One of the most common misconceptions surrounding the COVID-19 vaccines is that it can make you infertile. For those of you hoping for some free permanent contraception, I hate to break it to you but don’t throw out your condoms and pills just yet, as the vaccine cannot affect your fertility in any way, shape or form and here’s why.
It is believed that the misconception that vaccines can affect your fertility arose from a now-deleted Facebook post that incorrectly stated that the mRNA in the Pfizer vaccines was able to target and attack a protein that is involved in formation of the placenta called syncytin-1, as well as its target protein which is found on the COVID-19 virus. This post has no scientific fact or truth in it, and I’ll explain why.
Figure: The now-deleted Facebook post that incorrectly states that the mRNA vaccine targets syncytin-1
Copyright: TheJournal.ie
mRNA is something that our body makes itself naturally when it is replicating our DNA for new cells. It is like a set of instructions that tells your body the ingredients and sequence of the protein that it is making. The mRNA in the Pfizer vaccine is the instructions to make a protein called an antigen, that is found on the surface of the COVID-19 virus. The antigen is what our antibodies use to recognise individual viruses so they know they best way to attack them. This antigen is specific to the COVID-19 virus, as all viruses have these antigen proteins, but they are all slightly different in the sequence of amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, that they are made of. Every protein is made up of a combination of one of the 20 amino acids that exists, in any variation of sequence or length. This is what allows so many different proteins to be made by our bodies, each with different roles within the body, because there are so many different ways to arrange the amino acids. mRNA is so useful because the instructions that it contains are so specific that only one protein can be made, no others.
The Facebook post stated that the mRNA in the vaccine would attack the placenta protein syncytin-1, because the protein is kind of similar in structure to the COVID-19 antigen. This is wrong for two reasons. The first is that the protein that the mRNA in the vaccine makes cannot actually attack anything. The mRNA in the vaccine tells your cells to make the COVID-19 antigen protein and to display it on the outside of the cells so that our antibodies will be able to see it, remember it and then destroy it, meaning that if your body sees this antigen again (on an actual COVID-19 virus) it will be able to respond and destroy it very quickly and you wont get as sick as a result. This antigen cannot actually attack any of your cells, as it doesn’t have the rest of the virus to help it. Even if it could, the synctyin-1 protein and the COVID-19 antigen are only similar by a few amino acids out of hundreds. This is not specific enough for the antigen to theoretically attack to be associated with the placenta protein.
Some of the worries concerning fertility and the vaccine could have also arisen from the term ‘sterilising’ that is often used to describe a vaccine. When one says ‘sterilisation’, most assume the term is only used to describe the process of reproductive sterilisation, i.e not being able to conceive a child. But when it comes to a vaccine, sterilising is a good thing.
When talking in terms of a vaccine, sterilising in this context means the ability of the vaccine to prevent the virus from taking hold in your body. Vaccines that are non-sterilising mean that the virus will still be able to enter your cells and reproduce, however it will not be able to make you very sick as the vaccine will allow your immune system to quickly destroy the virus. You will still be able to carry the virus and potentially transmit it to others, you just won’t become sick from the virus. A sterilising vaccine on the other hand means that the virus will not be able to enter your cells at all, and you will not be able to be a ‘carrier’ of the virus. So with that information, a sterilising vaccine is a good thing.
Many prominent members of the ‘anti-vaxx’ community prey on the fears of their followers and they have campaigned the false information that the vaccine will reproductively sterilise you, which we now know is not the case, it will only sterilize you of virus, in the same way that we sterilise baby bottles and medical equipment.
Bottom line: the COVID-19 vaccines scientifically CANNOT affect your fertility.
Comentários