Free Spike in Blood of Myocarditis Patients-Who Could Have Imagined Such a Thing?
Man oh man, this paper is interesting
Circulating Spike Protein Detected in Post–COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine Myocarditis
A notable finding was that markedly elevated levels of full-length spike protein (33.9±22.4 pg/mL), unbound by antibodies, were detected in the plasma of individuals with postvaccine myocarditis, whereas no free spike was detected in asymptomatic vaccinated control subjects (unpaired t test; P<0.0001).
It is notable that spike, which remained intact by evading cleavage and clearance, was associated with myocarditis in this cohort. Whether the circulating spike protein in the setting of mRNA vaccination was pathogenic is unclear.
In postvaccine myocarditis, the spike protein appears to evade antibody recognition because the anti-spike antibodies that are generated are produced in adequate quantities with normal functional and neutralization capacity.
There is growing in vitro evidence that spike itself can stimulate cardiac pericytes dysfunction or inflame the endothelium, potentially by down- regulating angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 expression, by impairing endothelial nitric oxide bioavailability, or by activating integrin-mediated inflammation with hyperper- meability of the endothelial cell layer.
Thus, the spike antigen itself, which evades antibody recognition rather than invoking immune hyperactivation, may contribute to myocarditis in these individuals.
Its important not this paper was submitted on May 26, 2022; accepted November23, 2022 and not published till 2023. The vaccines got EUA at Warp Speed but this paper got published slower than snails speed.
And for crying out loud, given all the news about myocarditis the first place these agencies should have looked at was spike protein in the blood. How hard could that have been? At the very least you could have screened kids for spike protein before giving them a 2nd dose. Unbelievable
Anyways, so young people with myocarditis have high levels of unbounded full spike in their blood despite high levels of antibodies that are supposed to bind them and target them for destruction by immune cells.
How is this even possible? Remember, Vaccine Spike protein has some proline mutations introduced that is supposed to hold it in its "prefusion" conformation, rather than the shape it adopts when it binds to ACE2. What if thats not holding? Would the antibodies produced from seeing the profusion spike locked on the transfected cells surface bind to the spike protein released by some means that is not in the profusion condition ? I don’t know. Its certainly a mystery.
While the paper tried to minimize the incidence as 2 per 1 million doses thus is ridiculous. They covered 2 hospitals in Boston which in a 2 month period had 16 cases of myocarditis in 12-21 year olds. How many doses of vaccines in a 2 month period could have been given to 12-21 year olds in a state with a total population of 7 million.
Do they have 4 million 12-21 year olds who received 2 doses in that 2 month period (or 8 million who received 1 dose).
According to some studies the incidence is closer to 1 case out of 2,500 doses. I’d say 35,000 doses in 2 months to 12-21 year old is far more plausible
In the last week of December 2021 116,000 doses were administered in the state for all ages. Assuming that held up for 2 months thats no more than 1 million doses for all ages.
Assuming 12-21 were receiving doses at the same rate as older people (doubtful), and they make up about 12% of the population , they would have gotten 120,000 doses
Assuming the only myocarditis cases were in these 2 Boston hospitals -MGH and Boston Children’s Hospital (unlikely) , then we have a very conservative estimate of 16 myocarditis cases per 120,000 doses, which is 1 myocarditis case per 7,500 doses.
Obviously, it is lower than that because 12-21 were unlikely to have been vaccinated at the same rate during that period as the over 21 age group, but more importantly, these two hospitals, large as they are, did not have a monopoly on myocarditis cases in the state. In any event, Myocarditis is far more frequent than the 1-2 cases per million doses claimed in the paper
Roughly 1 to 2 cases per 100000 individuals have developed myocarditis or pericarditis after mRNA vaccination.
An equally important finding is here
we discovered distinct differences in how adolescents respond to mRNA vaccination compared with adults, which warrant further investigation. It has previously been shown that after the first inoculation of the mRNA-1273 vaccine, the cleaved S1 sub- unit of spike can be detected in the plasma of healthy adults. However, after the second dose, no antigen was detected, presumably because there are higher levels of circulating anti–SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, which quickly bind any circulating antigen, facilitating its clearance. In contrast, one-third of the adolescents displayed antibody-bound S1 antigenemia after the second vaccination, regardless of the development of myocarditis, a finding not seen in our smaller sample of adults.
This suggests that either the immune system of adults responds more quickly to the vaccine-induced production of spike or, because of differences in body mass, the levels of S1 fall below the limit of detection for adults.
Alternatively, increased levels of free spike compared with free S1 may be attributable to differences in renal clearance rates; S1 would be expected to clear faster with a molecular weight of 76 kDa, approximately half that of full spike (180 kDa).
