Shark liver and soap tree: why strange substances are added to vaccines - ForumDaily
The article has been automatically translated into English by Google Translate from Russian and has not been edited.
Переклад цього матеріалу українською мовою з російської було автоматично здійснено сервісом Google Translate, без подальшого редагування тексту.
Bu məqalə Google Translate servisi vasitəsi ilə avtomatik olaraq rus dilindən azərbaycan dilinə tərcümə olunmuşdur. Bundan sonra mətn redaktə edilməmişdir.

Shark liver and soap tree: why strange substances are added to vaccines

Many vaccines contain rather strange substances, such as aluminum or shark liver extract. The fact is that most vaccines do not work without them, but no one knows why, writes Air force.

Photo: Shutterstock

1925 Gaston Ramon began an experiment that he himself called “interesting.”

For several years, a French veterinarian was testing a new diphtheria vaccine on horses and suddenly made an unexpected discovery. In animals that had an unpleasant abscess at the site of inoculation, the immune response was stronger.

And the doctor began to speculate what else could be added to the vaccine to facilitate this process.

Over the next year, Ramon tasted an original complex of ingredients that he apparently found in his kitchen. Together with the diphtheria vaccine, his unfortunate patients were injected with tapioca, starch, agar, lecithin (an emulsion of the oil usually found in chocolate), and crackers.

The experiments were successful. Animals given vaccines with Ramon's crazy ingredients had far more antibodies than those given the unaddressed vaccine.

In other words, additional components improved the body's defenses against diphtheria.

This is how a whole branch of pharmacology arose that studies adjuvants - substances designed to accelerate and enhance the action of the main component of drugs.

Adjuvants are still used today - and now they are no less amazing than they were originally.

The most common adjuvant in the world is aluminum. This chemical is found in most vaccines, particularly DTP, and also in vaccines for hepatitis A, hepatitis B, human papillomavirus, Japanese encephalitis, meningitis B, anthrax, pneumococcus and Haemophilus influenzae type b.

Other popular excipients include squalene. It is an oily substance made from shark liver and the bark extract of the quillaia tree, which was used to make soap by Native Americans.

The newest supplements (they haven't even been licensed yet) are perhaps the most surprising of all. These are tails of bacteria separated from the body and “bacterial ghosts” made from the empty shell of microorganisms.

Vaccines are known to save the lives of two to three million people each year and prevent disability for life.

How much of this success comes from adjuvants has not been studied.

But by making the body respond more strongly to the vaccine, they make the vaccines effective and provide longer lasting protection than would be possible without them. In some age groups, such as the elderly, certain vaccines would have no effect at all without adjuvants.

“Without an adjuvant, antibodies usually disappear after a few weeks or months. And with them, they can last for several years,” says Bingbing Sun, a chemical engineer at Dalian University of Technology in China.

But why these random components play such an important role in vaccination has remained a mystery for over a century. However, now scientists are trying to unravel it.

On the subject: The subjects of the Russian vaccine against COVID-19 revealed a coronavirus

False alarm

However, while these bizarre ingredients in vaccines are daunting, they are added in microscopic amounts. For example, a typical dose of a vaccine contains only 0,2 mg of aluminum, which is less than a single poppy seed weighs.

There is also no evidence that any of the adjuvants so far used have side effects.

In fact, it is because of their safety that adjuvants have become so popular.

Back in the 1970s, pediatric neurologist John Wilson gave a speech at the Royal Society of Medicine, announcing that 36 children suffered brain damage after being vaccinated against whooping cough.

Despite the fact that he was wrong, the story received a huge resonance. It was picked up by journalists, and in subsequent years, pertussis vaccination in the UK fell by more than half. And in some countries it was stopped altogether.

The fears were untrue - the vaccine had been widely used for decades without incident. But it did have a few negative side effects, such as fever, which could easily be confused with something dangerous.

Ultimately, the scandal prompted scientists to look for new ways to make vaccines.

Previously, most of them were made using either live, but weakened microorganisms, which helped the body to recognize them, or dead whole.

The latter also applied to the whooping cough vaccine, which was given along with tetanus and diphtheria (DTwP).

These vaccines were sometimes accompanied by temporary symptoms because they mimicked natural infections. And just like natural infections, they were highly effective in building immunity that could last for decades.

Many vaccines that contain live microorganisms also provide additional protection against non-vaccine-related infections, with many benefits to humanity.

The new approach was radically different. After the whooping cough scare, scientists began including only certain parts of the microorganisms, such as the toxins they produce or fragments of their outer surface. These new vaccines were just as safe and much easier to use. True, there was one “but”.

Vaccines made in this way were less “immunogenic,” that is, protection from them was not as reliable and lasted less. To solve this problem, scientists turned to adjuvants.

The aluminum paradox

Aluminum is not only the most common adjuvant, but also one of the oldest.

