Not all antibodies are equal: what is wrong with the EpiVacCorona vaccine

There is nothing strange in the fact that Novye Izvestia devotes a lot of attention to the problem of vaccination - the situation in the country itself dictates such a policy. Several materials were devoted, among other things, to the Russian vaccine "EpiVacCorona", developed by the Scientific Center of Virology and Biotechnology "Vector". Moreover, the authors often referred in them to the opinion of a molecular biologist, Dr. Olga Matveyeva. Today she speaks in our edition with the criticism of EpiVacCorona itself and its developers as well.

Olga Matveyeva

Gazeta.ru published an article “Unjustified criticism. What is wrong with the statements of biologist Olga Matveyeva about EpiVacCoron". The text of the note is a response to the criticism of the vaccine development, expressed in my interview with the "Nastoyasheye Vremya" ( Present Time / included by the Ministry of Justice in the list of foreign agents). The note was written by Tatyana Nepomnyashchikh, Deputy Director General of the FBSI SSC VB "Vector" of Rospotrebnadzor. The text of the note says that an interview with me - Olga Matveeva (a molecular biologist and founder of the American biotechnology company Sendai Viralytics) "raises a number of issues that have already been discussed in both scientific and popular formats at various venues." The newspaper provides a critical analysis of my statements and arguments. I would like to answer this criticism with counter-arguments.

Tatyana Nepomnyashchikh: “Talking about the complete ineffectiveness of the EpiVacCorona vaccine, Olga Matveeva ignores all the data of clinical trials that have been obtained so far. In particular, the formation of a humoral immune response is indicated by the fact that all vaccinated participants in phase I-II clinical trials were found to have post-vaccination antibodies that persisted for 6 months. Even after the nine-month period, more than half of the volunteers were able to detect antibodies".

My answer: I am well aware of the published results of phase I-II clinical trials. Moreover, neither I nor my colleagues, molecular biologists and immunologists, have any doubts that some people after EpiVacCorona develop post-vaccination antibodies. However, this is not the problem. The problem is that the developers of the vaccine did not provide convincing evidence that these post-vaccination antibodies can in any way protect against viral infection in humans, and not in animals. The evidence presented in the publication of "Vector" in the journal "Infection and Immunity" does not stand up to scrutiny. You can learn more about why this is so by reading my article with a critical analysis of this publication by the EpiWacCorona developers.

I think that Tatiana Nepomnyashchikh is a competent specialist, and she is well aware that the antibody to the antibody is different. The vaccine can cause the formation of very different antibodies, including ballast antibodies, which are not able to bind to the virus. Independent scientific studies show that EpiVacCorona causes the formation of just such ballast antibodies that cannot protect against the virus. Independent studies have shown that in the sera of persons vaccinated with "EpiVacCorona" and having post-vaccination antibodies detected by a special test "Vector", antibodies that neutralize the virus are not detected. That is, post-vaccination antibodies from EpiVacCorona cannot neutralize the virus.

In other words, the mere fact of the presence of antibodies does not mean that they can protect against the virus. I explain the problem of the formation of ballast (non-protective) antibodies in more detail in my video entitled "Antibodies to EpiVacCoron that arise after vaccination".

Antibodies to the surface viral S-protein after EpiVaCorona are not visible with conventional tests. This fact is once again confirmed by my opponent from "Vector".

Tatiana Nepomnyashchikh : “Simultaneously with the development of the EpiVacCorona vaccine, the FBSI SSC VB Vector of the Federal Service for Supervision of Consumer Rights Protection and Human Welfare developed a special test system that takes into account the peculiarities of antibody formation when using the vaccine on a peptide platform. Unlike most commercial test systems, this test system is focused on detecting precisely those antibodies that are formed in response to the peptides included in the vaccine, while the sensitivity of other available test systems focused on detecting the entire variety of antibodies to whole Coronavirus S-protein or its large fragments does not allow obtaining the desired result and fixing the humoral response provided by functionally significant antibodies to peptides".

My answer: I have already spoken about the fact that post-vaccination antibodies after EpiVacCrow cannot protect against infection. Therefore, in order to answer my opponent Tatyana Nepomnyashchikh, I will quote my colleagues. Doctor of Medical Sciences, Professor of the Research Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology named after V.I. Gamaleya (the center that created the Sputnik V vaccine), virologist Anatoly Altstein believes that EpiVacCorona does not cause the formation of antibodies that can protect against the virus. The scientist believes that the registration of the vaccine and even the launch of the third phase of clinical trials were a mistake, since in the absence of antibodies to the S-protein of the coronavirus, there can be no neutralizing antibodies, and the vaccine cannot be effective; those who have been vaccinated with EpiVacCorona should be re-vaccinated with another vaccine . People vaccinated with EpiVacCorona will get sick and die in the same way as the unvaccinated, and therefore, the use of this vaccine, according to the scientist, should be stopped until the necessary verification is carried out.

A similar opinion was expressed by Pyotr Chumakov, Doctor of Biological Sciences, Head of the Cell Proliferation Laboratory at the Institute of Molecular Biology named after VA Engelgardt, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Pyotr Chumakov: "EpivacCorona", I think, is generally useless, it does not give protection, no protective antibodies are produced in the body after it".

Georgy Ignatiev, Doctor of Medical Sciences, Head of the Department of General Virology and the Laboratory of Molecular Biology of Viruses at the Chumakov Center, drew attention to the problem of unknown antigens in the "Vector" test system, saying: "If "Vector" uses the same peptides that are included in their vaccine - they immunize with these peptides, I suppose that with some increase, and some antibodies to what is present in the vaccine are formed. And this is something that is formed during immunization with "EpiVacCorona", of course, will bind to those conditional antigens that are in them as an immunosorbent in the test system. The question remains whether these antibodies will bind to real viral proteins”.

