natural infection, both for symptomatic and asymptomatic infection”); Aidan T. Hanrah, et al., Prior SARS-CoV-2 infection is associated with protection against symptomatic reinfection, 82 JOURNAL OF INFECTION, Issue 4, E29-E30 (Apr. 1, 2021), https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7832116/ (Apr. 1, 2021) (examined reinfection rates in a cohort of healthcare workers and found “no symptomatic reinfections” among those examined and that protection lasted for at least 6 months).
[7] Yair Goldberg, et al., Protection of previous SARS-CoV-2 infection is similar to that of BNT162b2. vaccine protection: A three-month nationwide experience from Israel, MEDRXIV (pre-print), https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.20.21255670v1
[8] Chris Baranjuk, How long does covid-19 immunity last? 373 BMJ (2021)
[9] Nina Le Bert, SARS-CoV-2-specific T cell immunity in cases of COVID-19 and SARS, and uninfected control, NATURE (Aug. 2020).
[10] Xiaocong Yu, et al., Neutralizing antibodies derived form the B cells of 1918 influenze pandemic survivors, NATURE (2008)
[11] Heidi Ledford, Six months of COVID vaccines: what 1.7 billion doses hove taught scientists, 594 NATURE 164 (June 10, 2021), https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01505-x (study notes that “Six months is not much time to collect data on how durable vaccine responses will be…. In the meantime some researchers are looking to natural immunity as a guide.”
[12] Tarke, A. et al. Cell Rep. Med. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xcrm.2021.100204 (2021).
[13] Sivan Gazit, Roei Shlezinger, Galit Perez et al. Comparing SARS-CoV-2 natural immunity to vaccine-induced immunity: reinfections versus breakthrough infections
medRxiv 2021.08.24.21262415; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415
[14] Hall VJ, Foulkes S, Charlett A et al. SARS-CoV-2 infection rates of antibody-positive compared with antibody-negative health-care workers in England: large, multicentre, prospective cohort study (SIREN). Lancet. 2021
[15]Harvey RA, Rassen JA, Kabelac CA, et al. Association of SARS-CoV-2 Seropositive Antibody Test With Risk of Future Infection. JAMA Intern Med.
[16] Turner, J.S., Kim, W., Kalaidina, E. et al. SARS-CoV-2 infection induces long-lived bone marrow plasma cells in humans. Nature 2021
[17] Wang, Z., Yang, X., Zhong, J. et al. Exposure to SARS-CoV-2 generates T-cell memory in the absence of a detectable viral infection. Nat Commun 12, 1724 (2021).
[18] CDC.gov/mmWave/volumes/70/wr/mm7021e3.htm
[19] BMJ 2021; 374 doi: VACCINATING PEOPLE WHO HAVE HAD COVID-19: WHY DOESN’T NATURAL IMMUNITY COUNT IN THE U.S.? BMJ 2021;374:n2101
[20] Nabin K. Shrestha, et al. NECESSITY OF COVID-19 VACCINATION IN PREVIOUSLY INFECTED INDIVIDUALS. MedRxiv June 19,2021. CLEVELAND CLINIC STUDY OF 1359 UNVAXXED AND PREVIOUSLY INFECTED EMPLOYEES REVEALING NO RE-INFECTION DURING 10 MOS FROM TIME OF INFECTION.
[21] theexpose.uk. Sept. 23, 2021. British publication reporting on data from British and Scotland Public Health
[22] Kafil, Lamacie, Chenier, et al. mRNA COVID-19 Vaccination and Development of CMR-confirmed Myopericarditis. MedRxiv September 16, 2021
[23] Gazit, Shlezinger, Perez, et al. COMPARING SARS-CoV-2 NATURAL IMMUNITY TO VACCINE-INDUCED IMMUNITY: REINFECTIONS VERSUS BREAKTHROUGH INFECTIONS August 24, 2021
[24] The SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant is poised to acquire complete resistance to wild-type spike vaccines.
BioRxiv. August 23,2021. Very detailed Japanese study showing how the Covid virus is mutating toward complete resistance to current mRNA vaccines.
[25] Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome after SARS-CoV-2 Infection and COVID-19 Vaccination
Mark B. Salzman, Cheng-Wei Huang, Christopher M. O’Brien, Rhina D. Castill
Emerging Infectious Diseases • http://www.cdc.gov/eid • Vol. 27, No. 7, July 2021
[26] ANTIBODY-DEPENDENT ENHANNCEMENT SCIENCE 18 DEC. 2020. Good review of ADE, mechanism and history of its occurrence in other infections (Dengue fever, HIV, Ebola).
[27] COMPARISON OF TWO HIGHLY-EFFECTIVE mRNA VACCINES FOR COVID-19 DURING PERIODS OF ALPHA AND DELTA VARIANT PREVALENCE. medRxiv. August, 08, 2021
This is the Mayo Clinic study revealing the Pfizer vaccine effectiveness against the Delta variant at 42%.
[28] A LETTER OF WARNING TO THE PENNSBURY SCHOOL BOARD IN PENNSYLVANIA: MANDATING VACCINATION OF COVID-RECOVERED AND ALREADY IMMUNE PERSONS IS HAZARDOUS. Hooman Noorchasm noorchasm.medium.com
[29] Krammer, et al, ROBUST SPIKE ANTIBODY RESPONSES AND INCREASED REACTOGENICITY IN SEROPOSITIVE INDIVIDUALS AFTER A SINGLE DOSE OF SARS-COV-2 mRNA VACCINE,
medRx (Feb 1, 2021)
[30] WHY I BELIEVE SCOTUS SHOULD ADJUDICATE ZYWICKI VS. GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY: ITS NOT ABOUT INDIVIDUAL AUTONOMY, ITS ABOUT BASELESS DISCRIMINATION AND EXECUTIVE OVERREACH! Hooman Noorchasm noorchasm.medium.com
[31] A SEVERE ERROR IN FEDERAL PUBLIC HEALTH POLICY: ANTIBODY TESTING IS CRITICAL FOR DETERMINATION OF COVID-19 VACCINE NECESSITY AND EFFICACY IN EVERY AMERICAN.
Hooman Noorchasm noorchasm.medium.com
[32] Fabio Angell, SARS-CoV-2 VACCINES: LIGHTS AND SHADOWS, 88 European J. Of Internal Medicine 1-8 (2021)
[33] James f. Childress, et al., Public Health Ethics: Mapping the Terrain, 30(2) J. Law & Med. Ethics 170 (2002).
[34] N. Kojima, NK Shrestha, JD Klausner. A Systematic Review of the Protective Effect of Prior SARS-CoV-2 Infection on Repeat Infection. medRxiv 8/27/21 Dept of Medicine, UCLA.
Findings: Weighted average risk reduction against reinfection was 90.4% and observed for up to 10 months.
[35] N. Kojima, A Roshani, M Brubeck, A Baca, JD Klausner. Incidence of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 Infection Among Previously Infected or Vaccinated Employees. Dept of Medicine, UCLA.
Findings: No difference in the infection incidence between vaccinated individuals and individuals with previous infection.
[36] newsnetwork.MayoClinic.org
[37] VACCINE INFORMATION FACT SHEET FOR RECIPIENTS AND CAREGIVERS ABOUT COMIRNATY (COVID-19 VACCINE, mRNA) AND PFIZER-BIONTECH COVID-19 VACCINE TO PREVENT CORONAVIRUS DISEASE 2019 (COVID-19). 9/22/2021 fda.gov55
[38] LASTING IMMUNITY FOUND AFTER RECOVERY FROM COVID-19. NIH January 26, 2021
[39] REINFECTION RATES AMONG PATIENTS WHO PREVIOUSLY TESTED POSITIVE FOR COVD-19: A RETROSPECTIVE COHORT STUDY. Sheehan, Reddy, Rothberg CLINICAL INFECTIOUS DISEASES 3/15/2021
Six months after infection, protection against symptomatic disease exceeded 90%.
“Dr. Jack Askins is a cardiologist in Wichita Falls, TX. This is the first article in a series of four he has authored that we intend to publish here. His reasoned scientific voice needs to be heard during these times as the COVID-19 Vaccines have become politicized through government mandates. We are encouraged by his boldness and expertise that he brings to the subject.”