{"id":19049,"date":"2025-08-17T16:16:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-17T16:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=19049"},"modified":"2025-08-17T16:16:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-17T16:16:08","slug":"rfk-jr-shifts-500-million-from-mrna-research-to-safer-vaccines-do-the-data-back-that-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=19049","title":{"rendered":"RFK Jr. Shifts $500 Million From mRNA Research to &#8216;Safer&#8217; Vaccines. Do the Data Back That Up?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>&#8220;in June, vaccine manufacturer Moderna reported the results of a clinical trial pitting its mRNA influenza vaccine against both high-dose and standard-dose licensed seasonal influenza vaccines. The conventional vaccines used inactivated flu viruses to induce an immune response. Moderna&#8217;s mRNA-1010 achieved a relative vaccine efficacy against influenza illness of 26.6 percent in the trial. That means that the mRNA-1010 group had 26.6 percent fewer influenza cases than the group that got the standard-dose flu shot. For example, if the standard flu vaccine group had 100 cases per 1,000 people, the mRNA-1010 group would have had about 73\u201374 cases per 1,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The clinical trial roundly contradicts RFK Jr.&#8217;s claim that mRNA vaccines fail to protect effectively against upper respiratory infections, especially in comparison to old-fashioned flu vaccines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A simple Google Scholar search for mRNA vaccine trials for infectious diseases turns up over 10,000 results for just 2025 alone. But let&#8217;s just take a look at a comprehensive new review of promising vaccine formulations for emerging infectious diseases. In that study, a team of Korean researchers compares the pros and cons of different vaccine production platforms, including whole-organism-based, live-attenuated, subunit, virus vector-based immunity, and nucleic acid-based (DNA and RNA) vaccines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The researchers&#8217; analysis concludes that &#8220;mRNA vaccine formulations offer significant advantages, such as rapid development and production, over other vaccine platforms.&#8221; They also note that it is &#8220;necessary to develop an analysis system that can verify the effectiveness and safety of the mRNA vaccine, as well as the development process of the vaccine itself.&#8221; Just what the now-cancelled BARDA mRNA vaccine contracts could have helped to figure out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These vaccines might indeed have a significant impact on mitigating the spread of infectious diseases, if RFK Jr. would just stop standing athwart biomedical progress yelling, &#8220;Stop.&#8221;&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/reason.com\/2025\/08\/07\/rfk-jr-shifts-500-million-from-mrna-research-to-safer-vaccines-does-the-data-back-that-up\">https:\/\/reason.com\/2025\/08\/07\/rfk-jr-shifts-500-million-from-mrna-research-to-safer-vaccines-does-the-data-back-that-up<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;in June, vaccine manufacturer Moderna reported the results of a clinical trial pitting its mRNA influenza vaccine against both high-dose and standard-dose licensed seasonal influenza vaccines. The conventional vaccines used inactivated flu viruses to induce an immune response. Moderna&#8217;s mRNA-1010 achieved a relative vaccine efficacy against influenza illness of 26.6 percent in the trial. That means that the mRNA-1010 group had 26.6 percent fewer influenza cases than the group that got the standard-dose flu shot. For example, if the standard flu vaccine group had 100 cases per 1,000 people, the mRNA-1010 group would have had about 73\u201374 cases per 1,000.<\/p>\n<p>The clinical trial roundly contradicts RFK Jr.&#8217;s claim that mRNA vaccines fail to protect effectively against upper respiratory infections, especially in comparison to old-fashioned flu vaccines.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n<p> A simple Google Scholar search for mRNA vaccine trials for infectious diseases turns up over 10,000 results for just 2025 alone. But let&#8217;s just take a look at a comprehensive new review of promising vaccine formulations for emerging infectious diseases. In that study, a team of Korean researchers compares the pros and cons of different vaccine production platforms, including whole-organism-based, live-attenuated, subunit, virus vector-based immunity, and nucleic acid-based (DNA and RNA) vaccines.<\/p>\n<p>The researchers&#8217; analysis concludes that &#8220;mRNA vaccine formulations offer significant advantages, such as rapid development and production, over other vaccine platforms.&#8221; They also note that it is &#8220;necessary to develop an analysis system that can verify the effectiveness and safety of the mRNA vaccine, as well as the development process of the vaccine itself.&#8221; Just what the now-cancelled BARDA mRNA vaccine contracts could have helped to figure out.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n<p> These vaccines might indeed have a significant impact on mitigating the spread of infectious diseases, if RFK Jr. would just stop standing athwart biomedical progress yelling, &#8220;Stop.&#8221;&#8221;  <\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/reason.com\/2025\/08\/07\/rfk-jr-shifts-500-million-from-mrna-research-to-safer-vaccines-does-the-data-back-that-up\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[348,318,135,81,1029,2089,811,526,925,410,496],"class_list":["post-19049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-data","tag-false-beliefs","tag-falsehoods","tag-health","tag-misinformation","tag-rfk","tag-science","tag-vaccination","tag-vaccine","tag-vaccines","tag-virus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19049"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19049\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19050,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19049\/revisions\/19050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}