Can the vaccine prevent virus spread to the non-immune? Mucosal immunity and vaccines

Last week in The Pathfinder, I described the Systemic Immune System which mostly serves to protect internal organs and is activated by clinical infections of all sorts including the COVID virus and intramuscular vaccines such as the COVID vaccines. The larger “compartmentalized” mucosal immune system which is integral to the lining (mucosa) of the airways (from the nasal passages to the lungs) was also described.

When the airway is exposed to the airborne pathogen (like the COVID virus), the immune cells (lymphocytes) in the airway lining are activated and produce the protective antibodies which are then introduced into the secretions of the mucosal cells. The airway is literally bathed in the locally produced anti-COVID antibodies.

The scientific name for the protein antibodies is immunoglobulin or Ig. There are various classes of antibodies; IgM, IgG, IgE and IgA. The anti-COVID antibodies in the mucosal secretions of the airways are a specialized form of IgA and are called secretory IgA or sIgA. This is the key antibody type that inactivates the virus in the airways and therefore reduces the possibility of further infection beyond the airways via the blood stream as well as transmission of the virus from the immune person to the non-immune.

The Main Point: The critical fact to understand is that the COVID vaccine administered as an intra-muscular shot does not effectively (if, at all) stimulate the mucosal lymphocytes in the airways to produce anti-COVID sIgA. This is the “compartmental” aspect of our immune systems.

There are many scientific reports demonstrating the presence of anti-COVID sIgA in the airway secretions of people who have recovered from a COVID infection and never been vaccinated. The anti-COVID sIgA is even found in the saliva of such people. I have not been able to find a single scientific report demonstrating the presence of anti-COVID sIgA in the airway secretions of people who have simply been vaccinated.

In other words, in the absence of these sIgA antibodies, there is no scientific reason to think that the COVID vaccine will reduce the spread of the infection from the airways. Transmission of the virus to un-infected people must come from the expelled virus (as in a cough or a sneeze) in the airways of the infected person and the vaccine does not have the ability to reduce the “viral load” in those airways for the reasons presented above; no sIgA.

When the clinical data backing up this conclusion became obvious, the CDC reluctantly and very quietly changed the definition of “Vaccine” to be consistent with the limitations of the COVID vaccine. Gone was the notion that the vaccine could prevent infection and therefore transmission to the non-infected. Now, the description of what the vaccine can do is basically “reduce symptoms.”

Why, then do we continue to hear the harangue from public officials that “vaccine mandates are needed to stop the spread of the virus?” It makes no sense!

A wise person once said, “A lie told once is a lie. A lie told a thousand times from a hundred different sources becomes the truth.”

Editor's Note: Dr. Farrar has a doctorate degree in immunology from The University of Notre Dame. He spent a career at the National Institutes of Health and in the pharmaceutical/biotechnology industry studying the regulation of the immune response. We has authored or co-authored over 70 scientific research publications on the same.