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NY Times Finally Acknowledges ‘Original Antigenic Sin’

by Jan 10, 2022Articles, Health Freedom8 comments

Artistic rendering of antibodies in the bloodstream (image by swiftsciencewriting, licensed under Pixabay License)
The New York Times refreshingly acknowledges this theoretical risk of COVID-19 vaccines but fails to adequately explain its significance.

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When you’re reading articles from any major newspaper, it’s not atypical to find the most important information buried near the end. Such is the case with a recent New York Times article titled “Will ‘Forever Boosting’ Beat the Coronavirus?

The key piece of information revealed is a theoretically possible problem with COVID-19 vaccines: an immunologic phenomenon known in the medical literature “original antigenic sin”.

This is the first instance I recall ever seeing of a major media organization acknowledging this theoretical concern about vaccination against SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

The article beings by reminding us how we were originally told that just two doses of an mRNA vaccine would offer “sufficient protection” against the coronavirus, but now the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has “expanded eligibility for boosters to adolescents and backed away from describing anyone as ‘fully vaccinated’ because two shots no longer seem adequate.”

The key takeaway from most of the rest of the Times article is that scientists are skeptical that continually getting “booster” shots is any kind of feasible solution to the problem of waning immunity.

For one, studies are already showing that “the immunity boost is transient” and “even at peak antibody levels” is not highly effective against infection with the now-dominant Omicron variant.

“It doesn’t make sense to keep boosting a strain that’s already gone,” the Times quotes immunologist Ali Ellebedy as saying.

The Times doesn’t explain, but what Dr. Ellebedy means is that the vaccines are designed to induce an immune response to just the spike protein of the original Wuhan strain of SARS-CoV-2, which is now extinct (except for inside of laboratories).

The solution the Times discusses is oral or nasal administration of a new generation of improved vaccines that would be “better at preventing infection because they coat the nose and other mucosal surfaces—the entry points for the virus—with antibodies.”

In other words, new vaccines will have to be made that will better mimic the superior immunity induced naturally by coronavirus infection.

The Times argues that, since the immunity induced by vaccines continues to protect against severe disease even after protection against infection wears off, the main point of boosters would be to restore immunity against infection.

“If the vaccines prevented infection and spread of the virus,” the Times relates, “regular boosters might make sense.” The Times then quotes immunologist Michel Nussenzweig rhetorically asking, “But with Omicron, what’s the point?”

In the final third of the article, the Times gets around to discussing how repeatedly administering “booster” doses to people might also have a harmful rather than beneficial effect.

This is a lesson learned from influenza vaccines, the Times helpfully informs.

Getting a flu shot twice annually “has a diminishing return”, the Times quotes epidemiologist Ben Cowling explaining. “For the initial doses that people receive the responses get better and better, but then there’s a turning point.”

“Some experts have raised concerns”, the Times continues, “that getting boosters too often—as some people are doing on their own—may even be harmful. In theory there are two ways in which it could backfire.”

The first is a phenomenon “in which the immune system is exhausted by repeated stimulation—a condition called ‘anergy’—and stops responding to coronavirus vaccines.” Most immunologists, we are told, “dismiss” this hypothesis as “improbable”.

The second way in which getting vaccinated could plausibly harm immunity is known as “original antigenic sin”.

This is the first instance I recall ever seeing of a major media outlet acknowledging the possibility of this phenomenon occurring with COVID-19 vaccines.

I first wrote about “original antigenic sin” in January 2019 in relation to influenza vaccines. I’ve discussed it in relation to COVID-19 vaccines repeatedly in interviews throughout 2021 (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.) And I’ve written about it in several articles discussing the superiority of natural immunity to SARS-CoV-2 (see here, here, and here.)

As the New York Times describes it, “original antigenic sin” is when “the immune system’s response is tailored to the first version of the virus, and its responses to subsequent variants are much less powerful.”

The Omicron variant has many mutations in its spike protein, so “antibodies made for the original version of the virus struggle to recognize the latest version.”

There are “clues” that original antigenic sin could be a real problem with COVID-19 vaccines, vaccinologist Amy Sherman told the Times.

