Moderna CEO Responds to RFK Jr.’s Crusade Against the Covid-19 Vaccine

Overwhelmed On Tuesday, Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said that recent changes in the COVVI-19 vaccine policy provided by the secretary of health and social services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. are a “step back”.

Moderna is one of the COVVI-19 vaccine manufacturers based on mRNA, and last month, the company received approval from the Food and Drug Administration for an updated version of the shooting. But as part of this approval, the FDA imposed new restrictions on which the vaccine can receive. Previously, coated vaccines have been recommended for anyone 6 months or more. Now the FDA says that they should only be given to people at high risk of serious illness, either because they are 65 and over, or other health problems.

“I think that complicates things for people,” said Bancel. “You could have someone in your household – a parent, a spouse, a child – who is very at risk” that you want to protect, he said. Before, healthy individuals could simply go to a pharmacy to receive a covid shot. From now on, several states require a prescription to obtain a cocoded photo due to the modifications of the FDA.

Kennedy has been in crusade against vaccines since he entered the role of secretary of the HHS in February; Earlier this week, the Senate finance committee has grown it on its actions in office so far.

In May, Kennedy put an end to a $ 590 million contract with Moderna for the development of a candidate for the Vol Vaccine Birds based on mRNA. The contract was awarded in the last days of the Biden administration in January, just before the second term of President Donald Trump. Bird flu has been widespread in wild birds and has caused epidemics in dairy and American cows since March 2024. It has caused sporadic cases in people, most of them, agricultural workers, but pose a pandemic potential if it develops the capacity to spread from person to person.

This same month, Kennedy has announced that HHS would no longer recommend COVVI-19 mRNA vaccines for healthy children and pregnant women. In June, the FDA said that it would require new labels on mRNA vaccines to include security information on the risks of myocarditis and pericarditis, rare side effects observed mainly in young men after the administration of fire blows.

In August, as part of a “coordinated liquidation” of research on mRNA vaccines, HHS canceled 22 related contracts and investments worth nearly $ 500 million. Kennedy wrongly said in a statement that these vaccines “do not effectively protect themselves against higher respiratory infections like COVID and the flu”. HHS rather moves funding to an old vaccine platform called “whole virus” vaccines.

Despite the backlash of the administration against mRNA vaccines, Bancel said he was “encouraged by dialogue” that the company had with the FDA. In addition to obtaining updated coated plans, although with limitations, Moderna has also received extended approval this year for its syncytial respiratory virus, or RSV, the vaccine to include adults aged 18 to 59 who have an increased risk of illness. The vaccine was initially approved in May 2024 for adults aged 60 and over.

“I think a lot of people in January, including my own team, were very worried not to get these approvals,” said Bancel.

Until now, the repression of administration against research on mRNA has not extended to the space of cancer, and Moderna develops several mRNA therapies against cancer, including personalized cancer vaccines. The company has 45 programs related to pipeline cancer and said it expected 10 FDA approvals over the next three years. “We use exactly the same technology to pass infectious cancer diseases,” said Bancel.

He also discussed the accusations that Coids vaccines were not well tested. “I don’t think there has been a more studied vaccine for efficiency and safety in the history of vaccines,” he said. “In terms of vaccine efficiency and safety, studies have been carried out in millions of people in the real world.”