VACCINE OR ANTIBODIES? VANDERBILT IMMUNOLOGIST COSBY STONE VOICES

NOTE:

Conditions Immunologists Treat

Immunologists work with the following types of medical problems:

Respiratory (lung- and breathing-related) diseases, including asthma, sinusitis, and occupational lung disease
Eye diseases such as allergic rhinitis or hay fever
Skin diseases like eczema and contact dermatitis
Severe reactions to medications, food, vaccines, and insect bites
Gastrointestinal disorders
Autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis or lupus

Cosby Stone

Assistant Professor in Allergy/Immunology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center

Monoclonal Antibodies for COVID Treatment:

Several folks have recently asked me whether I thought that monoclonal antibodies are good therapy for folks with COVID.

My answer is yes, but…

These antibodies are the same ones that your own body makes when you get vaccinated against COVID. They’ve just been manufactured in a lab.

My thought is this:

If you know that your body is at high risk of being invaded by a virus, it’s way better to set up the antibody machine guns beforehand (vaccine) than to hope that you can pull them out in time when the virus is already on a blitzkrieg (antibody therapies and other COVID treatments.) Plus, the vaccine also trains the other crucial parts of your immune system, like the T cells that are going to go cell to cell and burn the virus out with flamethrowers.

I’d much rather we were all gunning down COVID on the beaches of our noses and throats, with our own antibodies backed up by our own T cells trained and ready with their heavy weapons. Being forearmed against the virus by a vaccine is going to keep you from getting sicker, and it’s way better than letting the virus run rampant through our bodies and hoping we can borrow enough antibodies from somewhere else in time to save us.

Again, no disrespect to the therapies, (they are helpful), but we really wouldn’t need them very often if we all got immunized against COVID.

Please get vaccinated.