Is RFK Jr right to pull mRNA vaccine research funding?

MRNA vaccines were heralded as a medical miracle that saved life during Covid pandemia, but now the United States is withdrawn from researching them.

US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy JR canceled 22 projects to combat infections such as Covid and flu – worth $ 500 million (£ 376 million) in financing.

So Kennedy – probably the country’s most famous vaccine skeptic – does it have any meaning, or is it a monumental miscalculation?

Prof. Dr. Bristol University vaccine researcher. Adam Finn says, “A little bit of both of them,” but a “stupid” and potentially “disaster error”, which MRNA technology hend.

Let’s open it?

Kennedy concludes that “the data of these vaccines are not effectively protected against upper respiratory infections such as Covid and Grip,” he says, reviewing science about MRNA vaccines.

Instead, he says he will shift to the financing “even if the viruses have been mutated, to the safer, wider vaccine platforms that remain effective.

Are MRNA vaccines safe? Is it effective? Would other vaccination technologies better?

And another question is where MRNA vaccines should comply with other vaccine technologies pantheon – because there are many:

• Inaktiive vaccines Use the original virus or bacteria, kill and use it to train the immune system – like annual flu vaccine
• Weakened vaccines Do not kill infectious agent, but weaken, so that it causes a slight infection such as MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine
• Conjugat vaccines Use protein or sugar pieces of an insect, so that it triggers an immune response without causing an infection – as a cough
• MRNA vaccines Use a genetic code piece that teachs the body to temporarily make a virus to make parts of a virus, and the immune system reacts to it.

Each of them has advantages and disadvantages, but Prof Finn argues that we have “excessive” excess “and now an adjustment process during the exclusion of other approaches.

“But to shake the pendulum so much, MRNA does not work and has no value and should not be developed better or should not be understood better, he did remarkable things,” he says.

The claim that MRNA vaccines are not protected against upper respiratory tract infections such as Covid and Grip, says the Prof Andrew Pollard from the Oxford Vaccine Group, which soon resigned as the head of the British government (JCVI), which recommends the British government.

It has been shown that vaccines provide protection during the intensive monitoring of both clinical trials and then how the vaccines are carried out when they spread to the world.

In the first year of vaccination during the Covid pandemi, the Pfizer/Biodch MRNA vaccine alone was estimated to be recorded. About 6 million life.

Against this, especially young men had a small number of inflammation of the heart tissue called myocarditis.

“Very rare side effects should be balanced against the great benefit of technology,” Prof Pollard says.

The pandem was a period in which the world focused on Covid in a single -minded way and the launch of vaccines was intensively monitored. The consensus view made better than an overwhelming majority than damage.

However, this does not mean that they are perfect technology.

MRNA Covid vaccines train the immune system to target only one protein from the entire virus. If this protein in the coronavirus changes or mutates, the body’s protection will be reduced.

We have seen the results of this – immunity is decreasing and vaccines need to be updated.

A theoretical argument is that a different vaccination approach, such as using the entire virus, will provide better protection, since the theoretical argument will have more targeted.

However, Prof Pollard says MRNA vaccines perform better than those who are inactivated while fighting Covid.

Probably, as they are done – and the virus killing is “less stimulating the immune system compared to MRNA vaccines to change viral proteins”.

The need for updating vaccines is not the failure of MRNA technology, which can be easily solved by turning from one technology to another – instead of the basic nature of some viruses.

The same measles or HPV (human papilloma virus) vaccines have been effective for decades, and in any case the genetic codes of the virus are more stable, it does not show a sign of failure.

However, some viruses live in a continuous flow.

For example, the flu is not a virus – instead of a constantly changing target. At any time, a coercion will be on the rise and the probability of causing problems in winter will be the highest.

In the flu, the injection of influenza inactivated to adults is updated every year – the live vaccine given to children as a nasal spray. A future MRNA flu vaccine form will work in the same way.

“The point of keeping up with variants is not only MRNA, but about all technologies,” Prof Pollard says.

There is a legitimate scientific question about which vaccine technology is used for which disease.

What is concerned about scientists means that the withdrawal of MRNA research means that we will not have these vaccines when no other technology can do.

Prof Pollard says: “I don’t think there’s evidence that they are much better for protection, but RNA Tech responds to the outbreaks where the streets are in front of everything.”

The world is very drilled every year to vaccinate new flu. However, even then, there is a six -month process to decide on the new flu strains to be targeted, to enlarge the vaccine in chicken eggs and then distribute it. Brand new vaccines take even longer.

However, with MRNA, you can get ten or hundreds of millions of doses under the new vaccine in under the new vaccine and after a few months.

Some of the projects that attracted the financing in the US were preparing for bird flu epidemic. This virus, H5N1, jumps to a wide range of animals, including bird populations and American cattle.

“This is not logical, and if we take a bird flu outbreak, a disaster can be seen as a mistake, Prof Prof Finn says Prof Finn.

However, the US’s consequences from MRNA research could have been more widespread.

What effect does this movement on relying on existing vaccines, MRNA or something else? How does the USA affect the world when it is one of the most influential countries in medical research? And will he use the approach to treat other types of MRNA technology such as cancer vaccines or to treat rare genetic diseases?

Prof Pollard asks another question after the RFK JR’s move: “Does a big market go back to RNA?

“In this century, infectious disease is one of the most important technologies we will see in biotherapeutic agents for rare disease and critical agents for cancer.