 Welcome back to Lillian's Vegan World on Think Tech Hawaii. I'm your host Lillian Cumick. Today on the show we'll be discussing, pardon me, our COVID-19 vaccines safe with our special guest Dr Grace Chen O'Neill. Welcome to the show Dr O'Neill. Pleasure to have you. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here again. Thank you Grace. Today the biggest question at hand is can vegans get the COVID-19 vaccine in good conscious? Well I will say that the vaccine itself does not have any animal products. So I feel that it's a good idea to get the vaccine because COVID is going to be around for quite a while and even if you know the if if it's not essentially if you don't get the vaccine you might get another variant of COVID and even if you're completely healthy you can still have COVID mild COVID but you may have long haulers which last a long time or you could get the inflammatory syndrome that's more common I mean it's more commonly talked about in children but there's also something in adults which is similar to the MIS-C in children so you could have that and then you can have you know some of those symptoms and those symptoms would be devastating so I think you know just because COVID might be around for a while I would recommend that vegans do get the vaccine. I know some vegans are hesitant because the vaccine has been tested on animals as all medications are tested on animals before they come to the market and medical devices and so some people may be hesitant because of that but the vaccine itself does not contain any animal products. Thank you for clearing that up that is I think huge misconception because a lot of vegans are assuming it does actually contain animal products which it does not. Yeah it does not so the vaccine I'll go through this so right now the FDA has approved for emergency authorization three different vaccines but Johnson and Johnson is on hold currently due to possible complication with blood clots in you know women but you know they're not even sure that it's really a problem it's just out of an abundance of caution so right now you know we're distributing the Moderna vaccine and the Pfizer vaccine so I'm going to concentrate on those vaccines just because the Johnson and Johnson's kind of not being given at this moment but both of the vaccines the Pfizer and the Moderna vaccine they are mRNA vaccines so they are essentially what happens is that you know they have this mRNA for the spike protein so it codes for just the spike protein not the entire virus itself codes for that and they put it in a lipid layer and it goes into your body into your cell but not into the nucleus of the cell so it's not going to change the DNA of your cell or anything and it codes for the spike protein and then what happens is your body has a response an immune response to the spike protein that is being processed and that's how you will eventually amount an immune response to the actual virus if you know you come in to contact with a virus so it's not dangerous it's not coding for the actual COVID itself it's just the spike protein I see there are two vaccines that you mentioned Pfizer and the Moderna they are the vaccines that require two shots in order to be fully vaccinated and the Johnson & Johnson is the one shot vaccine yes so the Johnson & Johnson is a little bit different in the sense that that is a different vector is used which means it's put in a virus adenovirus number 26 and that virus itself enters the cell and it delivers the DNA of the spike protein but again it doesn't go into the nucleus or anything it's not the actual virus itself and it's not going to change your DNA or anything like that. Dr. Aineal what is the purpose of the booster shot the second shot what does that actually do after you've had your first initial Moderna or Pfizer shot? So for the second shot people usually have a stronger immune response to the second shot and after the first shot people actually a lot of people can gain some immunity to the virus but it gives you an extra I guess boost like you say booster so it does give you an extra increase in resistance to the vaccine so it's kind of increases its efficacy or you know its effectiveness essentially so you know with just the one shot I mean a lot of different countries they are just trying to give one shot and that's because they have more of a shortage of the vaccine than we do we have we're very fortunate and that we purchase lots of the vaccine and we have plenty for most people to have two shots but in other countries they're just trying to give one shot just to try to give you know some immunity to everybody so you know that makes sense I have a question what in regards to the vaccine I think many people want to know can you after you have been vaccinated with the COVID-19 vaccine can you actually spread COVID when you have when you're not showing any symptoms and you may actually have it within your body are you able to spread spread it so there are they are doing some studies on it right now and preliminarily I think they see that it does reduce spreading as well but it's still being studied so it does seem to reduce some of the spread of COVID as well but it might not completely reduce the spread so go ahead go ahead please oh well I mean the most important things about these vaccines is it reduces the possibility that you're going to get severe COVID disease which is you know can result in death or permanent disability you know it could be on event which could be months of recovery if you even recover so that's the most important thing about the vaccine but yes spreading it is a big concern so yeah I do think in the preliminarily some of the studies do show that it does decrease the spreading of the vaccine you know the virus yeah so I was going I was just going to ask maybe a little bit too early to start throwing off the masks just because you have been vaccinated so should we continue you know wearing the masks doing the the six feet apart how important is that after you after you've been vaccinated I mean I still think that masks are going to be important just