Because both adults and the adolescents included in our cohort received adult dosing of the mRNA vaccine, this finding suggests an age-related capacity for handling vaccine-introduced antigen. It is important to note that the majority of circulating S1 was bound by specific anti-S1 antibodies, indicating an appropriate immune response for targeting and clearing S1.
This makes me wonder if Children, possibly due to smaller kidneys may not pass as much larger protein in the urine as adults which means some children retain the full spike protein in the plasma for a longer duration than adults?. If so, its likely the dosing is too high or children need to get a vaccine that creates only subunits of the spike protein (actually they don’t need any vaccine for COVID but thats another topic).
Maybe I am wrong on that but treating children that age as adults was stupidity, and not testing troponin levels or spike protein in the plasma following vaccination in the trials (even after the myocarditis signals was known) is negligence at best if not willful misconduct
From this recent study we see this
At least some portion of spike antigen generated after administration of BNT162b2 becomes distributed into the blood.
Spike protein was detected in the plasma of 96% of the vaccinees at days 1–2 (median spike concentration of 47 pg/mL) and in 63% at day 7 (median spike concentration of 1.7 pg/mL) after the prime vaccine dose. In contrast, spike antigen detection after the vaccine boost on day 21 was reduced, with half of the study participants being positive on days 1–2 (median spike concenatration of 1.2 pg/mL) and only one individual on day 7 post-boost
Lets see what the Supplementary Tables Have to Say
Four of the 16 Myocarditis patients had no detectable free spike. 14 of the 16 Myocarditis patients took Pfizers vaccine. 4 of the 10 Pfizer patients had no detectible Free Spike. 2 of 2 Modernas patients had detectable levels of Free Spike. Funny, but there is no indication of sex on the table so I cant tell if the 2 Moderna Vaxxed patients are Male or Female (Only an ID Number so which of the 3 myocarditis patients are Female we cant tell)
The spike persists for some time in the few patients tested over time even those who got a 2nd dose
Couple more
1/interesting how the healthy controls tested are all Moderna
2/something different going on with Females, or maybe too small a sample
I always like to look at the Funding
Sources of Funding
This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health: National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (5K08HL143183 to Dr Yonker), the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (DK104344 to Dr Fasano), National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R01HD100022- 02S2 to Dr Edlow), and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (3R01AI072726-10S1 to Dr Arditi; 3R37AI080289-11S1, R01AI146785 and U19AI42790-01, U19AI135995-02, 1U01CA260476-01, and CIV- IC75N93019C00052 to Dr Alter). They also report funding from the Regione Campania Italy (CUP G58D20000240002-SURF 20004BP000000011 to Dr Fasano), Boston Children’s Hospital’s Taking on COVID-19 Together Study (to Dr Randolph), and MassGeneral for Children (to Dr Yonker). Funding for the SARS-CoV-2 antigen measurements came from a generous donation from Bar- bara and Amos Hostetter and the Chleck Foundation. The authors thank Nancy Zimmerman, Mark and Lisa Schwartz, an anonymous donor (financial support), Terry and Susan Ragon, and the Samana Cay Massachusetts General Hospi- tal Research Scholars award for their support. They acknowledge support from the Massachusetts Consortium on Pathogen Readiness, the Musk Foundation, and the Gates Foundation Global Health Vaccine Accelerator Platform funding (OPP1146996 and INV-001650).
Gee, ya think Fauci and Gates don’t have the clout to get this studies publication fast tracked
And Disclosures
Dr Walt has a financial interest in Quanterix Corp, a company that develops an ultrasensitive digital immunoassay platform. He is an inventor of the single- molecule array technology, is a founder of the company, and serves on its board
of directors. Dr Walt’s interests were reviewed and are managed by Brigham and Women’s Hospital and MassGeneral Brigham in accordance with conflict of interest policies. Dr Alter has been employed by Moderna since October 2022; her contributions to this article preceded her employment by Moderna. Dr Alter is also a founder and equity holder of Seromyx Systems, a company de- veloping a platform technology to profile antibody immunity. Drs Julg and Alter are employees and equity holders of Leyden Labs, a company developing pan- demic prevention therapeutics. Their interests were reviewed and are managed by Massachusetts General Hospital and MassGeneral Brigham in accordance with their conflict of interest policies. Dr Randolph received funding (to Boston Children’s Hospital) from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to study COVID-19 complications in children outside of this work. The other authors report no conflicts.
Interesting Moderna connection, that may explain the controls tested all being Moderna vaxxed. Quanterix no doubt is ramping up production of spike test kits