However, the way the Times describes original antigenic sin, it makes it sounds as though it refers simply to a mismatch between the antigen component of the vaccine and circulating strains of the virus. But the term does not simply mean that there is a mismatch.

The Times makes it sound as though a mismatch were the definition of original antigenic sin, but that is wrong. There can be a mismatch between the vaccine antigen and circulating variants without the occurrence of original antigenic sin.

What “original antigenic sin” refers to is not just an antigenic mismatch but a phenomenon in which the original priming of the immune system prejudices any subsequent immune response due to reexposure to a different strain of the virus in way that results in suboptimal immunity as compared to the immune response that otherwise would have occurred had the host been immunologically naïve.

In the absence of an original antigenic sin phenomena, circulating antibodies from vaccination might not protect against infection because of a mismatch between those antibodies and the circulating strain, but the immune system would nevertheless relearn from the infection and mount newly adapted immune responses that are optimized for the infecting strain of the virus.

Original antigenic sin is when the immune system produces ineffectual immune responses to the newly infecting variant because it is stuck in a mode of producing immune responses specific to the antigen from the initial immunologic priming.

To reiterate specifically in the context of COVID-19 vaccines, if original antigenic sin occurs, it means not only that the immune responses from vaccination are a mismatch to a newly infecting variant, but also that the immune system fails to adequately adapt its responses to the new variant. It is stuck mounting responses to the spike protein of an extinct strain of the coronavirus, and so the immune response to any subsequent viral exposures will always be suboptimal.

Depending on the virus, original antigenic sin can occur either with infection or with vaccination. In the case of SARS-CoV-2, the evidence is that it does not occur with infection. Natural immunity is not only robust and durable, but also broad and adaptive. There is long-term immunological memory with evolution of antibody-producing cells to generate higher affinity antibodies with increased capability of neutralizing whatever variant. Even if, as with Omicron, a variant emerges that partially escapes the neutralizing capability of existing antibodies, it is likely that the immune system will update itself and start adapting to more effectively fight off the infecting strain.

The Times does not elaborate on what evidence exists that original antigenic sin does occur when the immunologic priming is not from infection but from COVID-19 vaccines. As an example of what evidence looks like is the finding that when people whose immune systems were primed by vaccines experience “breakthrough” infection, they do not mount as robust an antibody response to the nucleocapsid protein as people whose immunologic priming is from infection.

This suggests that the vaccines prejudice the immune system to always favor responses against the spike protein of the original Wuhan strain, whereas natural immunity includes balanced and coordinated responses not only to the spike but also other parts of the coronavirus.

Thus, a new variant could have many mutations in the spike protein that result in immune escape from the antibodies induced by either vaccination or prior infection, but whereas the individual with natural immunity might still mount effective adaptive responses to fight off the infection, the vaccinated individual might have a relatively more severe case of COVID-19 because of original antigenic sin.

That is the key relevance of “original antigenic sin” with respect to COVID-19 vaccines that the New York Times fails to explain to the public: we must consider natural immunity to be an opportunity cost of vaccination.

Despite the Times’ failure to adequately explain either the meaning or significance of “original antigenic sin”, it is refreshing to at least see the phenomenon acknowledged as a theoretical risk of COVID-19 vaccines, which scientists still know next to nothing about because they haven’t yet bothered to study it.

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  • TheUnderdog says:

    I had come to a similar conclusion as yourself Hammond, where-by in Feb 2020 I wrote to the UK government a number of points, chiefly among them was the insistence not to use “vaccines” against SARS-CoV-2 due to it’s rapid ability to mutate.

    The paid advisors with stocks and shares in pharmaceutical companies (Patrick Vallance and Chris Whitty come to mind) insisted Hoskins effect (the other name for ‘Original Antigenic Sin’) was not possible because the virus mutates far too slowly. This was despite showing there were already 8 forked strains within the few months it was detected with the number rapidly rising as other countries joined in the defence.

    There is no hiding place for these crooks. They cannot claim incompetence, nor ignorance, for they were fully aware. Even as evidence mounted against their absurd demands for ever more power, passports this, vaccines that, they continued their malicious triade against those rightfully skeptical of their abuse of power.

