The Phenomenon of Immunological Imprinting and COVID Booster Efficacy

[Robert Ollar]

Dear Sean and Colleages :

The article that you spoke about from the New England Journal of Medical as relates to the efficacy of COVID Vaccine additional Boosters shots relates to a phenomenon known as "Original antigenic sin also known as Antigenic Imprinting.  I have cited below some information derived from Wikipedia as relates to Antigenic Imprinting.  I have also included the complete article on this phenomenon as an attachment. This is a complicated issue and a concept that is not a black or white issue, and we do not fully understand all of the ramifications of this phenomenon as relates to the effectiveness of COVID Booster Shots.

Best regards,

Robert-A. Ollar, PhD

Excerpt from Wikipedia:

Original antigenic sin, also known as antigenic imprinting, the Hoskins effect,^[1] or immunological imprinting,^[2] is the propensity of the immune system to preferentially use immunological memory based on a previous infection when a second slightly different version of that foreign pathogen (e.g. a virus or bacterium) is encountered. This leaves the immune system "trapped" by the first response it has made to each antigen, and unable to mount potentially more effective responses during subsequent infections. Antibodies or T-cells induced during infections with the first variant of the pathogen are subject to repertoire freeze, a form of original antigenic sin.

[Gladys S Stefany]

Wikipedia is far from a reliable source about anything.

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[Sean Strub]

On the other hand, Dr. Ollar is a very reliable expert source!

And I have a question for Dr. Ollar.  I know that if one gets poison ivy a second time, it will sometimes reappear in the exact same configuration of elevated bumps as it did the previous time one got poison ivy, regardless of where on the body the exposure might have occured.  Is that a similar phenomenon to the "antigenic imprinting" you are describing as it relates to Covid vaccination?

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[Linda Grady]

I completely agree with you, Sean, about Bob Ollar’s expertise. Wikipedia was cited, I believe, as an easily accessible and readable source, but certainly not the last word. Dr. Ollar’s most important phrases were “complicated” and “not black or white.”  The current knowledge about the human immune system is far from the whole story, it’s just what we know so far.

I’ll be interested in the answer to your poison ivy question. I recently broke out in a bad case of hives, lasting nearly three weeks, possibly from a wool allergy, but not in an area in contact with the wool. Aggravated by Eucerin cream, of all things. Weird!

Linda 

Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 15, 2023, at 2:49 PM, Sean Strub <sean....@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Richard Nichols]

On the poison ivy issue I have a great deal of experience...It can be brought into the house on pets...you can catch it from the sometimes thick, hairy vine as well as the leaves......  even in winter when it is not in leaf .   The berries can also cause the rash. if you get it on a watch band or piece of jewelry it can be very hard to clean the item so you don't get reinfected.   There is a natural antidote called  jewelweed....it often grows near poison ivy...I have some in my yard but it is not in growth now....I have rubbed it on the area that has been in contact with the poison ivy and have avoided the rash and the itch.   Friends of mine  used to take the plant leaves and make a paste with it and it worked quite well when applied to the sores....I have also rubbed some of the jewelweed on my cat if I have seen her near poison ivy. . Let me know if you want some of the plant when it starts growing in the  spring. Once you plant it , it will reseed.

Connie

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[Robert Ollar]

Dear Sean :

I do not think that exposure to poison ivy and exposure to subsequent encounters to poison ivy is exactly the same as when one gets a vaccine developed to react to specifically targeted antigenic markers (antigen in immunological terms is anything that stimulates the production of antibodies).via immunological memory to those antigens.  In the days of the original Salk Vaccine involving the Polio Virus back in the mid 1950's and early 1960's booster shots where given to ensure the level of immunity against said virus was at protective level against this virus.  Exposure to poison ivy involves a huge variety of  different antigenic agents so that it is not easy to clearly draw a parallel vis a vis how immunological imprinting would ocur in this  huge mixture of  diverse antigens. 

To cut to the quick about that article in the New England, the whole point of that article was to state that the human immunological memory storage cabinet in the human body in the case of the present COVID-19 seems to be frozen in place to the original vaccine stimulation..  The authors of the New England Journal article had put forth the concept ath perhaps it will be necessary to develop a vaccine that has been focused upon the newly arising strains such that the immunological memory cells are now fully primed focus specifically with these newer variants.

Thus because Coronavirus differs from earlier virus' and the vaccines that were developed to deal with those earlier

pathogens, we now having to modify our concepts vis a efficacy or the boostering effect in ensuring the degree of protection that the vaccine provides.

To those that criticise the worth of Wikipedia based information, I point that this source is very informative especially to non medical or scientic individuals.  It especially provides very user friendly diagrams and information for the lay person.  My aim here is to inform "not to confuse' ;the non-scientific community !!

Best regards,

Robert-A. Ollar, Ph.D