because we really don't know about these variants there's a lot of different variants coming out and they are doing some studies it seems that you know Moderna and Pfizer they may be effective against some of the variants but you know there's so many different mutations and the virus is constantly mutating so I don't think it's a bad idea to take extra precautions and wear the masks you know I mean I think the CDC said that you know if you are all vaccinated and you know in a group and you want to have a gathering inside it might be okay to like not have your mask but I still think that it's not a bad idea to wear the mask because there's no harm in extra protection so you know I like I said the variants are spreading and we really don't know yet about you know the variants I mean the good thing is that you know most most of the times that COVID will have the same spike protein so I guess if there was a mutation in the spike protein that would be the concern because the vaccines that we have are all you know for the spike protein so thank you for clearing that up so Dr. O'Neill let's talk about the concerns that vegans have in regards to the vaccine you did sort of mention it a bit earlier but as you spoke but what are some of the concerns obviously whether it's been tested on animals go through us how drugs work like how how they're produced how they're tested if you can you know there's a couple stages of development of the vaccine there's like an exploratory stage preclinical stage clinical development and then regulation review and approval manufacturing and quality control yeah so there's a couple stages but in the clinical development stage specifically it's a three phase process and that's you know where we kind of are with most of these vaccines right now because vaccines have to be tested on like you know thousands of people before it can be brought in the to the market even with the emergency use authorization so phase one of the clinical development they test on small groups of people and then phase two it's given to certain people with certain characteristics and then phase three the vaccine is given to thousands of people and that's the stage that you know Pfizer Moderna Johnson Johnson those that's the stage where they can apply for emergency use authorization and if you go to slide just nine it'll be emergency use authorization all the safety data is accumulated from phase one phase two and at least two months of follow-up for phase three and we're still looking at you know the they have the v-safe after you get the vaccine you can register and they're following you know they're still tracking people and all the side effects that people have but I mean at this point I think that Moderna and Pfizer have been given to a lot of people like millions of people you know so I think it's safe to say that they're pretty safe I mean there have been some cases of anaphylaxis but I mean it's it's pretty rare considering how many people have gotten it so you know I'd say that you know you're probably pretty safe if you have had anaphylaxis before to a vaccine I'd recommend that you have the vaccine in a hospital type of setting or somewhere where there's you know going to be treatment if you do end up having an emergency but I think you know right now we're in that state but now I forgot your question I think you're asking about the different stages and we're animals actually actually actually Dr. Chen Dr. O'Neal we do have a question from one of our viewers thank you so much for sending in the question the question is today the Pfizer CEOs stated that the public will likely need a third dose in the next year will this be a yearly event where we do a mad rush to get everyone vaccinated? Yes it could be similar to the flu vaccine that's every year because you know you might need a booster every year because like the flu vaccine the reason why we need it every year is because it's constantly mutating and so every year people who put the vaccine together they kind of speculate you know which direction the mutations are going in and then that's why sometimes the flu vaccine is more effective in one year whereas another year it won't be as effective because it's kind of a speculation I guess to see like which way it might be going so you know it's likely that COVID will be the same way it might be here to stay with us probably here to stay with us forever because it keeps on mutating and with all these variants so they're probably going to have to you know guess what to do and you know and also another thing is that the immunity only lasts so long right so with COVID like you know it's a coronavirus which is essentially the same kind of virus that you used to get with a common cold but it's obviously you know has much more detrimental possible detrimental effects although some people are still just experiencing the common cold but you know the immunity for that you know usually doesn't last you know if you get one virus one year you might get that same virus you know the next year so it doesn't last that long it's like a few months so I mean that's another reason why you might need a booster. Interesting thank you to our viewer for sending in the question if you have any other questions do not hesitate I'm sure Dr. O'Neill would love to answer some of them for you Dr. O'Neill we are going to take a quick break and be back shortly after these messages. Welcome back everyone to Lillian's Vegan World I'm your host Lillian Cumick I'm also a vegan chef and author of the vegan cookbook Hawaii a Vegan Paradise which was released in hard cover in November 2020 just two days ago the e-book was launched so it's now available on Amazon Apple Books and Kobo for those of you outside of the state I do hope that you get get get a copy and start cooking some awesome vegan food that will remind you of the islands and beautiful Hawaii. I'd like to welcome back again my guest Dr. Grace Chen O'Neill welcome back Dr. O'Neill thank you today we're talking about the COVID-19 vaccine and everything to do with it all your concerns especially when it comes to vegans