To Vaccinate or Not---The Rat Flu Odyssey Continues

[Bunion 2020]

One target of Malone’s ire, the biochemist Katalin Karikó, has been featured in multiple news stories as an mRNA-vaccine pioneer. CNN called her work “the basis of the Covid-19 vaccine” while a New York Times headline said she had “helped shield the world from the coronavirus.” None of those stories mentioned Malone. “I’ve been written out of the history,” he has said. “It’s all about Kati.” Karikó shared with me an email that Malone sent her in June, accusing her of feeding reporters bogus information and inflating her own accomplishments. “This is not going to end well,” Malone’s message says.

Karikó replied that she hadn’t told anyone that she is the inventor of mRNA vaccines and that “many many scientists” contributed to their success. “I have never claimed more than discovering a way to make RNA less inflammatory,” she wrote to him. She told me that Malone referred to himself in an email as her “mentor” and “coach,” though she says they’ve met in person only once, in 1997, when he invited her to give a talk. It’s Malone, according to Karikó, who has been overstating his accomplishments. There are “hundreds of scientists who contributed more to mRNA vaccines than he did.”

Malone insists that his warning to Karikó that “this is not going to end well” was not intended as a threat. Instead, he says, he was suggesting that her exaggerations would soon be exposed. Malone views Karikó as yet another scientist standing on his shoulders and collecting plaudits that should go to him. Others have been rewarded handsomely for their work on mRNA vaccines, he says. (Karikó is a senior vice president at BioNTech, which partnered with Pfizer to create the first COVID-19 vaccine to be authorized for use last year.) Malone is not exactly living on the streets: In addition to being a medical doctor, he has served as a vaccine consultant for pharmaceutical companies.

In any case, it’s clear enough that Malone isn’t singularly responsible for mRNA vaccines. The process of achieving major scientific advancements tends to be more cumulative and complex than the apple-to-the-head stories we usually tell, but this much can be said for sure: Malone was involved in groundbreaking work related to mRNA vaccines before it was cool or profitable; and he and others who believed in the potential of RNA-based vaccines in the 1980s turned out to be world-savingly correct.

Malone may keep company with vaccine skeptics, but he insists he is not one himself. His objections to the Pfizer and Moderna shots have to do mostly with their expedited approval process and with the government’s system for tracking adverse reactions. Speaking as a doctor, he would probably recommend their use only for those at highest risk from COVID-19. Everyone else should be wary, he told me, and those under 18 should be excluded entirely. (A June 23 statement from more than a dozen public-health organizations and agencies strongly encouraged all eligible people 12 and older to get vaccinated, because the benefits “far outweigh any harm.”) Malone is also frustrated that, as he sees it, complaints about side effects are being ignored or censored in the nationwide push to increase vaccination rates.

You might very well walk away with the skewed sense, after hearing Malone speak or reading his posts, that there is a far-reaching COVID-19 cover-up and that the real threat is the vaccine rather than the virus. I’ve listened to hours of Malone’s interviews and read through the many pages of documents he’s posted. He is a knowledgeable scientist with a knack for lucid explanation. It doesn’t hurt that he looks the part with his neatly trimmed white beard, or that he has a voice that would be well suited for a meditation app. Malone is not a subscriber to the more out-there conspiracy theories regarding COVID-19 vaccines—he doesn’t, for instance, think Bill Gates has snuck microchips into syringes—and he sometimes pushes back gently when hosts like Bigtree or Beck drift into more ludicrous territory.

And yet he does routinely slip into speculation that turns out to be misleading or, as in the segment on Bannon’s show, plainly false. For instance, he recently tweeted that, according to an unnamed “Israeli scientist,” Pfizer and the Israeli government have an agreement not to release information about adverse effects for 10 years, which is hard to believe given that the country’s health ministry has already warned of a link between the Pfizer shot and rare cases of myocarditis. Malone’s LinkedIn account has twice been suspended for supposedly spreading misinformation.

