Dr. Scheppke explains mRNA vaccine technology, emphasizing that mRNA is not a virus and cannot alter DNA. He summarizes clinical-trial scale (combined Moderna and Pfizer ~74,000 trial participants plus ~100,000 in the UK), reports no major safety signals during trials, and describes common, short-lived side effects (muscle aches, chills, fatigue, headache, fever in ~10–15% after the second dose). He also explains why vaccine development was rapid (advanced technology, high infection rates speeding efficacy endpoints, and early manufacturing scale-up) and advises that people who previously had COVID-19 may still get vaccinated, with a pragmatic 90-day consideration if supplies are limited.
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We've been researching messenger RNA as a therapy for over 30 years and it's really exploded in the last five to 10 years. So this thing was just ready to go for a pandemic. They've already been using it for cancer therapy, for creating other vaccines. It is brilliant technology. Every other vaccine we've had before, we're giving you literally a virus, which that's a scary thing. This is not a virus. There is zero chance of catching any sort of infectious disease from this thing. This is a man made little ball of fat into which they put the recipe for a protein. We're able to teach the body to recognize and attack the spike protein of the COVID virus without ever giving you a virus. So it's fantastic and should be probably one of the safer techniques of creating a vaccine that we've ever had.
There are zero chance this can change your DNA. So there's a difference between messenger RNA and DNA. If you think of a house with a couple of fences around it, a couple of moats, right? So the first fence is the outside of the cell. Cell, the messenger RNA has to get through that first one to get into the cytoplasm, the liquid part of your cell. And that's where the protein synthesis machinery takes that messenger rna, reads it as a recipe for a protein and makes a protein. But then there's another sort of guard gate, if you will, around the nucleus, which is where your DNA is. This thing never gets into the nucleus. And this thing is actually message. RNA is a very fragile molecule. It gets broken down really quickly, so it'll survive long enough to make a protein or two and then it gets broken down by the enzymes that are in your cell.
Normally the FDA requires about 3,000 subjects to go through to do a safety testing thing, but we didn't have 3,000. We had 74,000 people go through. Importantly for both the Moderna and the Pfizer, there are zero safety concerns. Not, hey, maybe there was. Maybe we got to slow down the study and take a look at this. There was nothing. They didn't even pause the study because there were zero safety concerns. So that's remarkable safety.
There's three main reasons why we're able to get a vaccine so fast. Number one, the technology is just so much better than we ever used to be. It used to take us 10 years to grow a virus strain that we could use for a vaccine. It literally took us 63 days to create the little messenger RNA lipid nanoparticle. So not years. It took 63 days and then the studies, normally when you do a study, you, you have to wait for your study population to catch enough infections. Well, the pandemic itself, that's worldwide. Hundreds of thousands of people get infected all the time, every single day. Rather, your study population catches a lot of infection. So you reach that statistical threshold where you can look and see, all right, how many got that vaccine, how many got placebo, and you can see if it worked. So the pandemic and science made it speed up. And then the last piece is normally manufacturers wait to prove that their stuff works before they start ramping up manufacturing. We didn't do that. They started ramping up manufacturing right from the beginning.
We already have had a combined between Moderna and Pfizer, 74,000 people go through. So we already have waited and seen, right? So we've already had 74,000 people go through. We had another 100,000 in the UK that have already been vaccinated with the Pfizer. So I think we've got plenty of data right now as it is that both from the scientific studies and we had multiple, I mean, keep in mind, you've had scientific panels in the uk, in Canada, in the United States, all coming to the exact same conclusion. These are people that spend their life working on this type of stuff and they all think it's safe and effective.
All vaccines have similar side effects and the side effects are not from catching any disease or infection, they're from your immune system turning on. And so the Pfizer and Moderna both have very familiar side effects that we've seen with many other vaccines, tetanus, shingles, etc. They all give similar things and that includes muscle aches, chills, fatigue, headache and maybe even a little bit of a fever. Maybe 15, 10 to 15% of folks have fever after the second shot. And importantly, these side effects, they're not dangerous. They were described as mild to moderate and lasting from 24 to 48 hours. They get better with Tylenol and Advil and they should be expected. And it's not a sign, it's literally a sign that your immune system is working. So. So I wouldn't be afraid of that.
The vast majority, if you're going to get something, some sort of serious complication, it generally occurs within the first six weeks. And that's what we've seen with past vaccines, longer term stuff, they may rarely show up, but in general, you see in the first six weeks a couple of cases in the United States where people had allergic reactions. But this happens with all Medicines, right? Antibiotics with other medications. People get allergies sometimes, sometimes unexpectedly. We know how to treat allergies. If you've had an allergic reaction to the components of the vaccine, obviously we don't want you to get it. But just because you have a peanut allergy or some other medication allergy, that's not a contraindication to get this. It just means we're going to watch you. Back to the UK, they had two people out of like 100,000 folks that they vaccinated. So this is a really small percentage of folks. I know it gets a lot of press, but again, we're talking about tiny, tiny fractions of folks that have all recovered. By the way, you know, they get the standard allergy treatment, they've all recovered.
You don't get a very strong immune reaction from natural infection. So this idea of waiting for everybody to get infected, not a good idea because, number one, lots of folks will have bad outcomes from it. And number two, your immunity is probably not going to last. We already see people can catch this more than once. The vaccines seem to give you a much stronger immune protection. Plus you don't have the risk of all the bad outcomes from having the disease.
There's no contraindication to getting the vaccine just because you had Covid. So the CDC recommends if you had Covid, go ahead and get it. Because we know natural infection doesn't give you a strong immune response. You get a better immune response from the vaccine. So go ahead and get it. The only thing is, if vaccine is supplies are limited and it's within 90 days of your first COVID infection, you're probably safe in that 90 day window, meaning that your immune system is probably still good. So let someone else get the vaccine.
I have a background not just in emergency medicine, ems, but also biochemistry. I understand the way this vaccine was made and I can tell you wholeheartedly I feel strongly that I am comfortable to get this vaccine myself. When you get into the high 90% efficacy rate, that's among some of the best vaccines humans have ever made.
