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Scientists Sound Alarm About Using Mosquitoes to Vaccinate Humans

By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | January 10, 2025

Human clinical trials are underway to use mosquitoes to vaccinate people against malaria, cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough reported on his Substack.

McCullough cited a paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) in November reporting results from a double-blind, controlled clinical trial at two university medical centers in the Netherlands.

The trial evaluated the safety, side effects and efficacy of immunizing people via mosquito bites, using mosquitoes infected with a genetically engineered version of the parasite that causes malaria.

“It seems as if the world of vaccinology has ramped up to a feverish pitch with amplified research, massive funding, and no limit to the extent in which vaccines could be injected into humans,” McCullough wrote.

Researchers have been trying to develop a malaria vaccine since the 1960s, but they have been largely unsuccessful. It wasn’t until October 2021 that the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended the first malaria vaccine, made by GSK, for children living in sub-Saharan Africa and other high-transmission regions.

Two years later, the WHO recommended a second malaria vaccine, developed by Oxford University and manufactured by the Serum Institute of India.

The vaccines, given to small children in four doses, offer only modest and short-lived protection — 50-80% efficacy for less than a year — and are even less effective in infants in high endemic areas.

Malaria is caused by plasmodium parasites, which spread to humans through bites from infected mosquitoes.

Given the limited efficacy of existing vaccines, researchers continue researching alternative vaccination strategies, including using genetically modified versions of the malaria parasites to elicit an immune response.

“In a simplified view, the innovation may seem like a good idea,” Karl Jablonowski, Ph.D., senior research scientist at Children’s Health Defense, told The Defender. “Malaria commonly afflicts those in poorer countries with limited access to healthcare. If we could make a change to the environment that improves the lives of all and diminishes the lives of none, in theory that would be progress.”

“The problem,” he said, “is that every detail of it looks like a bad idea.”

Researchers call results ‘promising,’ critics say research should be banned

The researchers, from two Dutch universities, previously engineered the “GA1” version of the parasite to stop developing 24 hours after being introduced into the human body.

Theoretically, these parasites wouldn’t cause malaria but would prime the immune system to recognize non-genetically modified pathogenic malarial parasites and trigger an immune response.

However, GA1 showed poor efficacy.

The NEJM study tested their next version of the genetically modified parasite, GA2, which halts development later — six days post-infection — when the parasite is replicating inside of human liver cells.

Jablonowski said this is not necessarily safe. The genetic modifications are intended to stop development in the liver stage before the parasite can proceed to the blood stage and become infective, he said. However, “The protozoa can still replicate, both sexually and asexually. This means the genetically modified protozoa can reproduce with wild-type to produce an infective genetically modified organism not bound by the original design.”

The study tested GA2 against GA1 and placebo in a small number of healthy adults 18 to 35 years old. The genetically modified parasites were injected into the human subjects via mosquito bites rather than through a shot like most vaccines currently available.

“The mosquitoes act like a vaccine syringe and then inject that modified parasite in the case of malaria into the human body,” McCullough explained in an interview on Substack.

In the first phase of the study, participants received either 15 or 50 bites from mosquitoes infected with GA2 to identify the highest dose without harmful side effects.

Next, researchers randomly assigned healthy adults who had not previously been infected with malaria to one of three groups. One was exposed to 50 bites from GA2, another to 50 bites from GA1, and the third to 50 bites from uninfected mosquitoes, the placebo group. There were nine participants in the GA2 group, eight in the GA1 group and three in the placebo group.

The researchers completed three sessions of 50 bites per session — to simulate a three-dose vaccine regimen. Three weeks later, all test subjects were exposed to five bites from mosquitoes carrying non-genetically engineered malarial parasites.

Before being exposed to the non-genetically engineered parasites, the researchers reported that the subjects in both GA1 and GA2 groups had some anti-malarial antibodies. They found that GA2 provided greater efficacy (89%) against malaria and induced a higher immune response than either GA1 or placebo. They also said the vaccine was “safe” with no significant difference in adverse events within the groups.

Adverse events included skin redness and itchiness from the bites, which most participants experienced and treated with antihistamines or topical corticosteroids. Some also reported muscle aches and pains and headaches.

Two participants had elevated troponin T levels, which indicates heart damage, or even a heart attack. However, investigators assessed these incidents as unrelated to the vaccination. One participant also showed elevated liver-function tests that researchers said were related to the antihistamines.

“The authors took a lot of liberties in identifying adverse events they considered related and unrelated to the experiment,” Jablonowski said. “When 40% of your trial group have abdominal pains, 45% have a headache, 50% have malaise and fatigue, and 60% have nausea and vomiting — these are not small relative numbers.”

The researchers concluded that the results were promising, but noted that more and larger studies would be necessary to understand the safety profile, the durability of protection and the efficacy against a greater variety of Plasmodium falciparum strains — the deadliest and most prevalent form of malaria — found in regions where malaria is endemic.

Last week, the same researchers published additional results in Nature Medicine from a second trial with the same GA2 genetically engineered parasite. In this trial, they exposed 10 research subjects to a single, “one-dose regimen” of the parasite.

That means the trial participants were exposed to one 50-bite session by mosquitoes infected with GA2. They reported that after six weeks, nine of the 10 subjects showed no breakthrough infections. They called the results “promising” and again called for further studies.

McCullough said he believes “there should be a moratorium, a ban, on all mosquito vector research right now for human conditions.”

He added, “No Institutional Review Board would agree to, you know, mass populating, mass vaccinating a population without their consent with mosquitoes.”

There would also be serious problems with tracking the effects of the vaccines themselves. “There would be no control on the dose or the inoculum, as an example. There would be no control over recognizing side effects,” McCullough said.

Jablonowski noted that 14 of the 75 originally assessed participants were excluded for medical reasons. If such a vaccine were released, “not only would a person not have foreknowledge of vaccination, they wouldn’t have after-knowledge of it either. If a medical condition arose, they would have no idea if they were infected with the genetically modified protozoan.”

He noted that in this study alone, 11 of the 75 persons initially assessed for participation declined to participate. “If this strategy is implemented, they won’t be asked if they wish to participate. Informed consent is the only power we have over our own medical autonomy,” he said. “Neither the mosquitoes nor the governments who use them are going to ask for consent.”

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

January 12, 2025 - Posted by aletho | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Human rights