The Global Story: Will the new cancer vaccine survive RFK Jr’s America?

The vaccine trains the body's immune system to attack cancer cells that remain after tumor removal, functioning like a vaccine by showing the immune system what to target. Phase three trials demonstrated the vaccine prevented cancer recurrence in a significant number of patients and helped them live longer, though it is not a magic bullet.

mRNA technology allows vaccines to be programmed to produce specific proteins in the body, bypassing the need to develop idiosyncratic vaccines for each virus. Katalin Kariko pursued mRNA research from the mid-1980s, facing demotion and grant rejections before eventually moving to BioNTech and winning a Nobel Prize.

She was terminated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2012 due to lack of grant funding after 24 years of hard work, but she focused on what came next.

Thirty years of mRNA development coincidentally reached fruition in January 2020, enabling companies like BioNTech to rapidly pivot from cancer to COVID vaccine development. Prior to COVID, the biotech community viewed mRNA technology as a hype bubble because it had not yet produced useful results despite billions in investment.

mRNA vaccines do not perform well against viruses that infect the upper respiratory tract, and the technology poses more risks than benefits for these viruses.

UK pandemic data showed a sudden, dramatic drop in fatality rates for each age group shortly after vaccination, directly contradicting claims that mRNA vaccines are ineffective against respiratory viruses.

mRNA vaccines have rare side effects like myocarditis and pericarditis that were only detectable at population scale, but these are present to a very limited extent.

For COVID in young, fit populations during low prevalence, the cost-benefit analysis was finely balanced, but for cancer the side effects must be extremely severe to outweigh the treatment benefits.

mRNA flu vaccines offer better strain matching and faster production than traditional methods, which rely on predicting strains from the southern hemisphere winter.

There is less of a compelling public health case for mRNA flu vaccines compared to other uses because traditional flu vaccines already exist and are effective.

The funding cuts are a huge mistake based on misinformation that ignores evidence, and the U.S. ability to develop vaccines during the next pandemic will suffer tremendously.

Private biotech investment will likely sustain mRNA research, but the U.S. will be badly positioned if it loses manufacturing capacity and research leadership before a worse pandemic emerges. RFK Jr. may pivot to allowing mRNA funding for cancer while restricting it for viruses, since the risk-benefit calculation changes completely for deadly diseases.

Secretary Kennedy believes mRNA products warrant heightened scientific scrutiny, but HHS continues to support mRNA research where the science shows promise, including for hard-to-treat cancers.