Decompose how a massive reduction in American financing could have an impact on future mRNA vaccines
The Trump administration says that it draws half a billion dollars from research projects funded by the US government to create new mRNA vaccines.
In a statement this week, the Secretary of the United States of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a long-standing critic of the vaccine, announced a “coordinated liquidation”, equivalent to the cancellation of Is worth $ 500 million Development of mRNA vaccines under the biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (Barda).
The technology itself was welcomed as recently as the COVVI-19 pandemic.
In 2023, the Nobel Prize Physiology or medicine was awarded to two scientists whose mRNA discoveries have made it possible to create COVVI-19 vaccinations. The Committee has credited mRNA technology for helping to save millions of lives, prevent severe COVIR-19, to reduce the load of illness and to allow societies around the world to reopen.
The loss of funding for research has dismayed infectious disease experts who note that mRNA technology allows faster production production than the old methods of vaccination production, buying precious time if another pandemic virus should emerge.
Here’s how medical experts in Canada and the United States react to the funding cup and what they say that it could mean.
The United States Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., canceled $ 500 million in funding for the development of MNRA vaccine technology. For the National, Heather Hiscox of the CBC asks the specialist in infectious diseases Dr. Allison McGeer and the healthy researcher Bradley Wouters to break down the type of impact that this could have on the fight against diseases in Canada and in the world.
What is the technology of mRNA vaccines and why is it exciting?
Vaccines form our immune system to respond to pathogens. Traditionally, vaccines have used inactive or weakened versions of a pathogen that is not enough to make a sick person, but launches the body’s immune response.
Messenger RNA (mRNA), discovered in 1961, is a natural molecule which serves as a recipe for protein production in the body.
In mRNA vaccines, the approach begins with an extract of genetic code that carries instructions to make proteins.
Scientists choose the protein to target, inject this plan into body cells, which then just make proteins enough to trigger an immune response – essentially producing its own dose of vaccine.
Scientists are mainly excited by the speed at which mRNA vaccines can protect themselves in the arms.
Michael Osterholm, an expert in pandemic preparation at the University of Minnesota, says that the use of older vaccine technology to target a pandemic flu stump would take 18 months to make enough doses to vaccinate only about a quarter of the world.
He says that using mRNA technology to make a flu vaccine could considerably change this chronology. “At the end of the first year, we could vaccinate the world.”
In addition to the advantage of the speed with which mRNA vaccines can be made, Dr. Allison McGeer, specialist in infectious diseases in Toronto, says they are also easier to standardize.
“It has many other flexibilities That if you know it works, in fact a really exciting “addition” to older technologies used to make vaccines.
The currentHow mRNA vaccines have gone from scientific darling to political football
Arnm vaccines saved millions of lives during the pandemic. But now this science is under political attack in the United States. Funding is drawn, approvals are delayed and science interviewed by politicians. The scientific journalist Elie Dolgin joins us to explain how a technology once greeted as a revolutionary is now faced with an existential threat – and what it could cost in the fight against diseases.
What research on the mRNA of vaccines takes place now?
Beyond coastal vaccines, mRNA vaccine technology is in a vaccine approved by Health Canada for the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). A flu vaccine for flu has also reached the phase 3 clinical trial, the last step before manufacturers submit to regulators to release a vaccine on the market.
There have also been more than 100 clinical trials to assess the potential of mRNA vaccine technology to treat various cancers, including lung, breast, prostate, melanoma and, more recently, pancreatic cancer.
Dr. Peter Hooz, professor of pediatrics and molecular virology at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, says that the cancellation of research funding on mRNA vaccines will have negative consequences for research on other diseases.
“MRNA technology looks really exciting for new generation cancer immunotherapeutic,” said Hooz, who also works in Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development.
“It will therefore throw cold water on a great effort that we continue as well to develop the vaccine against new generation cancer? This is an unknown question.”
Other research teams test potential mRNA vaccines to combat HIV and treat autoimmune diseases. These are clinical trials or animal stage studies at an early stage.
Could other countries take over?
Although there are other countries working on mRNA vaccine technology, Hotz has qualified the United States the largest vaccine market.
He says that the announcement that funding was being reduced could dissuade pharmaceutical companies from continuing vaccine technology if they believe that it would not sell.
He says it is not clear if other industrialized countries could pool their support to compensate for the reduction of $ 500 million in the United States.
Are there security problems with mRNA vaccines like RFK JR. suggested?
In a video on the X social media platform, Kennedy said that mRNA vaccines were dangerous and ineffective.
He said that after examining the main experts in the United States and consultants, the Ministry of Health and Social Services (HHS) “determined that mRNA technology has more risks than the advantages of these respiratory viruses”.
In the video, Kennedy also said that mRNA vaccines “paradoxically encourage new mutations and could in fact prolong pandemics because the virus is constantly maturing to escape the protective effects of the vaccine.”
Angela Rasmussen, virologist of the University of Saskatchewan, says that Kennedy is wrong on what prolongs pandemics.
The United States Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a long-standing critic of vaccines, said this week that mRNA vaccines could prolong pandemics. Angela Rasmussen, virologist of the University of Saskatchewan, explains why mRNA vaccines really help shorten pandemics.
“Viruses mutate when they reproduce, and they reply when they spread through a population of people,” said Rasmussen.
“The best way to prevent a virus from spreading through a population of people is to ensure that these people are protected from vaccination virus.”
In a press release on Tuesday, Kennedy also qualified Covid and flows such as upper respiratory tract infections, which Hotz Note is incorrect.
Unlike colds, he says, COVID-19 and influenza are infections of the lower respiratory tract with cardiovascular and other important effects.
“It’s part of the disinformation machine … to minimize the seriousness of these diseases,” said Hooz.
Will the lack of financing harm access to existing flu vaccines?
Rasmussen claims that antigrippal vaccines will not be assigned to the United States because they are manufactured using the inactivated virus method, not mRNA.
In the video published on social networks, Kennedy said that the United States supported “safe and effective vaccines for each American who wants them”.
But many infectious illness experts have noted that the mRNA vaccines themselves are also safe and effective.
“MRNA technology has proven to be very effective,” said Hooz. “According to some estimates, 3.2 million American lives were saved by mRNA vaccines styled during the pandemic.”
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