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Comment by satya71 | Hacker News Reader

I have been trying to find out why the supply of mRNA is limited. This article gives me hope that it can be scaled up with the right focus. As long as there is no fundamental science to be discovered, industrial processes can be scaled with enough money.

It is not possible to grow chicken eggs faster. So it's been impossible to have anything less than a years lead time to get flu vaccines made in sufficient quantities.

Planet money even did a show on the emergency chickens [1] (have they been called into service already ?). So we have the chickens, but no COVID vaccine that can be grown in eggs.

[1] https://www.npr.org/2020/03/13/815307821/planet-money-why-th...

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I know we're not supposed to discuss downvotes, but can anyone explain why this is downvoted so much? I want to know if there's some kind of misinformation here that I missed, so I'll spot it in the future.

There's a couple innocuous comments here that are downvoted for no discerable reason. Weird.

It's probably the mention of chicken eggs.

Some vaccines are grown in HEK 293 cells. HEK 293 is a cell line taken from an aborted fetus. (HEK -> Human Embryonic Kidney). Many people consider vaccines grown in HEK 293 to be immoral. Chicken eggs are a moral alternative medium.

It doesn't necessarily apply in this case because the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine was only tested on HEK 293, not grown in it. (Moderna's vaccine, conversely, was grown in HEK 293.) Some people still consider the testing to be immoral. Some don't.

Source on Moderna's vaccine being grown in HEK 293? The things I've read stated otherwise, such as this handout from North Dakota's health department: https://www.health.nd.gov/sites/www/files/documents/COVID%20...

> Moderna's vaccine, conversely, was grown in HEK 293

Do you have a link to confirm that? I thought that Pfizer/BioNTech as well as Moderna used HEK cells solely for testing.

> Moderna's vaccine, conversely, was grown in HEK 293.

This is false. Moderna's vaccine is synthesized, not grown.

All mRNA vaccines are produced by in vitro transcription, that uses enzymes but involved no cells or any cell cultures like HEK 293.

It's true that some people consider it to be immoral but the Vatican has said that it's morally acceptable given the current circumstances and lack of alternatives. [0]

[0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-55409693

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