Page 10 - Dr Stephanie Seneff - Reviewing Some Possible Unintended Consequences of the mRNA Vaccines Against COVID - 19

presenting cells (APCs) in both the muscle tissue as well as the draining lymph nodes were shown to
contain radiolabeled mRNA (Lindsay et al., 2019). Classical APCs include dendritic cells,
macrophages, Langerhans cells (in the skin) and B cells. Many of the side effects associated with
these vaccines involve pain and inflammation at the injection site, as would be expected given the
rapid infiltration of immune cells.

Lymphadenopathy is an inflammatory state in the lymph system associated with swollen lymph
nodes. Swollen lymph nodes in the arm pit (axillary lymphadenopathy) is a feature of metastatic
breast cancer. A paper published in 2021 described four cases of women who developed axillary
lymphadenopathy following a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine (Mehta et al., 2021). The authors urged caution
in misinterpreting this condition as an indicator requiring biopsy follow-up for possible breast
cancer. This symptom corroborates tracer studies showing that the mRNA vaccine is predominantly
taken up by APCs that then presumably synthesize the antigen (spike protein) from the mRNA and
migrate into the lymph system, displaying spike protein on their membranes.

A list of the most common adverse effects reported by the FDA that were experienced during the
Pfizer-BioNTech clinical trials include “injection site pain, fatigue, headache, muscle pain, chills,
joint pain, fever, injection site swelling, injection site redness, nausea, malaise, and
lymphadenopathy.” (US Food and Drug Administration, 2021).

We turn now to individual molecular and organ system concerns that arise with these mRNA
vaccines.

Adjuvants, Polyethylene Glycol, and Anaphylaxis

Adjuvants are vaccine additives intended to “elicit distinctive immunological profiles with regard to
the direction, duration, and strength of immune responses” from the vaccines to which they are
added (Liang et al., 2020). Alum or other aluminum compounds are most commonly utilized in
traditional vaccines, and they elicit a wide range of systemic immune activation pathways as well as
stromal cell activation at the site of the injection (Lambrecht et al., 2009; Danielsson & Eriksson,
2021).

An aluminum-based adjuvant was determined not to be optimal for a coronavirus vaccine, so other
solutions were sought (Liang et. al., 2020). A solution presented itself in the form of the widely used
pharmaceutical ingredient polyethylene glycol, or PEG. A limiting factor in the use of nucleic-acid-
based vaccines is the tendency for the nucleic acids to be quickly degraded by nuclease enzymes (Ho
et al., 2021). Regarding the RNAse enzymes targeting injected mRNA, these enzymes are widely
distributed both intracellularly (primarily within the lysosomes) (Fujiwara et al., 2017) and
extracellularly (Lu et al., 2018). To overcome this limitation, both mRNA vaccines currently
deployed against COVID-19 utilize lipid-based nanoparticles as delivery vehicles. The mRNA cargo
is placed inside a shell composed of synthetic lipids and cholesterol, along with PEG to stabilize the
mRNA molecule against degradation.

The vaccine produced by Pfizer/BioNTech creates nanoparticles from 2-[(polyethylene glycol)-
2000]-N,N-ditetradecylacetamide, or ALC-0159, commonly abbreviated simply as PEG (World
Health Organization, 2021, January 14). The Moderna vaccine contains another PEG variant, SM-
102, 1,2-dimyristoyl-rac-glycero-3-methoxypolyethylene glycol2000 (World Health Organization,
International Journal of Vaccine Theory, Practice, and Research 2(1), May 10, 2021 Page | 398