A similar thesis regarding vaccine antigens and tests for their determination was put forward by Sergey Netesov, Doctor of Biological Sciences, Professor, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Head of the Laboratory of Biotechnology and Virology of the Faculty of Natural Sciences of Novosibirsk State University, stating that the vaccine developers "test their line with their own line"... In his opinion, there is still no answer to the question of how strong the protective effect of the vaccine is, since the results of the third phase of clinical trials have not been published, and the results of the first two phases are not convincing.

Now about the EpiVacCorona peptides. I wrote a detailed article with evidence and links to data from various experiments showing that the EpiVacCorona peptides were poorly selected. Let's talk about the problem briefly here.

Tatiana Nepomnyashchikh : “The thesis of the invisibility of the peptides in the vaccine for the immune system requires proof and special structural studies. In the absence of such studies, based on modeling alone, it is impossible to draw a conclusion about the stability of the vaccine construct in solution, the effect of the carrier protein and other factors affecting the recognition of peptides by the immune system".

My answer: Tatiana Nepomnyashchikh herself is a little confused in the arguments, trying to present my point of view. I am not saying that the immune system cannot see peptides in the EpiVacCorona vaccine. This is possible. I admit that antibodies to vaccine peptides are formed. Here are just the areas in the viral spike protein (S-protein), with which these antibodies should interact according to the developers' plan, are hidden in the protein structure and are not available for interaction. And if antibodies to the peptide are formed, but do not interact with the intact viral protein, then what is the point in the fact that they recognize the peptide? Here I have a lot of evidence that the fragments of the viral protein corresponding to the peptides of "EpiVacCorona" are not visible to the human immune system, and my opponents from "Vector" simply do not have evidence of the opposite. The head of the department of general virology and the laboratory of molecular biology of viruses at the Chumakov Center, Georgy Ignatiyev, agrees with me. I will once again quote a specialist: “They (the developers of the vaccine OM) immunize with these peptides ... and some antibodies to what is present in the vaccine are formed... The question remains whether these antibodies will bind to real viral proteins ". That's exactly the answer to this question, the developers do not provide.

Tatiana Nepomnyashchikh: “Another issue raised in the article is an experiment organized by a group of volunteers to neutralize the virus.

Since we are talking about working with a live virus, such experiments can be carried out in a limited number of laboratories of the BSL-3 protection level, however, the organizers of the experiment do not disclose the names of the laboratories that conducted the experiment. This circumstance is all the more significant, since the results obtained by the volunteers do not coincide with the results of laboratory studies of the neutralization of the virus, carried out by the FBSI SSC VB Vector of Rospotrebnadzor with the serum of animals and vaccinated people. In these experiments, the neutralizing ability of sera from individuals vaccinated with the EpiVacCorona vaccine was shown.

My answer: I admit that my opponent and the employees of RosPotrebNadzor really want to get to the institution where the work was carried out, refuting the data of the developers of EpiVacCorona. Perhaps they want to find violations there and impose sanctions. Isn't it easier to settle the dispute and resolve the conflict between the results of vaccine developers and independent researchers in a different way? Isn't it easier to conduct such super-important experiments to determine the neutralizing ability of sera from persons vaccinated with the EpiVacCorona vaccine in an independent organization, and not subordinate to RosPotrebnadzor? There are a number of BSL-3 laboratories that could do this work. All you need is the consent of the developers for an official and independent review.

Tatyana Nepomnyashchikh: “Continuing the critical line, Olga Matveeva mentions a preprint from the Central Research Institute of Epidemiology of Rospotrebnadzor describing the experience of using the EpiVacCorona vaccine in the field, and compares the figures on the incidence rate among vaccinated persons with the incidence statistics for Moscow, making an inappropriate conclusion that with EpiVacKorona a little more people got sick and died. From the point of view of statistics, such a comparison is impossible, since the samples are (not !!) comparable"

My answer: I made such a comparison solely to show that for a study by the Central Research Institute of Epidemiology of Rospotrebnadzor, describing the experience of using the EpiVacCorona vaccine, a control group with a comparable sample of people included in it is needed. Without such a group, no conclusions can be drawn about the effectiveness of the vaccine, and I see no point in such a study. This topic was raised by Novaya Gazeta, in the article "Inundate with antibodies, why shouldn't EpiVacCorona be called a vaccine?" In this article, my colleague, molecular biologist, Skoltech professor Konstantin Severinov, spoke very eloquently.

Tatyana Nepomnyashchikh: “Reporting that the EpiVacCorona vaccine was introduced into circulation before the end of the II phase of the study, Olga Matveeva does not mention that this procedure applies to all vaccines against

COVID-19, developed in the Russian Federation, and these vaccines are registered and put into circulation before the expiration of the 270-day period of phase I-II clinical trials - according to an accelerated procedure in accordance with the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 441 of 04/03/2020 for drugs , intended for use in conditions of threat of occurrence, occurrence and elimination of emergency situations".

My answer. And here I agree with my opponent. The responsibility for introducing an untested and, according to all the evidence of ineffective vaccine into mass vaccination, undoubtedly lies not only with the developers.

In conclusion, I would like to add that, in my opinion, actively advertising a vaccine that has not been proven to be effective is not ethical. This is especially unethical given that Russia has an effective Sputnik V vaccine. Hopefully, the developers of EpiVacCorona will stop advertising it, withdraw it from circulation and agree to an independent verification. Inoculating the population with a non-working vaccine in a pandemic is the same as during military operations against a dangerous enemy, supplying the front with shells in which gunpowder was replaced with sand. I would not like this to happen in the fight against coronavirus in Russia.