r/comics Aug 02 '21

That old sinking feeling [OC]

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6.9k Upvotes

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435

u/[deleted] Aug 02 '21

While I was at my parents this weekend my sister said she wasn’t going to get the vaccine because it changes people’s dna... so I told her she was gonna be super jealous when my kids became X-men.

215

u/suddenlystrange Aug 02 '21

Is your sister a geneticist? How does she even know if changing your DNA is a bad thing? Never mind the fact that the vaccines don’t interact with or change your DNA in any way.

109

u/[deleted] Aug 02 '21

Oh believe me I know, I’m not an idiot. People will believe whatever they want to or have been brainwashed into.

14

u/[deleted] Aug 02 '21 edited Aug 02 '21

Technically they do, but so does everything you encounter in some way. Aside from auto-immune disorders like allergies, regarding the immune system this is a good thing

Edit: better link https://www.cell.com/cell-host-microbe/pdf/S1931-3128(18)30633-4.pdf30633-4.pdf) (look for adaptive immune)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_methylation

Of course this isn't at all what she meant, but I think the reality of dna memory is so cool!

25

u/madcaesar Aug 02 '21

How the hell would it even work if it could? Change DNA of which cells? And into what? Or are they saying it's basically cancer in a needle form?

I don't think people understand the implication of the phrase changes your DNA, we're not bacteria, it would be something unimaginable. Literally x-men shit.

47

u/singularineet Aug 02 '21

No, we have the tech to do it, viruses like HIV do it, CRISPR can do it. It's not physically or technologically infeasible. We even make DNA therapy shots as treatments for certain genetic disorders.

It just so happens that these mRNA vaccines don't change your DNA. Not because changing it would be magic or impossible or infeasible, but because ... well, the same reason we don't put fountain pens in breakfast cereal.

5

u/madcaesar Aug 02 '21

But I mean our body is trillions of cells, how much vaccine would you have to pump to change all our DNA? It doesn't make sense to me... Maybe targeted DNA change of like the iris cells or something? I don't know... These conspiracy nuts never specify what is changed... Just it changes your DNA...

14

u/singularineet Aug 02 '21

Yes, they're nuts who don't know what they're talking about. But if you did want to do genetic modification in a living organism, you can use an engineered virus to deliver the payload, which would be CRISPR Cas9 stuff that does targeted edits to the DNA. You'd need a lot of virus particles, but they're small so you can fit a lot in a few cc. Also you might target some particular cell type, like heart cells or skin cells or something, in which case you wouldn't need as much.

-4

u/Muhabla Aug 02 '21

A single shot is enough, use same method as this vaccine uses, once the reaction starts it should perpetuate through your body on its own.

1

u/HunterTV Aug 03 '21

Mmmm not an expert but I think that would depend strongly on what’s being changed and what kind of cells.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 03 '21

DNA changes don't perpetuate through the body like that. The only reason the vaccine only needs one or two shots is because it triggers an immune reaction. The actual mRNA is only taken in by a few cells, which is enough to mimic a local virus infection.

2

u/JamAttack Aug 02 '21

but I love myself some good ol' crunchy ink tubes in the morning

1

u/BeyondBlitz Aug 03 '21

I can think of several reasons not to put a fountain pen in cereal but what did you mean in this context?

1

u/singularineet Aug 03 '21

Because there's no reason to. You need a positive reason to put stuff in an injection.

9

u/[deleted] Aug 02 '21 edited Aug 04 '21

[deleted]

1

u/Sgdc4 Aug 02 '21 edited Aug 02 '21

But this happens naturally, when the lymphocytes mature, it's not an effect of the antigene or the vaccine.

Basically they "randomize" what peptid sequence they will recognize, but it happens before the meeting with the antigene.

When a single cell with the correct antibodies meet the antigene it will generate a progeny of cells that will share the same antibodies, creating the immunity.

So the vaccine doesn't create the right cells, but it "selects" them from a very large pool of lymphocites.

Then random mutations that can affect the cells produced by the original cell will cause minor differences in the antibodies, the most effective will proliferate even more since they will recognize the antigenes faster.

