Novavax vaccine has 1 mcg of insect and baculovirus proteins and a bit of their DNA too, injected into you with each dose

You see, the vaccine’s spike protein is grown by genetically engineering baculoviruses to produce spike, and then infecting insect cells with the baculovirus to turn the whole thing into a spike protein factory.

At the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices meeting that I live-blogged last week, it was revealed that the Novavax vaccine was being rolled out because it could be marketed as a “more traditional” vaccine, since it was not made from mRNA. Novavax was to be directed to the unvaccinated, although only 10% of the unvaccinated, it was anticipated, would accept it.

The fact that no fetal cells were used in its development was claimed to be a marketing plus. However, thanks to a reader, it turns out that a human fetal cell line, (HEK) 293F, was used in the testing of the vaccine, as described in an article in Science. Funders of the research are listed at the bottom of this article.

NOTHING about this vaccine is traditional.

First, the Novavax company does not own a manufacturing plant, so the vaccine being distributed in the US is made at the Serum Institute of India.

Second, the adjuvant, Matrix-M (a nonspecific, potent immune stimulant) has never been used before. It is made from the Quillaja saponaria tree. There is another adjuvant that is only used in one (highly reactogenic) US vaccine, Shingrix, which is an extract from this tree. The Shingrix GSK adjuvant, named ASO1B, contains QS-21, a single extract from the bark of the Quillaja saponaria tree.

The problem is that we don’t know what extracts from the tree are included in Matrix-M. The information is proprietary! The Matrix-M adjuvant uses two unspecified “fractions” from the Q. saponaria tree, and there exist no data on its safety.  (Matrix-M does not contain QS-21, although the company sometimes implies it does, to distract from its novelty.) These two fractions, combined with phospholipids and cholesterol, form the 40 nanometer particles of Matrix M.

While the tree extracts are potent immune stimulants, all those characterized also have significant toxicity.

Third, in addition to getting 5 mcg of spike protein in every dose, you will receive 1 mcg of residual amounts of baculovirus and Sf9 cell proteins (≤ 0.96 mcg), and baculovirus and cellular [from the fall armyworm] DNA (≤ 0.00016 mcg), according to the FDA.

So, you are getting an additional 20% protein of insect and baculovirus origin in addition to the 5 mcg of spike protein, in each of your two doses.

                                                The fall armyworm

In other words, the Novavax vaccine is not sufficiently purified. And no one can tell you how the insect and viral protein and DNA contaminants will affect you.

Anyone who tells you that the Novavax vaccine is a traditional protein vaccine is a scoundrel.  This vaccine is another "bait and switch" being rolled out solely to entice the unvaccinated, because it is not made of mRNA.  

* But it still gives you a big dose of the spike poison. 

There is a single other vaccine in the US that uses the fall armyworm-baculovirus platform to produce viral proteins.  It is one of about a dozen available flu shots, whose brand name is Flublok.  It too contains worm and viral DNA and protein.  See item 11 in its label.

Fourth, the regulators admit they have no idea if the vaccine works nor how dangerous it is. See below,  which is a screenshot I took from the ACIP advisory committee meeting on Novavax.  

It makes clear that the regulators don’t know how much myocarditis the Novavax causes, nor whether it works against current variants.

But they still want you injected.  See the last line:  it will be important to figure out if it works or is safe after authorization.  Your tax dollars at work.  But the vaccine is "free."

Will you be fooled again? Who are the funders of the Novavax research published in Science?

Funding: This work was supported by grants from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Center for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Development (UM1 AI144462 to J.C.P. and A.B.W., R01 AI113867 to J.C.P., R01 AI132317 to D.N., and P01 AI110657 to A.B.W.), the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (OPP1170236 to A.B.W.), and Novavax, Inc., Molecular graphics and analyses were performed with UCSF Chimera developed by the Resource for Biocomputing, Visualization, and Informatics at the University of California, San Francisco, with support from National Institutes of Health (R01-GM129325 and P41-GM103311) and the Office of Cyber Infrastructure and Computational Biology, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

UPDATE July 30:  Here is what the FDA-approved Fact Sheet p.7 says (which EUA products must have in lieu of a label):

"...the FDA has issued an EUA for the unapproved product, Novavax COVID-19 Vaccine, Adjuvanted, for active immunization to prevent COVID-19 in individuals 18 years of age and older.

FDA issued this EUA based on Novavax, Inc.’s request and submitted data. [In other words, don't blame the FDA if something goes wrong, because we just believed their data, and we never tried to verify it--Nass] 

Although limited scientific information is available, based on the totality of the scientific evidence available to date, it is reasonable to believe that the Novavax COVID-19 Vaccine, Adjuvanted may be effective for the prevention of COVID-19 in individuals as specified in the Full EUA Prescribing Information."

How many asses were being covered with this agglomeration of weasel words?

And here is grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to Novavax in a SEC filing.