On wired Summit Health Summit on Tuesday, general director of Modernna, Stéphane Bancel, said that the last changes in the Covid-19 vaccine policy made by the Secretary for Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. They are a “reverse step”.
Moderna is one of the manufacturers of Covid-19 vaccines based on MRNA, and in last month the company received permission from Food and Drug Administration to Updated version of the shot. But as part of this approval, FDA imposed up-to-date restrictions on who can receive the vaccine. Earlier, Covid vaccines were recommended for everyone or older. Now FDA claims that they should be given to only people with a high risk of a earnest illness, because they are 65 and older, or have other health problems.
“I think it complicates things for people,” Bancel said. “You can have someone in your household – a parent, a spouse, a child who is threatened,” which you want to protect, he said. Earlier, fit people could simply go to the pharmacy to get a Covid shot. Now several states require a prescription to get a shot due to FDA changes.
Kennedy was in a crusade against vaccines, since he began the roles of the secretary of HHS in February; At the beginning of this week, the Senate Financial Commission played him about his previous activities.
In May, Kennedy terminated a contract worth $ 590 million from Up-to-date to the development of a candidate for a mrna flu vaccine. The contract was awarded in the last days of the Biden administration in January, just before the start of the second term of office of President Donald Trump. Ptana flu is widespread in wild birds and causes explosions in poultry and American dairy cows since March 2024. It caused sporadic cases in humans, mostly agricultural workers, but it is the potential of Pandemic, if it develops the ability to spread from a person.
In the same month, Kennedy announced that HHS would no longer fly MRNA Covid-19 vaccines for fit children and pregnant women. In June, FDA stated that this requires up-to-date labels on MRNA vaccines to contain safety information on the risk of myocarditis and pericarditis, scarce side effects observed mainly in youthful men after giving shots.
In August, as part of the “coordinated wind” research on MRNA vaccines, HHS canceled 22 related contracts and investments worth almost $ 500 million. Kennedy incorrectly said that these vaccines “do not effectively protect against upper respiratory infections such as covid and flu.” Instead, HHS changes funds into an older vaccine platform known as “whole grain” vaccines.
Despite the administration’s reaction against MRNA vaccines, Bancel said that “Dialogue encourages him”, which the company had from the FDA. In addition to obtaining updated Covid shots, although at restrictions, Up-to-date has also received extended consent to the syncite virus or RSV this year, a vaccine that includes adults aged 18 to 59, which are exposed to an increased risk of illness. The vaccine was initially approved in May 2024 for adults at the age of 60 and older.
“I think that many people in January, including my own team, were worried that we may not get these approvals,” said Bancel.
MRNA research administration current hearings have not expanded to cancer, and Modeta is developing several MRNA therapies against cancer, including personalized anti -cancer vaccines. The company has 45 cancer -related programs in preparation and said that it expected 10 FDA approvals in the next three years. “We use exactly the same technology to go from infectious to cancer,” said Bancel.
He also asked that Covid vaccines were not tested well. “I don’t think the vaccine is more tested in terms of effectiveness and safety in the history of vaccines,” he said. “As for the effectiveness and safety of vaccines, literally millions of people in the real world were conducted.”