and I guess vegetarians we've cleared up the fact that it does not contain any animal products however it has been tested on animals as have you know almost any other drug on the planet I'm sure so Dr. O'Neill what can you answer this question is the vaccine effective at keeping you from getting COVID? I think so I mean I think it's definitely effective like I was saying before it's effective and preventing you from having severe COVID which is what we're concerned about I mean it's one thing if you have a cold but it's another thing if you end up in the intensive care unit you know on event or you know you die from it so that's what we want to prevent we want to prevent you know all these people from dying COVID. Yes that is definitely what we're here to do I mean people are concerned not only vegans but a lot of people are concerned about the vaccine tell us more about what it does inside your body why do you think people are so concerned about it? I'm really sure because I feel like you know even before it was brought to the market like the Pfizer and Moderna they were tested on tens of thousands of people and now you know millions of people in the United States have gotten the vaccine so I'm not sure why people are still concerned about it I mean I suppose there is a lot of sensationalism you know in the news like I was mentioning before some people had anaphylactic reactions and I think it was very few people who actually died from reactions like there was one physician who had it and I think he had like some kind of immune response and it's exceedingly rare and you know most of the time getting COVID is going to be much worse than getting the vaccine but I think people seeing that in the news and then you know they think oh that might happen to me but it's a very very small chance that something like that could happen to you it's probably less the chance of you being struck by lightning so you know I guess it's like when you go in the water and you feel afraid of being bitten by a shark you know a lot of people are afraid of being bitten by a shark but it's very very rare something like that happens to people so yeah sorry what is an anaphylactic response an anaphylactic sorry I should have clarified so it's it's an allergic reaction that you can die from so usually when someone has an anaphylactic reaction their body reacts right away and they might have symptoms like a rash all over their body they might have difficulty breathing be wheezing they might have nausea vomiting their blood pressure could drop so their body essentially you know goes into shock so and people can and people can die of that so I mean it's scary it's very scary but the same thing can be said I'm sure with the with any with or with any flu with any flu shot so yes well how does it work with children what's what's the situation with the COVID vaccine and children well right now COVID hasn't been tested on children I mean I guess 16 and over can get it but 16 and under it hasn't been tested yet but now they're starting to run clinical trials and see you know about children because children although they do not usually get severe COVID there have been a few children that have died just like you know with you know a few children die of a flu every year and everything there have been children that have died of COVID but um you know it's it's pretty rare so um you know the the important thing though that children are getting this thing called missy which is an inflammatory response um that they get about six weeks after they've gotten the virus and that can be very very detrimental because people can have cardiac symptoms from that later on so um that you know is is definitely not good so um they do want to prevent children from getting as well and also children are a vector for spreading it so they are doing testing right now to see if they can you know eventually it's safe for children right now um it's only approved for 16 and older is it the same for other flu shots like prior to COVID-19 was it always a 16 year like 16 year um the flu shot can't be given because we've had the flu shot for so long so flu shot can be given to people younger than 16 and everything yeah it's just because COVID is new you know so um we still have to run run these tests to make sure the vaccine is safe I mean um it's a very lengthy process getting approval for vaccines I can imagine yes so we're looking at what what how long are we vaccinated for in your opinion I know you can't give us an exact amount of days or months but is it like a year we're looking at or I mean I would say probably six months to a year somewhere between that I mean it's and I don't really know because they're still trying to study how long immunity will last for that so that's my guess okay Dr. O'Neill I wanted to look at slide number four yeah this one yes can you go through this with us a little bit if you don't mind yes so um these are the three different vaccines that are approved I got this from the CDC website these are the three different vaccines that are approved to be given in the United States the Pfizer the Moderna and the Johnson and Johnson or Janssen and like I was saying before the Pfizer Moderna mRNA vaccine so they place the mRNA of the COVID spike protein into a lipid layer and that's how it enters the cell it's easy to be absorbed into the cell with this lipid layer and and then once it's absorbed into the cell it goes in and it starts replicating the actual just the spike protein and then your body develops an immune response to it so there's different components though and let me let me first go to the Johnson and Johnson like I was saying before the Johnson and Johnson that's a that's a different type of vector that goes into the cell it's a viral vector so they use adenovirus instead of a lipid layer to bring the spike protein into the cell but it's the it's a DNA instead of an mRNA and but it still gets replicated and produced kind of in a similar way it's not in the nucleus of the cell but it's in the cytoplasm of the cell so it doesn't go in and alter your DNA of your cell or