Fact Check: Unpacking the Spike Protein Debate (2025)

Introduction

How Do You Know What’s Fact and What’s Opinion in an article or social media post?

It’s easy to know whether an article is biased, what’s opinion and what is fact-based by actually checking the original sources and references that accompany every claim within an article or social media post.

Dr. Peter McCullough’s X Post (March 25, 2025)

Academic Medical Centers have Not Updated Doctors and Patients on the Long-Lasting Spike Protein (X post)

MedRxiv Preprint (February 18, 2025)

Title: Immunological and Antigenic Signatures Associated with Chronic Illnesses after COVID-19 Vaccination (MedRxiv)

Key Points (Based on Web Result Summaries):

• This is the primary source of the Yale study, led by Akiko Iwasaki and colleagues.
• It confirms that some PVS participants had detectable SARS-CoV-2 spike protein in their bloodstream, with persistence up to 709 days post-vaccination.
• The study highlights immune dysregulation and increased markers of inflammation in PVS patients.
• As a preprint, this study has not yet been peer-reviewed, meaning its findings are preliminary and subject to further scrutiny.

Yale News Article (February 19, 2025)

Title: "Immune markers of post-vaccination syndrome indicate future research directions"

Key Points:

• The article discusses a Yale study (published on medRxiv) investigating post-vaccination syndrome (PVS), a condition where a small number of people report chronic symptoms after COVID-19 vaccination.
• The study included 42 participants with PVS and 22 healthy vaccinated controls, analyzing blood samples for immune markers.
• It notes that PVS is not officially recognized by medical authorities, and little is known about its biological basis.
• The study is framed as an initial step to characterize PVS, identifying potential immunological patterns that differ between PVS patients and controls.

Reuters Fact Check (March 7, 2025)

Title: "Fact Check: US study does not suggest long COVID is a vaccine injury"

Key Points:

• The article addresses a misleading claim on social media that the Yale study suggests long COVID is a vaccine injury.
• It clarifies that the study’s authors (including Harlan Krumholz, a co-senior author) and independent experts reject this interpretation.
• The study found spike protein persistence in some PVS patients, including those without prior COVID infection, but this does not imply that long COVID is caused by vaccines.

MedPage Today Article (Feb 20, 2025)

Title: "Researchers Describe Rare Syndrome After COVID Vaccine"

Key Points:

• The article reports on the Yale study, specifically noting that detectable levels of the S1 subunit of the spike protein were found in plasma up to 709 days after vaccination in some PVS patients.
• Dr. Akiko Iwasaki, a lead researcher, expresses surprise at this finding, as the persistence of spike protein at such a late time point is unexpected.
• The article compares PVS to long COVID, noting similarities like exercise intolerance and neurologic issues, and mentions that persistent spike protein has been associated with long COVID as well.

The Wellness Company X Post (March 25, 2025)

• Spike protein can be detected for at least 709 days after vaccination (X Post).
• This is supported by the Yale study (medRxiv preprint, MedPage Today). The study found detectable S1 subunit levels in some PVS patients up to 709 days post-vaccination.

COVID spike protein vs Vaccine spike protein

According to Google AI Overview:

The spike protein produced by a COVID-19 mRNA vaccine is designed to mimic the spike protein found on the surface of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the virus that causes COVID-19. While the proteins are nearly identical in their structure, the mRNA vaccine-induced spike protein is handled differently by the body. Specifically, vaccine-induced spike proteins are more likely to be stuck on the cell's outer membrane and are less likely to have escape mechanisms. This difference in how the proteins are handled leads to a reduced risk of toxicity compared to the spike proteins produced during viral infections. (source)

A toxic possibility

It’s important to understand that 320 peer-reviewed scientific studies demonstrate that the Spike protein is highly pathogenic on its own and causes damage to all organ systems while persisting in the body for years. Thus, it can be reasonably assumed that clearing the body of this potent toxin is a key step toward addressing post-vaccination syndromes and long-COVID.

Contact with the spike protein appears to damage endothelial cells, which line every blood vessel in our body, including hundreds of billions in our lungs. If spike proteins are toxic, wouldn't a vaccine that causes our cells to make them be toxic, too?

Could the mRNA vaccines directed at SARS-CoV-2 trigger a deluge of that protein into the bloodstream, where it could wreak havoc with heavily vascularized organs such as the heart, intestine and, of course, lungs?

Conversations with several Stanford Medicine experts suggest there may be less to this concern than meets the eye. Here's one reason: For virtually every spike-protein molecule induced by vaccination, the cell that made it becomes its jail cell.

