At the Wired Health Summit on Tuesday Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel Talk about recent changes Coronavirus disease Vaccine policy developed by the Minister of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a “step backwards.”
Moderna is one of the manufacturers of mRNA-based Covid-19 vaccines, which received approval from the Food and Drug Administration last month Updated version of the lens. However, as part of that approval, the FDA imposes new restrictions on who can get vaccinated. Previously, it was recommended to use the Covid vaccine for anyone who was 6 months or older. Now, the FDA said they should only give individuals at high risk for severe illness because they are 65 years old and 65 years old or other health problems.
“I think that complicates people,” Banker said. “You may have a person in your family, a parent, a spouse, a child, and they are at a high risk.” Previously, healthy individuals could go to the pharmacy for co-shooting. Now, due to the FDA changes, several states need prescriptions to get co-shooting.
Kennedy has been Crusades against vaccines Earlier this week, the Senate Finance Committee trained his actions in office so far.
In May, Kennedy terminated a $590 million contract with Moderna to develop mRNA-based Bird flu Vaccine candidate. The contract was awarded in the last few days of the Biden administration in January, just before the start of President Donald Trump’s second term. Bird flu is prevalent among wild birds and has caused outbreaks in poultry and American dairy cows since March 2024. It has caused sporadic cases of people, most of them farm workers, but if it develops the ability to spread from person to person, it creates pandemic potential.
In the same month, Kennedy announced that HHS will no longer recommend mRNA Covid-19-19 to healthy children and pregnant women. The FDA said in June that new tags on mRNA vaccines will be needed to include safety information on the risks of myocarditis and pericarditis, with rare side effects mainly observed in young people after shooting.
In August, as part of the “coordinated rainfall” for mRNA vaccine research, HHS canceled 22 related contracts and investments worth nearly $500 million. Kennedy said in a statement that the vaccines “failed to effectively prevent upper respiratory tract infections such as COVID and influenza.” Instead, HHS moved funds to an older vaccine platform called the “whole virus” vaccine.
Despite the government’s strong opposition to mRNA vaccines, Banker said he was “encouraged by the company’s conversation with the FDA.” In addition to getting updated Covid lenses, Moderna has gained expanded recognition for its respiratory syncytial virus or RSV vaccine, including adults aged 18 to 59 who have increased risk of disease, despite its limitations. The vaccine was originally approved in May 2024 for adults aged 60 and over.
“I think a lot of people in January, including my own team, are very worried that we might not get these recognitions,” Banker said.
So far, government repression of mRNA research has not expanded to the cancer space, and ModernA is developing several mRNA therapies for cancer, including personalized cancer vaccines. The company is using 45 cancer-related programs and says it expects to receive 10 FDA approvals over the next three years. “We are using the exact same technology to transform from infectious diseases to cancer,” Banker said.
He also accused the co-proof vaccines of not yet well tested. “I don’t think there are more vaccines that are effective and safe in vaccine history,” he said. “In terms of vaccine efficacy and safety, millions of people have already conducted research in the real world.”
