At the same time, pushing the vaccine even to those whose immune systems are quite capable of recognizing and neutralizing the whole wild virus diminishes the reservoir of broader, stronger, and longer-lasting natural immunity that would be capable of "develop[ing] antibodies to the entire surface of the virus, not just a spike protein constructed from a vaccine," and therefore capable of recognizing and neutralizing more variants. The resulting huge mass of not-so-immune, not-so-sick or asymptomatic, "leaky"-vaccinated people becomes a giant petri dish driving the evolution of vaccine-resistant variants.
Bottom line for Bossche: "The current [mass vaccination] 'experiment' is exactly how one would proceed to generate highly infectious variants that ultimately resist the vaccines."
It's like giving everyone a half-course of antibiotics in the midst of a mass bacterial infection. We all understand that's not going to defeat the bacterium. It only heightens the risk of super-bugs emerging that would be more deadly and impervious to the drug. As reported in Quanta in 2018, "Just as antibiotics breed resistance in bacteria, vaccines can incite changes that enable diseases to escape their control."
The "immune-escape" problem with vaccines has been known and worried about for quite a while. A 2001 study of found that "vaccines that are not expected to provide full immunity" can "diminish selection against virulent pathogens... lead[ing] to higher levels of intrinsic virulence and hence to more severe disease in unvaccinated individuals" and "eroding any population-wide benefits such that overall mortality rates are unaffected, or even increase, with the level of vaccination coverage." (We'll come back to that point about "overall mortality".)
The most influential study relevant to the current situation was done around 2012 by Andrew F. Read, et. al. They studied an immune-escape event that actually occurred with a vaccine for a poultry virus (Merck's). In their experiments, "vaccination enabled the onward transmission of viruses otherwise too lethal to transmit, putting unvaccinated individuals at great risk of severe disease and death".
As Nsikan Akpan points out, in a 2015 PBS article on the Read study: "the virus spread to sentinel [control group] birds nine days faster if it came from a vaccinated chicken versus an unvaccinated one"[and] "sentinels died faster when exposed to vaccinated chickens versus unvaccinated chickens." As Read said, "One way to look at that experiment is that [it] shows vaccinating birds kills unvaccinated birds."
Since then, there has been concern about this happening with human vaccines. Per Read, quoted, in Science: "We are entering the era of leaky vaccines in humans... We need to have a responsible discussion about this."
If this "immune-escape" analysis is accurate, then, the greatest danger now comes from the vaccinated. They become the vector and driver of variant evolution, the danger to society. The unvaccinated need to protect themselves from the vaccinated.
Is this analysis correct? I don't know. I was very skeptical about it a few months ago, partly because I don't want it to be true. The implications are disastrous. But developments during the past few months are consistent with what Bossche predicted: the rapid emergence of extremely infectious (but not necessarily as deadly) variants, outbreaks in unusual populations and environments, vaccinal immunity waning quickly, breakthrough infections galore, the constantly-changing meaning of "fully-vaccinated." And, though there's likely a lot of fear-mongering in the various headlines, we are quickly running through the Greek alphabet, from Delta, a variant: "poised to acquire complete resistance to wild-type spike vaccines," to Mu, a variant "that might be able to evade immunity from vaccines and previous infections." We had better take it seriously.
This experiment--and it is "the grandest medical experiment ever imagined"--is ongoing in humans. Whether immune escape is happening is a matter for open, transparent, publicly available--you know, scientific--investigation and discussion. In place of reasonable discussion, we have censoring, ridiculing, and threatening to punish scientists and doctors who are trying to have one. How many of the articles I referenced above would be allowed to be published today? The resistance wouldn't be because they are "anti-scientific" or wrong, but because they are cogent and call into question the vaccine program.
I emphatically second this observation, from another excellent overview of the issue:
this is not a proven hypothesis. let's be very clear about that.
but it is an increasingly well supported hypothesis and one that seems more consistent with the facts than claims that vaccines are protecting society from spread or even from severity in the long run. if this bears out, boosters are a recipe for epidemiological poison, not prevention. you're putting out a fire with gasoline...
we need to get much deeper into this issue of societal spread and viral amplification by the vaccinated.
the FDA and NIH need to stop playing vaccine salesman and do their actual jobs. they never looked at safety here and they never looked at long term sterilizing immunity. if they pushed a seriously leaky vaccine into hundreds of millions, blame for this new surge lies 100% at their feet.
the fact that they are not all hands on deck assessing this issue is a disgrace. there is no higher priority in medicine right now.
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