As we saw a few weeks ago, Bill Gates is subtly annoyed at our SARS-2 mRNA vaccines. They have to be kept cold, which makes them third-world unfriendly. They’re not very good at inducing mucosal immunity, which makes them bad at stopping infection. They require trained needle-wielding “vaccinators”1, which is an extra step that limits uptake. What would please this unelected omnipresent merchant of nuclear-grade charitable benevolence the most, is a nasal spray vaccine, like they had in the movie Contagion. Gates really liked that film. They just snorted the vaccine, and then the virus went away.
Why can’t we have vaccines like they have in the movies, Gates wants to know? Well, perhaps we can.
Two weeks after Gates made his wishes known, a curious guest essay appeared in the New York Times: The Answer to Stopping the Coronavirus May be Up Your Nose. The vaccines are great, says essay author and Yale immunobiologist Akiko Iwasaki. Only, nasal spray vaccines would be even better. Our current vaccines are bad at inducing mucosal immunity. Also, the “barrier … for a needle shot” is probably higher than the barrier for inhaling things.
Iwasaki envisions “potentially over the counter” vaccines that everyone can snort “every four to six months.” She’s also co-author of a preprint, which shows that if you get mRNA-immunised mice to inhale recombinant unadjuvanted spike protein, their mucosal immunity improves. Not for nothing, this is the same approach envisioned by the EcoHealth Alliance lunatics in their infamous PREEMPT grant proposal. There, they fantasised about “develop[ing] recombinant chimeric spike-proteins from known SARSr-CoVs … to boost immune memory in adult bats” and then spraying these proteins into caves for the bats to inhale (p.4).
It’s nice to know that the research program that set off the whole pandemic will now circle back to provide remedies against the pandemic that it caused. This is fine. This is Science.
To my great delight, Gates actually uses this term.
To be clear: A non-mRNA nasal vaxx approach is probably preferable in many ways to our current vaccine repertoire, at least for the sick and vulnerable. But, people have been making this point for a long time and nobody has really given a shit until this moment. Also too: In keeping with the rule that measures are only ever added, never withdrawn, the Iwasaki nasal spray is envisioned only as a booster. You still have to get mRNA vaxxed (or, "primed" as the preprint calls it: a further demotion for the vaccinated). And, it sounds a lot like they'll be wanting you to snort spike at regular intervals indefinitely, which is very unlikely to be a good idea.
How delightfully Hegelian. They cause the problem, orchestrate the reaction, and then offer (which is to say order) the solution. Profit every step of the way.
We're truly blessed to have such people labouring so diligently to make the world a better place.