Thread by @GKangInd

Bear with me.. About Luc Montagnier’s statements-
Well, apparently he did not say all vaccinated people will die in two years (Given human variation why 2? Not 1 or 6??). But he did say
New variants are created through selection imposed by antibodies made through vaccination 1/n

And he said
2.There will be much stronger infection by variants in vaccinated individuals due to antibody dependent enhancement
3.Massive vaccination is an enormous error, a medical mistake
NOT TRUE. Read on. 2/n

When we are infected or vaccinated we make antibodies in response to a whole virus or part of a virus. In viral infection, the body’s immune responses, including antibodies, shut down viral replication and we recover from infection. 3/n

In vaccination, the immune response that is made has nothing to fight immediately but we train the immune system to recognise the virus if and when it comes. Vaccination is preparedness/prevention. 4/n

In a small number of individuals, special, because they are immunocompromised (therefore not usually out & about to spread virus) it is possible that virus replication may be prolonged. In such (rare) cases there may be development of variants that escape the immune response. 5/n

Variants are many, but variants that escape immunity are few. As the virus spreads through populations & multiplies massively, the few variants that are more capable of escaping immunity that is induced by vaccines will make vaccines somewhat less effective. BUT....6/n

while this may be what we are currently seeing with B1.351 and B1.617.2, even there two doses of vaccines protect reasonably (data from Qatar and UK).
The only way to decrease variants is not to stop vaccination, but to increase it to stop virus circulation and replication! 7/n

We see from effectiveness and impact studies that vaccination reduces viral replication in individuals and decreases transmission in communities, effectively decreasing the overall viral load in the community and the world. 8/n

Clear and simple-if viruses are not replicating they cannot mutate and become new variants. Vaccinate to decrease viral replication and variants!! 9/n

Antibody dependent enhancement was a potential problem identified with COVID-19 vaccine development. From Barney Graham in Science. 2020 May 29;368(6494):945-946. doi: 10.1126/science.abb8923. 10/n

Essentially, instead of blocking virus from entering cells, non-neutralizing antibodies bind & increase ability to infect immune cells it usually can't get into, resulting in more virus replication, immune cell activation & secretion of cytokines that increase inflammation. 11/n

However, all vaccines are being evaluated to see that they make high amounts of neutralizing antibodies. And they are. 12/n

What about with variants because neutralizing antibodies to an older version of the virus might not be enough? This is analogous to the situation with dengue where it is not old and new versions of the virus but 4 different serotypes that may infect sequentially. 13/n

With repeat dengue infection, where low levels of antibodies from a first infection with 1 type of virus or vaccination can trigger enhanced/severe disease when a person does get subsequently infected with a type to which there is not good neutralizing antibody. 14/n

With SARS-CoV2 vaccines based on older virus/spike, the ability to neutralize new variants is lower but not absent. Vaccines seem to be working. A booster dose of old or new versions of mRNA vaccines have been shown to broaden the immune response, which is encouraging. 15/n

We need to continue to study long term protection, and particularly study immune response in vaccine break through cases to understand what is happening with immunity and safety. But reassuringly, so far there is no signal. 16/n

Massive vaccination being a mistake is a topic brought up with pseudo-scientific messy incorrect immunology that I have addressed previously, so I refer you to