By DAVID WARMFLASH, MD

Robert W. Malone, MD MS, is a physician-scientist who will live in infamy, thanks to the Joe Rogan Experience Podcast boosting his visibility this past December regarding his criticism of COVID-19 vaccines, particularly the mRNA vaccines (Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech). Subsequently, Malone was banned from Twitter, which further boosted his celebrity status. Describing himself as the inventor of mRNA vaccine technology, he has been reaching a growing number of people with a narrative that makes COVID-19 vaccination sound scary. We cannot embed clips from the Rogan interview, which lasted about three hours, because it is accessed only on Spotify. But we can pull quotes from the interview transcript and we can see how Malone addresses non-scientists in shorter appearances, like the following clip from Wisconsin Morning news aimed at parents:

…Before you inject your child – a decision that is irreversible – I wanted to let you know the scientific facts about this genetic vaccine, which is based on the mRNA vaccine technology I created…

There are three issues parents need to understand:

The first is that a viral gene will be injected into your children’s cells. This gene forces your child’s body to make toxic spike proteins. These proteins often cause permanent damage in children’s critical organs, including

○ Their brain and nervous system

○ Their heart and blood vessels, including blood clots

○ Their reproductive system

○ And this vaccine can trigger fundamental changes to their immune system

The most alarming point about this is that once these damages have occurred, they are irreparable

○ You can’t fix the lesions within their brain

○ You can’t repair heart tissue scarring

○ You can’t repair a genetically reset immune system, and

○ This vaccine can cause reproductive damage that could affect future generations of your family….

Along with the alarmist theme, there are some phrases in the excerpt that people with little knowledge of biology could take the wrong way. The ‘toxic’ spike protein terminology warrants unpacking later, because Malone’s more farfetched ideas rest upon his disagreement with experts who have worked on that very spike protein. This is a protein that SARS-CoV2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) makes and uses to enter body cells, and is the basis of most of the COVID-19 vaccines that are approved throughout the world. In the case of the genetic vaccines (the mRNA vaccines of Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna and the viral vector vaccines of Johnson and Johnson and AstraZeneca), the vaccines do not actually contain spike protein. Instead, they contain a recipe for cells of a vaccinated person (not all the person’s cells, but just a small sampling) to make spike protein —in very small amounts and for a very limited time— and display it on the outer part of their cell membranes. This allows the immune system to use that vaccine-generated spike protein for target practice, so you can build immunity against the virus without the virus infecting you.