Hi, everybody, it's Dr James Marcum back here again,
and this week I want to answer one of your questions
that's come in and actually this question
came in quite a long time ago, but I've been waiting
till this information develops before I answer this question.
The question we're going to be tackling today is Novavax.
That's a new vaccine, a better vaccine than what we have available.
This originally came back several months ago when the Novavax
had some preliminary data release from Britain.
But before we do that, as you remember,
I want you to point you to the big picture that God loves us.
He wants to be a part of our life.
He's the source of our healing.
With that, our text today is Psalms 50 versus 15.
Call upon me in the day of trouble.
I will deliver you and you shall glorify me
when we're in trouble.
We ask God to help us.
That brings glory to him.
I want you to keep that big picture in mind as we tackle
this question Is Novavax a better vaccine?
But before we answer that question, let's
do some background and get some more information on.
first of all, there are many different vaccine types out there,
so there are many different ways to make a vaccine.
We've all heard about the messenger RNA.
Those are the Pfizer's, the Moderna's.
They use messenger RNA.
We've heard about the adenovirus vectors like JNJ.
Well, they can also make virus vaccines from whole cells.
They can make it from DNA.
They could also make it from protein, protein based vaccines.
That's what the Novavax is, but
it takes time to develop vaccines, takes a lot of research
studying looking at benefits, risk, long term analysis.
And also, when you make a vaccine, you have to find something
that's reasonable to distribute to the masses.
Remember the Pfizer? You had to keep very cold.
We want to keep the expense down,
and we're seeing right now that there are actually problems
with some of the vaccines out.
There we're now needing boosters to boost their original effects.
We've seen in many countries, including the United States and Israel,
that over time the vaccines lose efficacy.
That means they aren't as effective, and that's why we're trying to get boosters.
We've also seen that the vaccines do have side effects,
and if you want to look at the side effects, just go to the
there's the IRS website
or the Open Vaers website, and this will give you a list
of the vaccine side effects that have been reported.
And if you go to that, you're going to see that there's been reports
of myocarditis, thrombosis, which is blood clots.
There have been reports of death.
There's been reports of disability and many other adverse reactions.
So the vaccines out there do have their limitations.
A recent Harvard study
that was just released February 2021
in the European Journal of Epidemiology,
the main article states this increases
in COVID 19, unrelated to levels of vaccination
across 68 countries and 2947 counties in the United States.
That was published in the European Journal of Epidemiology.
Didn't get a lot of press time in the United States.
So basically, in looking at the data and the graphs on this, the bottom line
is the COVID vaccination so far to date
do not necessarily stop infection or spread.
They seem to give protection against severe disease in high risk populations,
and they have right now a limited public benefit,
and they do that because it doesn't seem to prevent spread.
So that was this Harvard study of conclusions
based on the European Journal of Epidemiology.
So even though the vaccines are being pushed
as the only way to treat this, there are some limitations.
So let's talk about Novavax.
The original technology is similar to the technology
that they use to develop the hepatitis B.
Vaccine that came out the mid-eighties
and the technology to make this is similar to the flu vaccine.
So what they do simplistically is they get genetic material.
In this case, they get genetic material from the spike protein.
This is cloned, then they insert it into a back loop virus.
That's an insect virus.
And then they have this virus.
In fact, moths then in the moths,
this this replicates or it divides.
Then what they do is they extract this spike protein
they extracted from the moths after it's replicated.
They take five micrograms the spike protein
and put it to a substance called an adjuvant.
In this case, with the Novavax, it's a combination of Molina bark,
cholesterol and phospholipids.
And they put it with the spike protein, and they take about 50 micrograms of that.
And that's how they make their their vaccine.
So all of a sudden they put all of this together.
They inject it into the body and the body sees it.
Now the adjuvants purpose is to increase the immune response.
So they have to use less of this spike protein that they inject.
So this process is done in the body and then it develops an immune response.
They've done preliminary studies.
Phase one, face to face three.
And now, just in October ten, they they put out the phase three study.
It's called the Prevent 19.
So what they did in the Prevent 19 study is they looked at nearly 30,000
study participants and looking at the preliminary data that they use.
I like this study because they had a variety of people.
Some of the studies that had done
so far in the preceding vaccines didn't have this kind of variety,
but they had Native Americans different types of ethnic groups,
different types of ages that they put in this study.
And what they did is they got all the studies together, the 30 thousands.
They took this new vaccine that we talked about already.
That was basically
the spike protein that was in an adjuvant
to make it more immunogenic and that they injected it.
They waited 21 days, then they made it injection again,
and then they followed the participants over time.
So they did this study in the United States
and Mexico with a broad variety of people.
And the endpoint was whether people got COVID or not
and how severe was the Koven and the way they did.
That was, of course, they tested them and they saw if they had symptoms.
So that was the endpoint of the study.
So they got all these patients together, a great variety.
Now, none of them had had COVID before.
That had to be one of the criteria for entry into the study.
None of had COVID before. So
10,000 of the patients,
10,000 they gave a placebo to that was a fake vaccine.
They didn't know what they get it.
And then 20,000 of the patients
they gave the vaccine to the Novavax vaccine, five micrograms
of the protein of the spike protein and then they the adjuvant 50 micrograms.
It went with it to create the immune response.
So of the 10,000 patients
that got the placebo, those patients over time.
63 people develop the Koven.
They didn't report any deaths in those 10,000 people.
Now we don't know whether those people had early treatment or not.
We don't know whether they will get in nutraceuticals.
