How mRNA Vaccine Platform Suffers Mainly From Manufactured Distrust

Director of the National Institutes of Health, Jay Bhattacharya, recently stated that the mRNA technology “should not be used as a platform for mass vaccination.” This raises the question, why? Bhattacharya says it’s because the public doesn’t trust it. However, it seems the public’s qualms stem in large part from misinformation with respect to the COVID-19 vaccines. As such, the mRNA vaccine platform suffers mainly from manufactured distrust.

Misgivings expressed by top officials like Bhattacharya prompted the federal government’s discontinuation of mRNA vaccine development programs last month. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. then announced that the federal government’s emergency preparedness agency, Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, will no longer fund work on messenger RNA vaccines. Namely, BARDA is terminating 22 grants supporting development of mRNA vaccines, worth a total of $500 million.

The agency’s ending of new federal investments in mRNA technology was presaged earlier this year by substantial cuts imposed by the Department of HHS when it discontinued dozens of mRNA-related research projects. Many of the canceled grants concerned work related to vaccine hesitancy and uptake of vaccinations, but they also included ones on clinical development of mRNA vaccines. In May, for example, BARDA rescinded $766 million in grants to Moderna for work the vaccine manufacturer was doing to develop, test, and bring through licensure several vaccines for influenza viruses that could trigger pandemics.

On a Steve Bannon podcast, Bhattacharya said that the mRNA vaccine platform is “promising but not yet ready for prime time for vaccines.” He attributed this to public distrust. And in defense of the decision, Kennedy erroneously stated that “the data show these vaccines fail to protect effectively against upper respiratory infections like COVID and flu.” He also pointed to cases of myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart muscle, which have been observed after mRNA COVID-19 vaccination in rare instances. What Kennedy didn’t say, however, is that contracting COVID-19 increases the risk of myocarditis at a higher rate than vaccination does. And what Bhattacharya failed to mention is that the vaccines served the public well. Numerous peer-reviewed studies have found that mRNA vaccines are safe and effective and saved at least 2.5 million lives globally, with some estimates pointing to as many as 20 million.

mRNA Vaccine Platform Is About More Than Just COVID-19

The mRNA vaccine technology was famously deployed during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, allowing for the creation, testing and regulatory approval of vaccines within 11 months of the sharing of the genetic sequence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19. The Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines each contain mRNA, which instructs cells to manufacture the coronavirus spike protein, simulating infection with the virus. This induces an immune system response to the spike protein that is present on the coronavirus.

But this is merely one application of the platform. Others are being tested, including in the HIV space. And these are also being subject federal government funding cutbacks. According to The Atlantic, numerous partnerships between the National Institutes of Health and HIV vaccine researchers have been terminated under Kennedy’s watch. Given that such disruption is occurring in the HIV space, perhaps other diseases will be affected, too. mRNA vaccines are also being developed to prevent melanoma and lung cancer, malaria, Lyme disease and Zika, as well as to protect newborns from congenital infections like cytomegalovirus.

Kennedy’s moves represent the latest setback to mRNA research. While researchers Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman received a Nobel prize in 2023 for their mRNA work aimed at preventing and treating a wide range of diseases, during their decades of work they had to overcome numerous challenges.

Since the 1960s, there was consensus around the critical role that mRNA plays as a translator of sorts in protein synthesis—the process responsible for almost all cellular functions in the human body. This helical strand of molecules allows for information contained in DNA in the nucleus of cells to be delivered to ribosomes where protein synthesis can occur. However, scientists expressed doubts pertaining to the therapeutic viability of mRNA products: mRNA was considered too unstable and limited in its ability to produce an immune response.

Karikó and Weissman persisted in their mRNA research because they fervently believed that the platform held the future for vaccinations that could trigger the immune system to fight numerous types of diseases, of which COVID-19 is thus far the most notable.

Misinformation And Problematic Messaging on COVID-19 Vaccines

Soon after the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccines, a veritable flood of misinformation followed—often in the guise of unfounded conspiracy theories featuring prominently on social media. Among many myths, the products were alleged to include a microchip for government tracking, rewrite a person’s DNA, make people magnetic, cause infertility and result in unexplained “sudden deaths.”

This led to widespread concerns about the vaccines and partly contributed to the U.S. having worse COVID-19 outcomes than its peers as the nation in 2021 and 2022 trailed other similarly wealthy nations in vaccination rates, particularly among people most at risk of severe disease—the over-65 age group, immunocompromised and those with other comorbid conditions.

In their book, The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market, Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway suggest that many millions of Americans seemed to either “disbelieve what government officials were telling them about COVID-19 or to regard public health measures such as vaccines and mask mandates as encroachments on their liberty.” The authors claim that 40% of COVID-19 deaths could have been prevented if Americans trusted science and government more.

Likewise, in The Deadly Rise of Anti-Science, Peter Hotez, researcher and professor of pediatrics, molecular virology and microbiology at the Baylor College of Medicine, writes that 200,000 Americans needlessly lost their lives to COVID-19 during the Delta and Omicron variant waves in 2021 and early 2022, respectively. According to Hotez, many refused to get vaccinated because they were victims of an organized antivaccine disinformation campaign.

A published study in JAMA Network Open suggested that if public health recommendations had been followed, including better vaccination levels, approximately 33% of the COVID-19 deaths in America could have been avoided.

But misinformation wasn’t the only problem during the pandemic. The CDC’s messages asserting that vaccinated individuals “do not carry the virus, don’t get sick and aren’t contagious” proved wrong and had to be reversed. Public health officials also committed missteps in conveying the use value of masks. An internal review found that communication by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was muddled and inconsistent.

The issue of problematic communication wasn’t confined to public health leaders. In the winter and spring of 2021, for example, the CEO of Pfizer, Albert Bourla, posted messages on social media saying the COVID-19 vaccine would stop transmission. In April 2021, for instance, Bourla tweeted, “Excited to share that updated analysis from our Phase 3 study with BioNTech also showed that our Covid-19 vaccine was 100% effective in preventing COVID-19 cases in South Africa. 100%!”

Yet four months earlier, the Food and Drug Administration declared that “at this time, data are not available to make a determination about how long the vaccine will provide protection, nor is there evidence that the vaccine prevents transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from person to person.” It took more than a year for CDC to produce a report saying that the COVID-19 vaccine offered limited “transient protection.”

This takes us back to Bhattacharya’s criticism of mRNA vaccines. He asserts that mRNA COVID-19 vaccines do not prevent infection. Here, he rails against the early messaging on the vaccines. But in the end, his view lacks nuance as it’s not accurate. They can help to prevent transmission, but the effect wanes rather quickly over time. None of the COVID-19 vaccines, whether mRNA-based or not, permanently block infections from happening. This isn’t that surprising. In fact, it’s analogous to influenza vaccines. All approved COVID-19 vaccines, however, do lower the risk of severe infection that can lead to hospitalization or death. Published peer-reviewed data are unequivocal in this regard. These vaccines save lives.

In hindsight, perhaps an approach to informing the public that strictly emphasized the proven benefits of COVID-19 vaccination would have been more fruitful. It could have also helped avert federal government cutbacks in funding of mRNA vaccine research.