"The spike proteins made by SARS-CoV-2-infected cells and the spike proteins cells produce in response to the vaccine are nearly, although not exactly, identical," Davis said. 

COVID spike protein

Inside a SARS-CoV-2-infected cell, the COVID virus commandeers the cell's protein-making machinery and forces it to make myriad copies of the invader's own proteins and genetic material. Once made, the vast majority of newborn spike proteins are incorporated into new viral particles that have evolved ingenious ways of escaping from the cell that made them. Those particles are free to invade the cell next door or spill into the circulatory system and points beyond.

Some of those virally originating spike protein molecules miss their exit bus and wind up getting stuck on the cell's outer membrane. That's how the immune system learns to attack SARS-CoV-2-infected cells directly as well as to start pumping out antibodies that put the little pathogens out of business before they can get into more cells, Davis said.

Spike protein molecules induced by mRNA vaccines have a different fate.

The COVID-19 vaccine's cargo is a bunch of mRNA strands that, once safely inside a cell, direct the production of a whole lot of a single substance: the spike protein. Once produced inside a vaccine-recipient cell, it has no escape accomplices (the other components of the viral structure) to latch onto, because the cell isn't making them. So, it has no dependable passage out of the cell. Instead, Davis told me, the vast majority of vaccine-induced spike proteins float or are carried, either intact or sawed into snippets by enzymes inside the cell, to the cell's outer membrane. There they get stuck, right where the immune system can most easily spot them and mount a coordinated response.

  

"An intact vaccine-generated spike protein molecule, by virtue of its transmembrane domain, almost invariably sticks to the cell that makes it," agreed vaccinologist and biochemistry professor Peter Kim, PhD. 

According to Prof Peter Kim:

As I wrote in the magazine article, "Spike-proteins generated by the mRNA vaccines for COVID-19 -- while their lack of toxicity may not be absolute (they could in principle still bother neighboring cells, for example) -- are a good bet to be a lot less toxic than the spike proteins produced during the viral infections the vaccines prevent."

Read More: COVID spike protein vs Vaccine spike protein

Scientific Accuracy and Differing Views

According to Nebraska Medicine, "the spike proteins that were generated by COVID-19 vaccines last up to a few weeks."

However, updated studies claimed that the vaccine spike protein might last more than a few weeks.

• Spike Protein Persistence (709 Days): The claim that spike protein can be detected for 709 days is directly supported by the Yale study (2025). However, the study emphasizes that this was observed in a subset of PVS patients, not the general population, and the implications of this persistence are unclear.

• The study titled, Altered Circulating Cytokine Profile Among mRNA‐Vaccinated Young Adults: A Year‐Long Follow‐Up Study, was published in the journal Immunity, Inflammation and Disease (April 2025): "this study found that in young adults (mean age = 27.2), mRNA injection likely leads to sustained Spike protein production lasting at least one year—evidenced by persistently elevated levels of multiple proinflammatory cytokines. Elevation of inflammatory markers is likely to play a role in symptomatic long pandemic syndromes."

• A study of 19 stroke victims published in the Journal of Clinical Neuroscience (2025) confirmed that spike protein from mRNA COVID-19 vaccines can remain in the cerebral arteries for up to 17 months. In one case, a 70-year-old woman, had spike protein present 17 months after her last shot and in another, 11 months. None of the cases showed nucleocapsid protein positivity, supporting the absence of active viral infection.

• Another study published in Molecular Systems Biology (2025) revealed that mRNA vaccines induce a highly dynamic and persistent training of innate immune cells enabling a sustained pro-inflammatory immune response. According to Sonia Elijah, "The findings point to a disturbing picture of chronic inflammation with cancer risks (e.g., Roe et al., 2017, on H3K27ac in leukemia) tied to this epigenetic rewiring."

Does covid vaccine contain spike proteins?

The mRNA COVID-19 vaccines do not contain spike proteins themselves (with a couple of exceptions), but most of them work by teaching your body to make the spike protein, so your immune system can recognize and fight the real virus if it shows up later.

So, only protein subunit vaccines like Novavax actually contain spike proteins directly. The others (mRNA vaccines) just give your body the blueprint to make them.

Conclusion and Recommendations

• If you’re intrigued by the Yale study, it’s a legitimate piece of research that highlights the need for further investigation into PVS. However, its findings are preliminary, and the implications of spike protein persistence are not yet clear.
• If you’re concerned about PVS or vaccine side effects, consult a healthcare provider. The scientific community is still learning about PVS, and more research is needed to understand its causes and potential treatments.
• As with many conflicting recommendations, it's best to consult your trusted healthcare provider and carefully weigh the potential benefits against the possible risks before making a decision.