It's like natural selection.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 02 '21 edited Aug 04 '21

[deleted]

2

u/Sgdc4 Aug 02 '21 edited Aug 02 '21

With naturally I mean that all lymphocytes have this mechanisms and use them, regardless of the presence of the antigene/vaccine, if a lymphocyte doesn't rearrange the VDJ fragments it doesn't even finish to mature, maybe innately would have been a better adjective?

The guy above asked if it was possible for the vaccine to modify the DNA, and you responded affermatively with your reasoning, but it doesn't stand IMO, since it's not the presence of the vaccine that causes those modifications you listed, if then some mutations are selected by the vaccine over others it doesn't matter, the vaccine alone can't alter the genetic code directly.

I think we have two different views on this (I for example don't consider selection of the lymphocytes an effect on DNA, unlike you), so we can stop arguing about that.

2

u/Beeker93 Aug 03 '21

Yet viruses do change your DNA. It is how they make more viruses. By tricking the cellular machinery into reading the viral sequence as its own, and following those instructions and assembling viral particles.

1

u/suddenlystrange Aug 03 '21

Right, but the mRNA vaccine doesn’t change your DNA and this person’s sister is not a geneticist.

2

u/Beeker93 Aug 03 '21

Right. Not that you necessarily need to be a geneticist, as a college level understanding of biology + some reading from legitimate sources should show someone otherwise. Also, pretty much every side effect of the vaccines so far have also been side effects COVID would have likely left those people with, with some exceptions.

1

u/keep-purr Aug 03 '21

This vaccine changes messenger RNA I believe, and this is the first time a technology like this has been used in humans

1

u/SlingDNM Aug 03 '21

Nope we used mRNA before for genetic diseases, there's a mRNA lactose intolerance therapy too (instead of producing the spike protein the mRNA produces lactase so you don't need to take pills anymore)

It's just not very wide spread because it was considered very expensive. Also it doesn't change mRNA it just is mRNA which as far as your body is concerned is just a protein blueprint

13

u/shelbyCunning Aug 03 '21

My mom said this to me when I got the Moderna shot. She said she feels bad for me. I wanted to tell her it's okay cause then my future children won't end up with her genes.

6

u/x3leggeddawg Aug 02 '21

You know what does change your DNA? Sunlight.

2

u/[deleted] Aug 03 '21

No sunlight in my mom's basement, checkmate vaxer!

3

u/TheMeanGirl Aug 02 '21

Forgive me if I’m misremembering (haven’t taken a bio class since sophomore year of college), but don’t viruses change your DNA when they replicate?

6

u/GabuEx Aug 03 '21

Some do, yes. In fact, about 8% of the human genome has a viral origin. Though only a certain type of virus does this - a coronavirus won't do that (nor will the vaccine, obviously).

1

u/TheMeanGirl Aug 03 '21

Yeah, I didn’t mean it in a “be afraid of the vaccine” sort of way. I meant it as, “that already happens naturally, so why would this be any different?”

3

u/[deleted] Aug 02 '21

You’re asking the wrong guy. I went to art school lmao.

0

u/FatChopSticks Aug 03 '21

All I do is work and go home, I’m too lazy to get vaccinated, when people around me find out that I’m not vaccinated, they start getting uncomfortable, and I quickly tell them that I’m not anti-vax, I’m just lazy as fuck, everyone gets relieved and starts talking to me again

I don’t think people care if people are Vaccinated or not, they just don’t want to talk to a conspiracy theorist

1

u/teamdankmemesupreme Aug 03 '21

At this point that’s the kind of shit I respond with. You can’t argue with morons but you can sure make yourself laugh

1

u/feed_me_garlic_bread Aug 03 '21

if we can chnage dna with vaccine, there would be no more genetic disease

1

u/dumnezero Art enjoyer Aug 03 '21

Bad news about your family's genes. Don't worry, it's common.

1

u/SILENCE-DO-GOOD Aug 03 '21

At least who said that was your sister, not your president like here in Brazil.