The Science Behind the Vaccines

Our work debunking social media misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccines can lead us to fascinating interviews with scientists.

In researching a claim about the vaccine-generated spike protein, staff writer Catalina Jaramillo reached out to Jason McLellan, a structural biologist at the University of Texas at Austin, whose work was fundamental for the development of COVID-19 vaccines.

The vaccines for COVID-19 work by providing instructions for cells to make their own coronavirus spike protein, which then triggers the immune system, generating protective antibodies and activating other immune cells known as T cells. While these spike proteins prompted by the vaccines and the spike proteins from the actual SARS-CoV-2 virus are quite similar, there’s “one key difference,” McLellan explained.

The spikes encoded by the vaccines “contain 2 amino acid changes that help stabilize the spike in its initial conformation and help prevent the spike from undergoing a conformational change that is required to facilitate membrane fusion,” he told us. Keeping the spike in that initial form prompts more effective antibodies against the virus.

Catalina further explains the significance and the research behind it: "That’s because the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein is a shape-shifter. To fuse its viral membrane with the host cell membrane it substantially changes its shape from an unstable pre-fusion state to a stable post-fusion state.

While previously working on a vaccine for MERS, a disease caused by another coronavirus, McLellan and others discovered that by adding two proline molecules to the spike protein, they could lock it into its pre-fusion state, triggering a more effective immune response and preventing cell entry. The same harmless mutation, called 2P, as in two proline molecules, is used in the SARS-CoV-2 vaccines."

As for the claim that was spreading through social media platforms — that the vaccine’s spike protein is “a pathogenic protein,” “a toxin” that gets into the bloodstream — there’s no evidence for that. McLellan said: “I have not seen any data to support” such a claim.

A Food and Drug Administration spokesperson similarly told us there’s no evidence that the spike protein in vaccines “is toxic or that it lingers at any toxic level in the body after vaccination.”

For more, see our story, “COVID-19 Vaccine-Generated Spike Protein is Safe, Contrary to Viral Claims.”

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Wrapping Up

Here's what else we've got for you this week:

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• "Second Ladies in Combat Zones": In several recent speeches to members of the military, President Joe Biden has sprinkled in a curious piece of trivia about his wife, Jill, saying he thinks she is the only second lady to visit a war zone. She isn’t.
• "House GOP’s Misplaced Blame for Rising Homicides": On Twitter, the House Republican Conference posted an image of rising homicide rates in seven cities with this bit of misleading commentary: “Welcome to President Biden’s America.”
• "Democrat Makes Misleading ‘Defund the Police’ Claim": A senior aide to President Joe Biden misleadingly claimed that congressional Republicans “defunded the police” when they voted against the American Rescue Plan Act. House and Senate Republicans didn’t support the legislation, but it wasn’t a vote to cut or eliminate federal funding for law enforcement, as the claim may have led viewers to believe.
• "Flawed Paper on COVID-19 Vaccines, Deaths Spreads Widely Before Retraction": The COVID-19 vaccines have been shown in trials and real-world application to be safe and effective. But a paper shared widely online claimed that vaccines cause two deaths for every three lives saved. Experts say the analysis misinterpreted data and was flawed — and it has now been retracted by the journal that published it.
• "No New Revelation on Hydroxychloroquine and COVID-19": Randomized controlled trials — the highest standard of evidence — have found that hydroxychloroquine isn’t beneficial in treating hospitalized COVID-19 patients. Yet social media posts are claiming the drug works, and conservative outlets have touted an unpublished, and much-criticized, observational study as evidence of the drug’s effectiveness.
• "Spoof Video Furthers Microchip Conspiracy Theory": A list of the ingredients used in COVID-19 vaccines is publicly available, and the ingredients don’t include microchips. Yet claims advancing conspiracy theories that they do continue to flourish. A recent video purports to show a microchip reader for pets detecting a chip in a vaccinated person’s arm — but the original video was created as a joke.
• "Facebook Post Misleads on H.R. 1’s Proposal on Voter Rolls": Democrats say their bill, H.R. 1, the For the People Act, would expand voter access in federal elections. But a Facebook post falsely claims the legislation would prevent the removal of dead people from voter rolls. The bill doesn’t say that, and existing federal legislation requires states to remove names of the deceased from voting lists.

• "Los hechos, y las lagunas, sobre el origen del coronavirus": A pesar de que la teoría del escape de laboratorio esté ganando atención en los medios, todavía no hay evidencia creíble para esa hipótesis. La mayoría de los científicos piensan que el virus probablemente tiene un origen natural. 
• "Aerolíneas están incentivando, no prohibiendo, pasajeros vacunados": Mensajes en redes sociales dicen erróneamente que varias aerolíneas están evaluando rechazar a pasajeros vacunados debido al riesgo de coágulos sanguíneos a gran altitud. Pero no hay evidencia de un mayor riesgo para pasajeros vacunados.