Is this a real vaccine?
Once again, I'm pressed to stray from the fictional format that I set out for this blog, and I apologize for that, but recent social media discourse has prompted me to add a short educational piece. What follows is an explanation of how vaccines work, and how the mRNA vaccines in particular work, in what is (hopefully) friendly language. I was asked by a friend if I thought the COVID-19 vaccines really were in line with the traditional definition of vaccines, and I found myself producing what, in social media terms, would be considered a very lengthy response, but probably is pretty appropriate in blog terms. Don't bail, please. It's user-friendly (and you ARE a user. We're talking use of the immune system here). The human immune system is amazingly complex, and a semester college course can’t come anywhere near providing a full understanding of it, so I’ll be hard pressed to offer a full explanation here and now, but the nutshell is this: When a foreign thing enters t...