Spike Proteins Used in Covid-19 Vaccines: Are They Safe?
Although studies have found harmful effects of SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins, the proper interpretation is key.
Within a year of the pandemic, science has developed many vaccines for Covid-19, with a few already gaining FDA authorization for public emergency use. But many are still worried about the potential undiscovered side effects of such vaccines, which this article aims to address.
All candidate vaccines —the mRNA, DNA, viral vectored, recombinant protein, viral-like particles, and peptide-based vaccines—use the coronavirus’s spike protein to induce immunity in some way or another. Even live attenuated and inactivated vaccines using the whole virion (in a weakened form) still rely on the spike protein, at least partly, to induce immunity.
The CDC has stated that the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 is harmless, which assures that current Covid-19 vaccines would be safe. But recent studies — in animals and cultured cells — have found that this may not be entirely true, although we must interpret these studies more cautiously.
Before going further, the conclusion in this article is that Covid-19 vaccines are still most likely safe. It’s not 100% safe as some at-risk people may show allergic or other…