anything so it still gets replicated and then your body develops an immune response so it's very similar now if you go to the slide number three or the different ingredients they're all very similar so you'll have an active ingredient which in the case of Pfizer and Moderna that's the mRNA and in the case of the other the Johnson and Johnson that's a recombinant you know incompetent adenovirus SARS-CoV-2 spike protein so those are the active ingredients that doesn't have anything to do with an animal product or anything and then you'll see that there's lipids or fats and that helps the mRNA get into the cell and in the adenovirus doesn't really have to have that necessarily because it's a different mechanism it's actually the virus that's going in the cell and then the other components are salts that help balance the acidity in your body and then sugars that help them molecule maintain their shape during freezing so there's nothing that has an animal product or anything but those are the essential components and you know some of these are kind of long names but you know that's basically a summary of what they are that's good to know I think that's going to ease a lot of people's minds including including my own I mean I I always was going to take the vaccine regardless of you know what it contained to be honest just for the betterment of moving forward you know with everyone else I think I think at the end of the day you have to think about the biggest picture and you know what you can do for a society to move forward this has just been a horrible experience for a lot of people and a lot of people have been devastated and affected and lost loved ones during this so the sooner we get on top of it and you know are able to get back to some sort of normalcy I think um getting getting vaccinated in my humble opinion is the right thing to do and it's so awesome that you are able to clear up all of these and you know concerns and worries that I'm sure a lot of people have yeah I mean I think the you know I know a lot of vegans they're concerned about the animal testing and I agree I mean that that is not something that I agree with either and I think for those people who are concerned I would like to refer them to the physician's committee for responsible medicine it's a great organization and they are working very hard to actually reduce animal testing and you know for medical devices for antibiotics or other kinds of medications for vaccines and they're really lobbying you know and saying that there's other ways to do this and they're actually probably more accurate you know and you know they're using like human tissue but not like actual humans before you know bringing it to um actually testing it on humans and clinical trials you know so I think if you can support an organization like that that's lobbying for change that's good I mean I understand maybe some people want to try to make a statement and not take the vaccine but in a way um you could be harming yourself because what if you get COVID and you have COVID long hauler symptoms and you're sick for six months you know and and then I mean not only that but what if you give it to an elderly parent or um I mean it's it's kind of difficult because you know yeah I don't support testing on animals I hate it I mean I wish it wasn't that way but it's been like that way for a long time and there's so many things that you know test on animals so I mean if you were going to completely say you're not going to put any medical devices in yourself including a pacemaker a defibrillator you know those are all tested on animals a hip replacement you know those are all everything is essentially right now this stage we're in this test on on animals and I do think that things are changing and you know organizations like pcrm the physician's really leading the way and so um you know but I I think that you know getting the vaccine you're protecting yourself by getting it I mean especially for me it was a no brainer because I work in the medical field I'm in the emergency room so I don't want to spur it to any of my patients number one I don't want to get it I don't want to spend it to my family members so I'm doing it to protect myself and other people so absolutely well said I mean of course we want nothing more than you and other frontline work is to stay safe as we battle through and you know get through this uh COVID-19 pandemic so Dr. Chen a closing statement from you? I well I guess I would just encourage people to consider the vaccine I know a lot of people are hesitant I do think it's safe it's been tested on um you know thousands of people before even was allowed to be administered and now millions of people have on there very few have had side effects and I think it's important to decrease the you know the amount of people getting COVID so we can decrease the spread and finally contain everything so we can kind of get back to our normal lives and you know and also decrease the amount of people who are dying and suffering so definitely consider it I mean if you feel very strongly about testing on animals I think that I mean I agree I don't think it's right but I think that there's other ways to support you know different methods like you know supporting the physician's committee for responsible medicine or you know there's there's other ways so I think that you know making a stand by not getting the vaccine is not optimal because you know by getting the vaccine you're protecting yourself you're protecting others around you and you're helping out with herd immunity so we can eventually all go back to our normal lives so thank you so much Dr. Chen for for your time and for um your insight we really appreciate it and we'll have to leave it here you've been watching millions vegan world on think take Hawaii today we've been discussing our COVID-19 vaccine safe with Dr. Grace Chen O'Neill thanks for participating Dr. O'Neill and thank you to our viewers for tuning in I'm Lillian Cumick and I'll be back with more of Lillian's Vegan World in two weeks the show is on bi-weekly until then stay safe and aloha