Researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) have published a study supporting Moderna’s experimental mRNA influenza vaccine, mRNA-1010, in the journal Nature Immunology.
U.S. taxpayers are financing the work despite Moderna’s own scientists confirming in an earlier study that mRNA-1010 triggers six times more severe reactions for less than 1% absolute benefit.
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The new study examined immune responses among healthy adults who received Moderna’s investigational mRNA-based seasonal influenza vaccine and compared them to recipients of GlaxoSmithKline’s conventional flu vaccine, Fluarix.
The funding section states:
This work was supported in part by funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and Moderna. The Genome Technology Access Center in the Department of Genetics at Washington University School of Medicine is partially supported by National Cancer Institute (NCI) Cancer Center Support Grant P30 CA91842 to the Siteman Cancer Center from the US NIH. A.H.E. discloses support for the research of this work from the NIAID (grants U01AI141990 and U01AI144616; contracts 75N93021C00014 and 75N93019C00051). H.C.M. discloses support from the NIAID (T32AI007172) and NCI (T32CA009547). J.L. discloses support for the research of this work from the NIH (grants P20GM113132 and P01AI089618). T.-G.Y. discloses support from the National Research Foundation of Korea funded by the Ministry of Education (RS-2024-00411420). J.D.B. discloses support for the research of this work from the NIAID (grant R01AI165821; contract 75N93021C00015). C.K. discloses support from the NIAID (T32AI083203). J.D.B. is an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. F.K. discloses support for the research of this work from the NIAID (contract 75N93019C00051). The content of this manuscript is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official view of the NIH or NIAID.
The study’s findings are significant because they provide scientific evidence Moderna can cite in support of its mRNA influenza platform as the company continues development of mRNA-1010 and other mRNA-based respiratory vaccines.
You can contact NIAID here, NIH here, and HHS here to voice opposition to taxpayer-funded research supporting drugs with more severe reactions and almost zero absolute benefit.
Especially if those drugs are pushed on citizens during a government-declared outbreak.
You can contact Moderna here.
Problems With the Study
The paper is overwhelmingly positive toward Moderna’s vaccine and is written to support the conclusion that mRNA-1010 produces a superior immune response.
However, several limitations and findings in the paper may give readers reason to scrutinize the study’s optimistic conclusions:
The study was observational rather than a randomized controlled trial, meaning participants were not randomly assigned to receive the vaccines.
The paper’s most significant findings came from a small subgroup of participants. Only 13 Moderna vaccine recipients underwent the lymph-node sampling used to support many of the study’s headline conclusions.
Some of the deeper immune-system analyses were conducted on an even smaller number of participants, limiting how broadly the results can be generalized.
The researchers were not comparing identical vaccines. The paper acknowledges that Moderna’s vaccine and the conventional flu shot contained slightly different influenza strains, complicating direct comparisons.
Despite reporting broader immune responses, the authors acknowledged that they “did not detect significant increases in their binding affinities” among the analyzed immune-cell clones.
The study also found no significant advantage in hemagglutination-inhibition (HAI) titers, one of the traditional measures used to evaluate influenza vaccine responses.
The study measured immune-system markers rather than real-world outcomes such as reductions in influenza infections, hospitalizations, or deaths.
Participants were healthy adults between the ages of 20 and 50, meaning the findings may not necessarily apply to children, elderly individuals, or people with significant underlying health conditions.
The Moderna paper reports biological differences between the vaccines, but several of its key conclusions are based on small participant groups, non-randomized observations, and immune-system measurements rather than direct clinical outcomes.
Bottom Line
U.S. taxpayers are funding research that Moderna can use to support and advance its new mRNA influenza vaccine.
Even though the study’s most important findings are based largely on small participant groups, non-randomized observations, and laboratory immune markers rather than real-world reductions in influenza infections, hospitalizations, or deaths.
The paper is openly optimistic about mRNA-1010 and promotes prolonged immune-system activity as a benefit.
Yet the authors also acknowledge they found no significant improvement in antibody binding affinity and no significant advantage in a traditional influenza vaccine performance measure.
At a minimum, the study demonstrates that taxpayer-funded NIH and NIAID researchers are helping build the scientific case for a pharmaceutical product that Moderna stands to profit from.
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Just mentioned a few days ago, how I expected Moderna to get a slew, just after Pfizer received millions (billions?) for yet another useless jab. There are now enough books around that everyone should at least have seen one, and preferably read one or more, that vaxxines are unavoidably UNsafe and UNeffective. But I just ran into someone who still believes in masking so who knows.
Is there anything the US taxpayer doesn't fund or at least provide sustenance to?