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Vol. 24, No. 1, 2025
 
     
 
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increase or decrease susceptibility to other diseases
VACCINES

by
GUPTA, UVERSKY, REDWAN, QUINTERO, CASILLAS

_________________________________________

 

Contrary to the long-held belief that the effects of vaccines are specific for the disease they were created; compelling evidence has demonstrated that vaccines can exert positive or deleterious non-specific effects (NSEs).

Analysis of information showed that live vaccines induce positive NSEs, whereas non-live vaccines (Covid) induce several negative NSEs, including increased female mortality associated with enhanced susceptibility to other infectious diseases, especially in developing countries.

These negative NSEs are determined by the vaccination sequence, the antigen concentration in vaccines, the type of vaccine used (live vs. non-live), and also by repeated vaccination. We do not recommend stopping using non-live vaccines, as they have demonstrated to protect against their target disease, so the suggestion is that their detrimental NSEs can be minimized simply by changing the current vaccination sequence. High IgG4 antibody levels generated in response to repeated inoculation with mRNA COVID-19 vaccines could be associated with a higher mortality rate from unrelated diseases and infections by suppressing the immune system. Since most COVID-19 vaccinated countries are reporting high percentages of excess mortality not directly attributable to deaths from such disease, the NSEs of mRNA vaccines on overall mortality should be studied in depth.
Introduction

Human vaccines were created to protect against infectious diseases such as measles, smallpox, polio, and tuberculosis. Edward Jenner (1749–1823) is generally referred to as father of vaccination technology, as his smallpox vaccine heralded the era of vaccination as a major preventive therapeutic strategy, which eventually culminated in the eradication of smallpox. It is often not highlighted that Jenner’s small pox vaccine and all those who followed fitted within the framework of the “magic bullet” concept in chemotherapy given later by Paul Ehrlich (1854–1915). Jenner’s first use of cowpox virus clearly indicated that vaccines can result in collateral advantages in diseases other than those which results from the pathogen, which is used for the design of the vaccine. The functioning of the biological world has classically been viewed and interpreted in terms of the biological specificity at the cellular and molecular levels. In the context of enzymes and antibodies, the specificity concept changed to accommodate “cross-reactivity”. Recognition of this trait quite early has resulted in our not especially concerning ourselves with immune response to cowpox virus protecting against smallpox virus.

The “lock-and-key” hypothesis has been the anchor of the one structure – one biological function paradigm, which has had overarching impact on our views on the way biological specificity operates in both in vivo and in vitro worlds of biological systems. Over the time, all this has turned out to be over-simplification. For example, proteins can be highly non-specific as seen in the phenomena of protein promiscuity and moonlighting. These phenomena have been exploited in drug designs and have led to the concept of drug repurposing. Hence, it is not surprising that even vaccines turn out to be non-specific in the sense of influencing immune responses of the diseases for which they were not designed. Just to be unambiguous, these non-specific effects are not based upon cross-reactivity of antibodies etc. They are seen in diseases which are, unlike cowpox and smallpox, quite unrelated.

In more recent times, these non-specific effects have assumed great importance with wider perspectives. This overview is about the lack of specificity observed with many vaccines which is generally described as ‘’Non-specific effects’’ (NSEs) of vaccines. We also discuss that while looking at NSEs, we get drawn into the hugely controversial and debatable issue of using live attenuated viruses vs. killed (inactivated) viruses as vaccines. This debate has not still ended and continues to impact policy decisions in many countries in the world. This debate started seriously in the case of Polio and now has got enmeshed with the discussion on NSEs of vaccines. NSEs of vaccines have also raised few other questions, which merit a closer attention. We hope that an updated information and a critical look at NSEs in this review would be helpful in future vaccination programs.

An interesting pattern appeared in which the effects of live attenuated vaccines and non-live vaccines differed. The live attenuated vaccines have generally positive non-specific benefits that are noticeable when they are the most recent immunization. For instance, African children who were injected with live vaccines had much lower all-cause mortality than children who did not, and this disparity cannot be explained by variations in mortality resulting from the infection.

As opposed to live vaccines, non-live vaccines, while protecting against the disease for which they were designed, in some circumstances may also enhance the risk of other diseases, especially in females. For instance, in low-income environments, girls who received the non-live diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTP) vaccine died at a rate that was 1.5–2 times greater than girls who did not receive the vaccine, and a comparable enhanced risk above that of male recipients of the DTP vaccine

Significantly favorable NSEs have been linked to four live vaccines. An early intriguing observation was that the high antigen concentration (with more than 104.7 plaque-forming units) in the high titer measles vaccine (HTMV), which is also a live vaccine, induced detrimental NSEs. In addition, the standard measles vaccine (MV), which had 103 to 104 plaque-forming units, induced more significant beneficial NSEs for females, whereas HTMV was linked to higher female mortality.

People who received 2 or more shots of the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines have been reported to have unusually elevated concentrations of IgG4 antibodies, according to recent studies. It has also been shown that the HIV, malaria, and pertussis vaccines elicited higher-than-normal IgG4 production, which has been related to decreased protection against infections.

CONCLUSIONS

The current vaccination model presupposes that vaccines only provide protection against a specific infection, that effective vaccines diminish mortality concerning the proportion of all deaths attributable to the target infection, and that the outcomes of vaccines are the same for both boys and girls. Epidemiological vaccine investigation, nonetheless, has produced findings that defy these presumptions and imply that vaccines have significant non-specific impacts on population health.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Arts & Opinion, a bi-monthly, is archived in the Library and Archives Canada.
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