Posted by:
Nightingale
(
)
Date: September 25, 2021 12:59PM
I just heard this on a newscast, the mistaken idea that vaccination is causing the variants. French virologist Luc Montagnier, unfortunately, supported this idea during an interview and gave it traction on social media.
Here are some facts in a Healthline article from June 2, 2021:
https://www.healthline.com/health-news/no-vaccines-do-not-cause-new-sars-cov-2-variants#block-a878f2dc-2f9b-4773-9fbc-a2f4ab3cb753"Peter Stoilov, PhD, an associate professor of biochemistry who is leading the SARS-CoV-2 variant sequencing efforts in West Virginia, described Montagnier’s argument as “completely bonkers.”
“The fact on which he bases his argument is that mutations can change epitopes that the immune system has learned from the vaccination, and this gives some selective advantage to the virus. Consequently, in his mind, this would ‘create’ new, more dangerous variants,” he said.
"However, Stoilov pointed out that “selection does not cause new variants to emerge; it merely selects some of them.”
“Mutations and variants occur randomly and independently of vaccination or any other selection process. In fact, they may precede selection by years or millennia,” Stoilov said.
"He further explained that the mutations defining the current SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern emerged before vaccines were created or became widely available.
"He added that they emerged in multiple independent unvaccinated individuals from across the globe, and they continue to reoccur randomly in unrelated lineages of the virus.
"Stoilov said it’s a well-established fact that selection does not cause mutations.
“The facts that Dr. Montagnier ignores are that, while vaccination may select for some variants, it is still effective at suppressing them and the overall effect is a dramatic reduction of infections and a milder disease when the virus manages to break through the vaccine,” he said.
"Stoilov said that Montagnier is not only mistaking correlation for causation with his claim, but that he isn’t even using a viable correlation to make the argument.
“The variants of concern frequency increase correlates to some degree to the onset of vaccination. But, this is the same as claiming that pirates are causing global warming. This correlation merely reflects the similar times it took for the virus to mutate and spread, and for us to develop the vaccines and start applying them,” he said.
"If vaccines were creating new dangerous variants, then Stoilov said we would see proportionately more new variants emerging over time among vaccinated populations than with unvaccinated parts of the world.
"There would also be a lot more diversity among the virus variants in countries with high vaccination rates, and increased disease spread and mortality among vaccinated people.
“We see nothing of that. In fact, we see exactly the opposite,” Stoilov said. “In places with high vaccination rates, the case numbers and mortality are dropping; virus diversity is limited to few (one to three) variants; and, so far, no new variants are emerging among vaccinated populations.”
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Please, people, if you are accessing medical information from social media, check the sources. If it's your neighbour's sister's hairdresser maybe look further afield to obtain accurate information from reliable sources who actually know what they're talking about. Look stuff up!
And double check even those with jobs and titles that make them sound reliable. The article above refers to a virologist who, most unfortunately, is responsible for spreading misinformation about variants and vaccines. The writer also states:
"Stoilov pointed out that although we tend to give a lot of credence to the authority of Nobel laureates, this does not necessarily mean they always know what they are talking about.
"One example he pointed to was Kary Mullis, who won the Nobel Prize for co-inventing the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique.
"Mullis went on to deny that HIV causes AIDS, which was untrue. Yet, former South African President Thabo Mbeki followed his advice by rejecting antiretroviral therapy. This mistake in trusting Mullis’ expert status ended up costing hundreds of thousands of lives."
The article also explains how mutations arise.
I know it's not everybody's area of interest to delve into science or medicine and some of the information can be confusing or challenging to understand without some background in the subjects.
But the basics are presented in a form that most people should be able to comprehend in articles such as the one above and on reputable newscasts every day.
I know those sources which generally one accesses alone are slower to consume and perhaps do not offer the immediate gratification that many find in quick little tweets and a flurry of responses online. But the question is whether a person wants to find out the truth of a matter or if they just want to play online and fall into the trap of following false prophets.