    One thing for certain is now they’re trying to backpeddle and give pithy remarks – little consolation for those dead from these poison shots – all whilst trying to placate an ever-growing angry mob. Perhaps Boris needs to take his “mumbo jumbo” and shove it where the sun don’t shine. We give no quarter to child murderers.

  • RWS says:

    If you happen to be familiar with Natural Hygiene, you will note an important falsehood in the referenced NYT article, which stated:
    “Some experts have raised concerns”, the Times continues, “that getting boosters too often—as some people are doing on their own—may even be harmful. In theory there are two ways in which it could backfire.
    The first is a phenomenon “in which the immune system is exhausted by repeated stimulation—a condition called ‘anergy’—and stops responding to coronavirus vaccines.” Most immunologists, we are told, “dismiss” this hypothesis as “improbable”.

    I’m not an immunologist, but as a Natural Hygiene physician, I unconditionally state that this is indeed a very likely probability. There is plenty of evidence that repeated ingestion, inhalation or injection of any artificial substance into the body can and will exhaust its resources, and its ability to ‘respond.’

    IOW, force artificial crap into the body enough times, and it goes through several stages: 1) artificially robust stimulation then depression during intoxication. This occurs during the initial stage of chronic use, which could be several doses or could be hundreds of doses, depending on the severity of the intoxicant; 2) A plateau stage where repeated input of intoxicant results in less and less stimulation, thus requiring more intoxicant to produce the desired effect (typical addiction scenario); and 3) A burnout stage where continued intoxicant input results in small result or no result at all.

    Over time and repeated dosing, the cellular energy/ATP/mitochondrial machinery is exhausted, nutrient reserves are exhausted, and immune and nervous systems are exhausted. Any cursory research about physiological addictions of any kind show the same general stages of degeneration.

    IMO, there is no reason to expect that repeated injections of extremely toxic vaccines (boosters) will not produce the same degenerative results.

    With conventional vax injection, there is an adaptive response as the immune system is exposed and responds with several layers of immune system protection against future exposures (theoretically and idealistically speaking). Whereas with the mRNA covid vaxxes, they are purposefully designed to force the body to keep cranking out spike proteins antigens forever and ever… or until the body can deactivate the artificial mRNA machinery that has been injected.

    IOW, whereas typical old school types of vax injections deliver one nasty hammer blow intoxication (which is bad enough), the mRNA vaxxes keep the hammer blows coming for weeks, months, years…

    Exhaustion indeed.

    • My own reaction to reading that dismissal of immune exhaustion was the same as yours. I agree that these “experts” are wrong to dismiss the possibility. Like you, I think it is rather likely, but I didn’t want to get into that for brevity’s sake since my main focus for this article is original antigenic sin.

      • RWS says:

        Thanks for your reply Jeremy. It’s becoming blatantly clear that there are more and more sinister ulterior motivations behind all of this… it’s disgusting.
        And thanks mucho for your excellent research and writing. GREATLY appreciated.
        All we can do is keep investigating and keep informing. And pray that enough people wake up to favorably tip the scales.

      • Yes, I agree with that outlook. We must just keep educating ourselves and sharing the knowledge with others until we achieve that critical mass of awakening whereby it becomes politically infeasible for them to continue their criminality.

  • Orland E Kennedy says:

    This is an enlightening article. Having a long-established strong immune system, I was very reluctant to accept the vaccines on offer for covid. Finally, giving in to peer pressure and a desire to not be a carrier to others, I allowed the vaccine to be put into my body. Having followed the course of this virus quite closely, I am now regretful of ever accepting the vaccine. I will not be allowing further boosters and, hopefully, my natural immune system will repair and be able to function as it should. Thank you for adding to my understanding of the topic and of government culpability in the pandemic.

    • I also hope that your immune system is able to adapt and essentially overwritten with the equivalent of natural immunity. Unfortunately, I also do fear that original antigenic sin is occurring. I’m writing another article about that at this very moment, which will discuss the emerging evidence.

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