Thread by @VikiLovesFACS

This study looked at #breastmilk after #CovidVaccination in 11 people.

👉🏻 mRNA detectable in whole milk of 3 of them

👉🏻 Maximum concentration 0.1 parts per billion

👉🏻 This is roughly equivalent to a single tear in an Olympic pool

1/

jamanetwork.com/journals/jamap…

The findings are roughly in line with two previous studies which concentrated breast milk in order to detect very low quantities of vaccine mRNA (in fact, this one finds a little less). Low et al... 2/

https://twitter.com/VikiLovesFACS/status/1410147655737544707?s=20&t=BHNUqGrWIFRCIubwXztP3w

And Yeo et al... 3/

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…

The authors conclude that the very low levels found suggest that mRNA COVID vaccination is safe during breastfeeding, and this is in line with the findings of other safety in breastfeeding studies, which you can find here, under q11... 4/

docs.google.com/document/d/1_w…

I wouldn't be worried by this myself, but the authors note that anyone who is might prefer to be "cautious" (I guess pump and dump?) for 48h after vaccination.

They also say we should consider the needs of those who are breastfeeding more in medical research - and I agree! 5/5

PS! Some additional points that have come up in the comments. Assuming this mRNA was active vaccine, how much milk would we need to make a dose? 6/

For a 100 mg dose of Moderna, about 50 bathtubs. For a 30 mg dose of Pfizer, only 15. Or for a pediatric dose (10mg), only 5 bathtubs.

You can pump that, right? 7/

https://twitter.com/SaltaoVladimir/status/1574682395030310914?s=20&t=mQh9fZ3kSiQOHAvleGxDwg

But vaccines are not just mRNA - the lipids and PEG are also important components without which they won't work. So is there any evidence that these components get into breast milk? 8/

https://twitter.com/1979pop/status/1574695775908630529?s=20&t=mQh9fZ3kSiQOHAvleGxDwg

Thanks for reminding me of this study of 50 people, which asked exactly that question and was unable to detect PEG in breast milk. 9/

https://twitter.com/VikiLovesFACS/status/1476093389678518273?s=20&t=mQh9fZ3kSiQOHAvleGxDwg

This is actually what the authors of this recent paper suggest - that it's vaccine mRNA being produced in the breast and recruited into extracellular vesicles (EVs) rather than vaccine itself. 10/10

PS. As a couple of people have pointed out, I have said “mg” when I meant to say “ug”. That’s a typo rather than a factor of 1000 error, but thanks all for being so vigilant!

https://twitter.com/TimTruth123/status/1574710858764079105