Read: The mRNA vaccines are extraordinary, but Novavax is even better

His concerns are personal, too. Malone contracted COVID-19 in February 2020, and later got the Moderna vaccine in hopes that it would alleviate his long-haul symptoms. Now he believes the injections made his symptoms worse: He still has a cough and is dealing with hypertension and reduced stamina, among other maladies. “My body will never be the same,” he told me. In media appearances, he often notes that he has colleagues in the government and at universities who agree with him and are privately cheering him on. I spoke with several of these people—vaccine scientists and biotech consultants, suggested by Malone himself— and that is not what they told me. The portrait they paint of Malone is of an insightful researcher who can be headstrong. They related accounts of him, pre-pandemic, getting booted from projects because he was hard to communicate with and unwilling to compromise. (Malone has acknowledged his penchant for butting heads with fellow scientists.) And they are taken aback by his emergence as a vaccine skeptic. One called his eagerness to appear on less-than-reputable podcasts “naive,” while another said he thought Malone’s public rhetoric had “migrated from extrapolated assertions to sensational assertions.” Stan Gromkowski, a cellular immunologist who did work on mRNA vaccines in the early 1990s and views Malone as an underappreciated pioneer, put it this way: “He’s fucking up his chances for a Nobel Prize.”

It’s only in the curious world of fringe media that Malone has found the platform, and the recognition, he’s sought for so long. He talks to hosts who aren’t going to question whether he’s the brains behind the Pfizer and Moderna shots. They’re not going to quibble over whether credit should be shared with co-authors, or talk about how science is like a relay race, or point out that, absent the hard work of brilliant researchers who came before and after Malone, there would be no vaccine. He’s an upgrade over their typical guest list of chiropractors and naturopaths, and they’re perfectly happy to address him by the title he believes he’s earned: inventor of the mRNA vaccines.

The irony is that, to the audiences who tune in to those shows, the vaccines are seen as a scourge rather than a godsend. No matter how nuanced Malone might try to be, or how many qualifiers he appends to his opinions, he is egging on vaccine hesitancy at a time when hospitals in the least-vaccinated parts of the country are struggling to cope with an influx of new COVID-19 patients. If you want proof of that, scroll through the many comments from his followers thanking him for confirming their fears. Malone has finally made his mark, by undermining confidence in the very vaccine he says wouldn’t be possible without his genius. It’s a victory, of sorts, but one that he and the rest of us may come to regret.

This article originally stated that Malone was once forced to declare bankruptcy. Although he has previously said that he "went bankrupt," he has never actually declared bankruptcy. The article has also been updated to acknowledge that Malone cited an unnamed scientist in his tweet about an alleged agreement between Pfizer and the Israeli government, and to include the year that Malone developed COVID-19.

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[Buster Highmen]

Not everyone thinks it is better for humanity. Vaccinating in the middle of a pandemic might actually make things worse in the long run. Obviously we won't know until looking at this retrospectively but the numbers are starting to look that way.

historically. vaccinations and antibiotics have been better for humanity. so your point is statistically insignificant.

fullstack, right?

[Mofro261]

Source on coinventor statements?

I'm gonna guess dumbolddad really is a dumb, old, dad, who also dabbles in discredited right wing talking points.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/...keptic/619734/

Edit: same link as Bunion's cut and paste.

[Adolf Allerbush]

why doesn't his post count change?

[riser4]

Jeebus.

[CarlMega]

why doesn't his post count change?

mRNA resistance due to high levels of Ivermectin obviously.

[Bunion 2020]

why doesn't his post count change?

You only get a point if what you are posting isn't retarded? Case in point:

preserving people's right to decide if they want a vaccine or not, etc.

People still have the right to not be vaccinated. That will not change but there may be some downside to that decision.

[Buster Highmen]

Skepticism is a good thing, like polemics.

After all, occasionally, polemics do turn into paradigms when the data and widely shared arguments support them.

[KQ]

d we should be focusing on whether or not gain of function research is allowed, preserving people's right to decide if they want a vaccine or not, etc.
Best of health to all of you!

so with a pandemic killing millions of people rather on focusing on providing people with protection against it we should be looking at who left the barn door open?

[SumJongGuy]

why doesn't his post count change?

Maybe their profile info was entered with a Russian Cyrillic keyboard and TGR platform is unable to process it properly?

[CarlMega]

so with a pandemic killing millions of people rather on focusing on providing people with protection against it we should be looking at who left the barn door open?