Soon after Ramon discovered that his horses responded better to vaccines with added cooking ingredients, British immunologist Alexander Glennie made another accidental discovery.

In 1926, his team tried to cleanse the toxin produced by the diphtheria bacteria so that it would not dissolve so quickly in the body. The researchers hoped the toxin would stay longer at the injection site and trigger a stronger immune response.

To do this, Glenny tried using aluminum salts. As legend has it, this was the first thing he saw on the shelf of chemicals in his laboratory - who knows, perhaps they were arranged in alphabetical order.

But when he inoculated the freshly made diphtheria toxin in guinea pigs, something unexpected happened. Animals that received the toxin with aluminum salts produced much stronger immunity, and the reason was precisely the use of aluminum.

Aluminum is still added to vaccines in the form of salts. These are usually aluminum hydroxide (also used for heartburn), aluminum phosphate (found in dental fillings), and aluminum potassium sulfate, which is sometimes found in disintegrants.

One of the explanations for the action of aluminum is the toxicity of its salts. They cause cells to release uric acid, which activates the immune response.

Immune cells are sent to places where foreign microorganisms are found, and voila, the vaccine works.

Another idea is that the Nalp3 receptor plays a central role in the grafting process.

Studies have shown that the aluminum in vaccines activates this receptor, which acts as an alarm, warning the rest of the immune system.

However, while there are many different types of adjuvants and many potential mechanisms of their action, in fact they all attract the attention of the immune system.

This enhances the memory in the immune system of the pathogen, therefore, immunity against it lasts longer.

Take, for example, squalene, an oil made from shark liver. It is a key ingredient in the MF59 adjuvant.

It is already being added to seasonal flu vaccines and is currently being researched for use in COVID-19 vaccines.

(Incidentally, this raised concerns that the production of a vaccine against COVID-19 for the entire population of the planet would require the destruction of about 250 sharks. The estimates, however, are rather dubious).

MF59 triggers the release of chemokines (signaling chemicals) in neighboring cells, which in turn stimulates other cells to release more chemokines.

Ultimately, this cascade attracts immune cells that absorb the vaccine—particularly recognizable parts of the pathogen it protects against—and transport it to the lymph nodes, which filter pathogens from the body and help identify infections.

On the subject: Russian virologist infected himself with COVID-19 twice: why does he need it

Next generation

“Vaccine developers are very conservative people,” Sun says. “So every time they try to find an adjuvant for a new type of vaccine, they turn to time-tested, safe and effective options.”

However, scientists began to wonder if they could come up with something better than substances accidentally invented in the 1920s and 1950s, when DNA was still unknown, they did not fly to the moon, and computers either did not exist, or they were the size with a house.

This is especially important because of a tragic irony: the people who are most vulnerable to infections tend to have weak immune responses to vaccines.

And this is very true for vaccines for COVID-19, a disease that kills people over 80 more often than people under 50.

Considering that the number of 70-, 80-, 90- and 100-year-olds in the world is growing, this problem will only get worse.

This is why the development of a new generation of effective adjuvants is so important.

One of the new candidates is the protein flagellin. It is found, for example, in salmonella bacteria, more precisely in their tails, with the help of which they move.

Flagelin is produced by separating the tail from the body of bacteria, although it has recently begun to be grown in genetically modified cells.

Flagelin has not yet been approved for use in human vaccines, but has shown very positive results in trials.

Another option is the so-called bacterial ghosts, which consist of empty shells of bacteria. They are formed by breaking down exposed bacterial cells, such as E. coli, leaving only the cell membrane.

Like squalene-based adjuvants, they produce chemical signals that call immune cells for help and draw their attention to the vaccine.

“Developing adjuvants is painstaking work,” explains Bingbing Sun. “You have to make sure they are both safe and effective, and that takes time.” It takes on average 10-12 years to license a regular vaccine.”

Who knows, maybe almost a century after Gaston Ramon experimented with bread crumbs, we will have new adjuvants. However, the next generation of supplements can be as fancy as the first.

Read also on ForumDaily:

Coronavirus mutations: is it true that strains of SARS-CoV-2 are becoming more dangerous

Three Americans confirmed influenza and COVID-19 at the same time: how often does this happen

Was scrapped: why the United States refused to use ventilators from Russia

Ukraine is developing a 'unique vaccine' against COVID-19: what is known about it

vaccine vaccination Educational program
Subscribe to ForumDaily on Google News

Do you want more important and interesting news about life in the USA and immigration to America? — support us donate! Also subscribe to our page Facebook. Select the “Priority in display” option and read us first. Also, don't forget to subscribe to our РєР ° РЅР ° Р »РІ Telegram  and Instagram- there is a lot of interesting things there. And join thousands of readers ForumDaily New York — there you will find a lot of interesting and positive information about life in the metropolis. 



 
1079 requests in 1,233 seconds.