We don't know a lot about what they were doing diet wise.
Then they looked at the 20,000 patients that got the vaccine,
and they noticed that of those 20,000,
only 14 cases, only 14 cases.
And of those cases, they were very mild cases.
They didn't have any moderate severe cases.
So the conclusion of this phase three study was that people that
get this note, this new type of vaccine that hasn't been released, the Novavax,
which is a protein vaccine at a dose, it was 90% efficacious.
And in this data, out of 20,000 people, 14 cases, all mild.
So it did seem to have an improvement over people that didn't get it.
So let's look at once the studies been done answering
our question Is Novavax a better vaccine than the ones we have available?
And many people are?
We know about the Pfizer, we know about the Moderna, the JNJ and asked you.
Zenica, those ones are being used.
We've already talked a little bit about some of the limitations that we have
and now we are needing boosters.
We've also talked about
the limitations of the side effects that you can look up for yourself.
But what are some of the pros of this vaccine as I see it?
Well, number one, they don't actually your body
doesn't make the spike protein it's given to you.
So there's no messenger RNA put into your body.
There's no really genetic material it's already made.
So there's no spike protein that's actually made by your body.
It's given to you.
It does not in its adjuvant.
It doesn't have polyethylene glycol, which some people are allergic to.
There's no fetal cells.
one of the big advantage of this one is it can be refrigerated
and stored for long periods of time.
And that's a big advantage when you want it to give it to mass people
when you want to store it.
Remember the Pfizer, you had to keep very cold.
So that's a big advantage.
It's relatively inexpensive compared to the other ones.
one of the new things that we found out originally
in the short term, there seemed to be very few side effects.
That's in the short term.
We don't know long term because we haven't followed these people long term.
And I think in looking at the trial with these nearly
30,000 thousand people from a different variety,
I thought the trial data, the preliminary data were they use this was better.
Remember, this is a phase three study.
The next step in this vaccine development will be an EU, a approval
and then down the road, it might or might not get FDA approval.
What are some of the downsides of this?
Well, we still don't have long term data.
We don't have long term safety data on this.
But the preliminary data looks good.
And I think the side effects long term might be a lot less
because of the way it's developed.
Remember, there's no messenger RNA.
Your body's not making spike protein.
It's a little it's made a little bit differently.
Another downside is it really hasn't been studied well.
This study was done early in the year, in January and February of 2021.
Really, it didn't look at the Delta variants which are out there now,
which even the vaccines out there don't seem to be very effective against.
Again, we talked about it has no EU aid yet,
and this vaccine has been late in the game.
What I mean when I say late in the game was this was
made by a company they got money for.
You know, it was during Project Warp Speed, they got over $1,000,000,000
to help develop it, but they couldn't get it to market
as soon as some of these other companies did,
and a lot of the time, they didn't think they could get it going quite as quick.
The speculation was they didn't partner with other bigger companies
that were well-established and could get this.
The studies done all this many different things
that they have to do to get the phase one, phase two, phase three and the EU.
So this would lag behind the others a little bit.
So who is interested in this in this new vaccine, the Novavax?
I think that's a very important question
as we ask, is it a better vaccine or not?
Well, candidate in February put in their order.
Japan has a pharmacy called Taquito that that's making it.
They want millions of doses.
In March, the Philippines
in the UK in June, Singapore in August, the European Commission.
So, so people, scientists,
health departments from all around the world are ordering this
so they can see some type of value in this new vaccine,
whether this be in the way it's given out, whether they think it's going
to have less side effects.
We still don't know the long term efficacy that means how effective
it's going to be long term.
Will it need a booster?
Will its effectiveness wane over time?
Will the variants attack get around this as well?
Who is not interested in this new vaccine?
Well, think about it, you know, from a financial blitz road.
Pfizer, Moderna, all the vaccine companies out there
aren't going to be too interested
in this new vaccine because it might take away business.
Because remember, there's lots of Pfizer, Moderna, JNJ, AstraZeneca,
they've made lots of these because they thought
they would have to supply the world with this vaccination.
So let's get back to our original question
is Novavax a better vaccine?
Well, I would have to say in looking at the preliminary
data, yes, based on the current.
Now, the current data could change,
and I'm hoping it does get an EU a authorization.
So all these countries that want it can start using it.
And of course, in those countries,
they have different regulations before they can use different vaccines.
So this is another tool to put in our toolbox for people
to consider, especially people at high risk of developing severe symptoms.
It's not the only tool we've talked about lifestyle,
which includes eating well, which includes social distancing,
oral hygiene, those type of things.
We talked about nutraceuticals, vitamin D's, vitamin C, zinc, all of those things.
We talked about early treatment.
And now we've also talked about the importance of natural immunity
and how valuable that is, though, though
it's still a little bit too early to tell.
I think that this might be a safer vaccine, its long term benefits unsure
at this point. Let's get back.
To Psalms, 50, verse 15.
You know, we want to have
the big picture every day of our life because none of us last forever.
We all have bad genes.
We all need a savior. We all need ultimate healing.
But in Psalms 50 verse 15,
call upon me the god of the universe, the one that made you
in the day of trouble.
Well, this would count for a day of trouble.
Who should we call on?
Well, then this text God says, I will deliver you
when God makes a promise, a biblical prescription, a guarantee
you can take it to the bank.
I will deliver you.
We know the answer to this question. You will be OK.
You will be delivered when you call upon him.
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Have a great day.
I'm Dr. James Markham.
Wishing you the best of health.