The Vaccine: Inside the Race to Conquer the COVID-19 Pandemic
£9.80£12.30 (-20%)
When the world stopped, all hopes rested on finding a vaccine. An unlikely team answered the call.
Before Covid-19 was even given its name, a select group of scientists in Germany, assembled by married couple and decades-long research partners Uğur Şahin and Özlem Türeci, began building 20 potential vaccines.
As the deadly disease spread from country to country, what followed was a desperate race against time to conduct rigorous tests and clinical trials, whilst navigating political interference and seeking the support of the pharmaceutical industry.
Shedding a light on the science behind the breakthrough, The Vaccine tells the story of the trailblazers who led the fightback against Covid-19, whose discoveries could now help the world tackle cancer, along with many other pervasive diseases. It draws back the curtain on one of the most important medical achievements of our age, containing contributions from the fascinating couple themselves, as well as more than 60 scientists, politicians, public health officials, and BioNTech staff.
More suspenseful than a novel, this is a real-life story of an extraordinary race against time to save the world.
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Additional information
| Publisher | Welbeck (8 May 2024) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Paperback | 304 pages |
| ISBN-10 | 1802791361 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1802791365 |
by kivi
I picked up this book just to glance through it, but, I was unable to put it down! Joe takes you right into the story… this is a book for people who like science, history, or just a plain good story!
by Liam Kelleher
When a vaccine of over 90% effectiveness was announced to the world in the depths of the most miserable winter of all of our lives in 2020/2021, many rejoiced that the end of the pandemic was nigh. I asked myself “Who the hell are Biontech?”
Joe Miller does a very good job in this book at covering the history of the company, most of which is very difficult to find on their very thin website (the author makes it clear that their website has always been a bit rubbish). A more detailed background on Tureci and Sahin’s lives are provided with a lot of history of their first company Ganymed, which produced monoclonal antibodies for cancer. A company which was ultimately sold for over $1.5 billion, quite the sum, when it looked like it would not survive.
Anyone who has looked at the first financial report of Biontech could also see that the company would not survive much longer. They had built up $500 million in debt, had only $600 million of cash left which they would burn through in less than a couple of years. As the book unwittingly states, the trials for cancer patients had been largely disappointing. Although the logic of cancer vaccines seemed sound, the results were not living up to expectations. Biontech was headed for bankruptcy and obscurity.
So when the covid pandemic popped up, this was a golden opportunity to save the company and also propel mRNA into the arms and consciousness of the public. This novel – experimental even – vaccine technology would normally have taken another two decades to prove as safe and effective to the public, who would continue to question the need for it (as the book states, the FDA themselves still called mRNA vaccines “gene therapy”). Sahin it seems was determined that the company would do whatever it needed to do to make the vaccine “work”.
This was do or die for the company, even though they knew absolutely nothing about infectious diseases. They had never trialled an infectious disease vaccine even in mice. And they also had pushed mRNA into the arms of less than 400 people in their 10 years of existence. This was not a company, or a technology, with huge experience.
The public were told that vaccine trials were not rushed but the book makes it clear that many steps could be skipped. The toxicology report in mice was absolutely rushed and the final vaccine type used “B2” was not even the toxicology report. For me the biggest red flag is the statistics used to convey the high % efficacy. The book restates that 44,000 were in the Phase 3 trials, half in the placebo and half who got the vaccine. But there were only a total of 170 cases used from which to calculate the efficacy, 8 in the vaccine group and 162 in the placebo group. That sample size is way too small out of a 44,000 group size to confer the difference on the vaccine alone. In reality the relative difference in cases is tiny between the groups. Furthermore the number is suspiciously close to the threshold stated by the FDA as a minimum (164). This question mark over the efficacy against infection has been borne out in reality.
What is really interesting is the book admits that reverse transcription from mRNA into the genome can happen even it is “unlikely”. The book also admits that DNA from viral vector vaccines has been shown to modify the existing genome (labelled “harmless”). These statements were labelled as “conspiracies” by the media, but here they are in a book with the names of founders of Biontech attached as authors. The book also claims that mRNA disappears quickly in the body after use. A recent study showed this is false and they found mRNA at high levels in the blood still at 15 days later. This company does not really understand what they are doing or saying in this still nascent technology.
Even though the book has incorporated some of the concerns about efficacy and variants at the end of the book, it fails to critically state that immunity has waned incredibly quickly (even if T-cell immunity remains a bit higher). The need to keep vaccinating seems a convenient money making sheme. There is nothing mentioned about vaccine passports used by politicians to force people to take the vaccine based on statements by Biontech that they would reduce transmission. This we know is also verifiably false. This faslity heaped incredible misery on 10s of millions of people and many thousands of workers were unjustly sacked.
There is nothing mentioned about side effects – many stories of women having their menstrual cycles upset, and myocarditis problems in young males (it was so prevalent with the Moderna mRNA shot that Germany banned its use in under-30’s). As someone with first hand experience of these side effects, I can unequivocally say that Biontech, and the medical community, are not taking these side effects seriously. Biontech have been silent on these issues.
Overall I have to say this is a good book, informative and a quick and easy read. I would recommend it (certainly I found it better than the Oxford/AZ book by Dr Sarah Gilbert). However, it was published at the end of 2021, when the vaccines still seemed like they had saved – or prolonged – many elderly lives. As we get into further stages of pandemic, with utterings of original antigenic sin even appearing in mainstream media, we might br entering a phase where the past two years were mostly only damaging and the public spent trillions on lockdowns, masks and stop-gap vaccines which only delayed the inevitable. We now have the worst economic crisis for 90 years to contend with because of these measures with a decade of war and famine no longer an unlikely outcome. The public have lost confidence in the vaccine as the ultimate tool to fight this virus. Many people privately state they would not take another one as they deem it pointless, maybe even too risky for the small reward.
Much like their share price, the star of Biontech, and its founders, has fallen far since this book was published.