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“A vaccine is safe when clinical studies show that it does not cause serious side effects. And this is the case of the first Covid vaccines in process. They are safe, they do not have serious side effects.»Repeat the concept Guido SilvestriMarche-origin immunologist, chair of the department of clinical pathology and medical laboratory at Emory University in Atlanta.
After Guido Rasi, former director of the pharmaceutical agency Ema, immediately clears the field of doubts about the reliability of the preparations ready to be distributed in the first months of the year, according to the announcements of the companies Pfizer / Biontec, Moderna and Astrazeneca.
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Silvestri, let’s try one by one to dismantle the prejudices of those who do not trust and emphasize the speed with which the candidates close to the goal have developed.
«It is not very sensible to raise this doubt (here the controversy of the last days). In the past, for viruses like polio, measles, and chickenpox, it took many years to find the vaccine. Technologies have improved dramatically today. I repeat: there is no point in making comparisons.
Isn’t the speed of approval times suspicious?
“No. As I was saying when the research was still in its infancy, we unleashed the hell of contemporary science against the Sars-CoV-2 virus, because the pandemic has conquered the entire world, there are millions of infections, we must stop it. Now we are harvesting the fruit of a collective effort by the scientific community unprecedented in the history of mankind.
Was the time of experimentation cut short for commercial interests, at the expense of security?
“Please, let’s not be fools. Who starts from this assumption gives sensational help to non-vax people. We went as fast as possible, but not faster than allowed. The clinical trials have respected the appropriate times and the pharmaceutical agencies, such as the US FDA and the European Ema, are doing their evaluations, according to the rules “(here, the focus on vaccines in China, which however does not follow the rules of Europe and the United States).
What opponent is Sars-CoV-2?
‘It is a relatively simple virus compared to other pathogens and, in theory, its RNA structure makes it very suitable for an RNA-based vaccine. Other viruses, such as HIV, responsible for AIDS, are for various reasons much more difficult to neutralize. Those who had predicted that a Covid-19 vaccine would take many years to prepare have been blatantly wrong. “
Are the technologies used equally safe?
“Of course. The speed in identifying the virus, deciphering its molecular structure and identifying the protein to be neutralized, the famous Spike, has allowed us to press the accelerator. So, modern technologies have made it possible to develop these viral-type RNAs in a while a record that, encapsulated in lipid nanoparticles, teaches our immune system to produce antibodies that then disarm the virus itself.
Had these technologies been used already?
‘RNA vaccines were conceived in the 1990s from Katalin kariko, Hungarian biologist and my old friend Drew weissmann, at the University of Pennsylvania. In recent years they have been studied for various clinical applications, but the two RNA vaccines against Covid-19, produced by Pfizer / Biontech and Moderna, will be the first of their kind to enter clinical use.
But so far there is no written evidence, only announcements about the efficacy and safety of these vaccines. What if it’s just a commercial operation?
«The results are sure to be published in full in the coming weeks. There is no doubt about the accuracy of the data also because they have been inspected and certified, so to speak, by a Data Safety Monitoring Board, an external body independent of the manufacturing industries, made up of virology experts and vaccinologists.
Imagine having to convince a suspicious friend to do the anti Covid. What would you say?
“The vaccines have passed the three canonical phases of clinical development, the data has been evaluated by independent experts, the side effects are very modest.”
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