Goodbye, mRNA vaccine funding
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@Lisa said in Goodbye, mRNA vaccine funding:
We are so so so SO screwed.
No kidding.
Even the NIH knows it. The administration hasn't scrubbed this page yet:
https://www.cancer.gov/news-events/cancer-currents-blog/2022/mrna-vaccines-to-treat-cancer
@wtg said in Goodbye, mRNA vaccine funding:
Even the NIH knows it. The administration hasn't scrubbed this page yet:
https://www.cancer.gov/news-events/cancer-currents-blog/2022/mrna-vaccines-to-treat-cancer
It's just the six major media conglomerates....
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mRNA: Vaccine or Gene Therapy? The Safety Regulatory Issues - PubMed https://share.google/L4l1tFkmSyE9534nL
They are gene therapy products, not vaccines, and they were not studied for thirty years. Good lord.
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mRNA: Vaccine or Gene Therapy? The Safety Regulatory Issues - PubMed https://share.google/L4l1tFkmSyE9534nL
They are gene therapy products, not vaccines, and they were not studied for thirty years. Good lord.
@Daniel. said in Goodbye, mRNA vaccine funding:
They are gene therapy products, not vaccines, and they were not studied for thirty years. Good lord.
It can be both. Just because it has not been studied 30 years as a method for gene therapy does not mean it has not been studied for 30 years as a method to develop vaccines.
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Op-ed by Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health, on why the US Dept. of HHS under the Trump administration pivots away from mRNA vaccines:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/08/12/nih-mrna-vaccines-jay-bhattacharya/
TL;DR : because mRNA failed to earn public trust, and it's Biden's fault.
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@Axtremus He's right that there's lack of public trust. But it's not exclusive to mRNA vaccines. And it certainly isn't Biden's fault. I don't see how it's an argument for shifting funding away from mRNA technology. The flu vaccine has been around forever, but the rate of flu vaccination across all populations is the same as he quoted for the COVID vaccine, less than 50 percent.
Interestingly enough, the flu vaccination rate went up during the COVID era. Was it a "side effect" of what Bhattacharya terms a useless media campaign? Is i possible that COVID campaign actually made people more aware of the usefulness of vaccines in general?
Additionally, I agree with him that science needs to drive the process, but we're facing major headwinds in that regard. The public understanding of how science needs to work is on the decline. And while the average person's access to quality information like scientific studies is unbelievable, I also think the science has become so complex that it's a huge challenge for even a determined person to stay well-informed. People either don't have the science background, or simply don't have the time, to investigate evolving medical technologies. Unfortunately the pseudo-science quacks have far-reaching platforms, too, and that complicates the picture even more.
It will continue to be interesting.
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I missed this announcement from a few months ago.
Vaccine experts are perplexed by a project the Trump administration has launched to develop a universal flu vaccine, which has long been a goal, though an elusive one, in medical research.
Dubbed Generation Gold Standard, the project is aimed at creating a flu shot that doesn't have to be updated every year to match the latest strains of the virus. The project also aims to produce a vaccine that could protect people against other respiratory viruses that could cause a pandemic, such as bird flu and coronaviruses.
"Generation Gold Standard is a paradigm shift," said National Institutes of Heath Director Jay Bhattacharya in a statement announcing the project. "It extends vaccine protection beyond strain-specific limits and prepares for flu viral threats — not just today's, but tomorrow's as well — using traditional vaccine technology brought into the 21st century."
The announcement surprised vaccine researchers, given the anti-vaccine stance of health officials like Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
"I'm glad to see that this administration is still wanting to invest in developing next-generation influenza vaccines or respiratory vaccines in general," says Ted Ross, director of Global Vaccine Development at the Cleveland Clinic.
An old vaccine technology back in the spotlight
But Ross and other outside vaccine experts are mystified by many aspects of Generation Gold Standard.
https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/05/13/nx-s1-5384934/trump-universal-flu-vaccine
There was this assessment in Science:
