[Mercola]: Get vaccinated. It’s the latest COVID-19 propaganda message appearing everywhere from TV commercials to social media feeds, and it’s being pushed by celebrities and government officials alike. Yet, a sizeable population of Americans aren’t ready to roll up their sleeve just yet. A January 2021 poll found 31% were taking a “wait and see” approach to see how the vaccine — or more aptly, gene therapy — is working while 7% said they would get the COVID-19 vaccine only if it became required for work, school or other activities, and 13% said they would “definitely not get it.”
A cautionary approach is warranted, as none of the COVID-19 vaccines currently on the market are actually licensed. They only have emergency use authorization — which, incidentally, also forbids them from being mandated, although this is being widely and conveniently ignored — as trials are still ongoing.
The fact is, there’s a lot that’s unknown about these products, including their ultimate effects on your immune response. Increasingly, scientists are asking whether a phenomenon known as original antigenic sin (OAS), or imprinting, may render next-generation COVID vaccines useless.
The term “original antigenic sin” was first used by Thomas Francis in 1960, who determined that hemagglutination inhibition assay titers — which are used to determine the antibody response to a viral infection — were highest against strains of seasonal influenza to which different age cohorts had first been exposed.
In other words, the first influenza virus that you’re exposed to affects the way your lifelong immunity to that virus plays out. Later infections with virus strains similar to the first one will boost your antibody response against the original strain, and it’s not only influenza that this applies to. Imprinting is also known to occur in children with multiple dengue virus infections, for instance.
In some cases, imprinting can be beneficial, but it can also be problematic. One study found that birth-year cohorts that had a first influenza exposure to seasonal H3 subtype viruses were less susceptible to avian influenza H7N9 virus later in life, while those exposed to H1 or H2 subtype viruses in childhood were less susceptible to avian H5N1-bearing viruses when they were older....<<<Read The Full Article Here>>>...