Obviously. When my basement is flooding, I invest my time in pondering the question of how water came to be on Earth. It's the most practical way forward.

[Buster Highmen]

Anyone who aligns with Bannon and Trump and the rest of the Republican Party wreckers is extremely suspect. There is sufficient data in that regard.

[Cono Este]

I’m just hear you say fuck whoever, over in China, who made this all possible.

It’s about time we kick their ass out of the WTO and everything else. They are still playing games with the early data and apparently this strain MAY be closer to that and somewhere I read that makes it more likely to be man made, not a fucking bat.


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[Buster Highmen]

I read Hilary used the blood of babies and her special pizza sauce to clone omicron.

[SumJongGuy]

I’m just hear you say fuck whoever, over in China, who made this all possible.

It’s about time we kick their ass out of the WTO and everything else. They are still playing games with the early data and apparently this strain MAY be closer to that and somewhere I read that makes it more likely to be man made, not a fucking bat.


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We shouldn't have been dependent on China. We had our own front line pandemic threats intelligence gathering resources there until...


Exclusive: U.S. slashed CDC staff inside China prior to coronavirus outbreak

China had nothing to do with our being blindsided... Trump cut that shit without any other resource replacing it.. We should have been vigilant on our own about these threats..

[Summit]

I’m just hear you say fuck whoever, over in China, who made this all possible.

It’s about time we kick their ass out of the WTO and everything else. They are still playing games with the early data and apparently this strain MAY be closer to that and somewhere I read that makes it more likely to be man made, not a fucking bat.

We agree: fuck Emperor Xi and the CCP. They did a whole lot to make this worse for the rest of the world.

However, my suspicion is Omicron resulted from a series of incredibly extended infections in a tiny population of immunocompromised folks. We'll likely never know.

[neufox47]

That's fine you can all have your opinion and I won't call you a moron or a troll, make false equivalencies, etc.

When the co-inventor of mRNA vaccines was practically begging everyone in charge NOT to undertake a mass vaccination campaign, because it's the wrong tool/methodology for the job, it makes me wonder a bit. I'm trying to keep an open mind but like I said the numbers aren't looking good.
If this pandemic was instead due to variola major with a 30% death rate (not to mention a virus that is actually able to be eradicated via old-school attenuated virus vaccine) then I would likely have a different take on all this.
Like I've said before this whole situation sucks and we should be focusing on whether or not gain of function research is allowed, preserving people's right to decide if they want a vaccine or not, etc.
Best of health to all of you!

Username checks out. I like how you make grand statements that go against all the experts and provide no data or source to support it. Night is day, dark is light, just trust ME!

How many vaccinated people died from Covid last month vs unvaccinated? Yet your “open mind” think it would be better to have no vaccines. The stupid is strong in this one.

[Summit]

You can always find a few professionals with foolish opinions.

I'm here to tell you, that if we had everyone vaccinated there would be no hospital capacity issue.

[The AD]

What numbers?

These are the numbers that matter to me.

[riser4]

We shouldn't have been dependent on China. We had our own front line pandemic threats intelligence gathering resources there until...


Exclusive: U.S. slashed CDC staff inside China prior to coronavirus outbreak

China had nothing to do with our being blindsided... Trump cut that shit without any other resource replacing it.. We should have been vigilant on our own about these threats..

Mostly this.

[I've seen black diamonds!]

Getting monoclonal antibody infusion now.

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[skaredshtles]

Getting monoclonal antibody infusion now.

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Dayum, dude. ++vibes.

What did I miss?

[I've seen black diamonds!]

Dayum, dude. ++vibes.

What did I miss?

I have Covid and chronic asthma. Not breathing well. Not terrible, but not normal either.

I'm fully vaxxed with Pfizer. Meds make my regular asthma symptoms close to non-existent. But when I'm sick my lungs tend to freak out a bit.

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[SumJongGuy]

Getting monoclonal antibody infusion now.

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Vibes. Thankfully it works. You'll be good to go in a few weeks. Keep us up to date.

[Sirshredalot]

You can always find a few professionals with foolish opinions.

I'm here to tell you, that if we had everyone vaccinated there would be no hospital capacity issue.

X2. Preach, brother.

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