Hacker News Reader

Comment by epistasis | Hacker News Reader

> This isnʼt the typical narrative we hear about new discoveries and technologies. We tend to think of them emerging as soon as they’re technically possible.

I don't know where this narrative comes from, but it can't really come from anybody who specializes in making brand new technologies.

There are soooooo many amazing technologies that have never been brought to market because of the roadblocks like this vaccine encountered.

It's even amazing that mRNA vaccines actually made it to the market, and if it hadn't been for the pandemic, there's a good chance that it would be another 15 years before they do, and this mRNA vaccination tech has been brewing since the 90s, I think? Years before the pandemic, I knew of Moderna and BioNTech because they had the capability to make customized therapeutic vaccines to train a person's immune system to fight their particular cancer's unique neoantigens. The hurdles seemed somewhat enormous even then for them. Without the kick start of money and trials that the pandemic provided, it would have taken so many more years to do the discovery needed.

The problem is that we have a massive unexplored terrain in R&D and trivial amounts of funds compared to the area we can explore. We have to be extremely picky about what gets money to move forward. This is a social problem, as much as a finance problem, we simply use dollars to express our societal wishes of what we want to encourage.

In the mean time, it would be good if the media would stop spreading the idea that if you build a better mouse trap, the word will bear a path to your door. It's quite the opposite.

View on HN

>It's even amazing that mRNA vaccines actually made it to the market, and if it hadn't been for the pandemic, there's a good chance that it would be another 15 years before they do, and this mRNA vaccination tech has been brewing since the 90s, I think?

Have they made it to market? It's been like 4 years and there are no other ones to be found outside of trials. This is kind of strange because we were told this is so much easier, safer and faster than other technologies. If the US wasn't accepting for whatever weird reason, then you'd think they'd pop up in lots of other countries. But doesn't seem like that is happening.

This is the pace of typical development these days, outside of pandemic rushes. And four years ago was pre-pandemic, it's only been a couple years of pushing on other targets.

mRNA vaccine tech is one of the biggest advances in biotech in a long time, the other apparatus has not necessarily caught up.

They've been targeting other things with mrna vaccines since way before the pandemic. For example:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31079849/ (2019)

https://jitc.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40425-015-0... (2015)

> It's even amazing that mRNA vaccines actually made it to the market, and if it hadn't been for the pandemic, there's a good chance that it would be another 15 years before they do, and this mRNA vaccination tech has been brewing since the 90s, I think?

I’m by no means an anti-vaxxer and believe that even if the “vaccines” did reduce the severity and number of deaths it was a win. But, I think it was a disservice to call something a vaccine that didn’t seem to reduce the chance of you catching it, the effects of the vaccine completely disappeared within 6-9 months and it didn’t keep you from catching Covid.

We wouldn’t accept that definition for any of the other vaccines like Smallpox, measles, etc

You should apply a bit more critical thinking to the lines you have been fed.

We have to create new flu vaccines every single year, because flu is so varied. They don't see a ton of use, but they save a lot of lives.

So thinking that we don't accept this definition of vaccine is just not based in reality. SARS-CoV-2 evolves, particularly under the pressure of resistant hosts, and even people that were infected once can get it many times!

Secondly, the vaccines absolutely did reduce the chances of catching covid, by massive amounts. Take even a glance at any of the studies:

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2035389

I would beg you to look back at where you picked up these bits of misinformation, and completely eliminate those sources from your information diet. They can not be trusted, and will infect you again with bad info that puts your health at risk.

Your link says

> The mRNA-1273 vaccine showed 94.1% efficacy at preventing Covid-19 illness, including severe disease

It prevented “severe illness”. I agree with that completely. I said as much. It didn’t say it prevented you from “getting in”. Preventing severe illness is a win. I’ve taken Covid shots every six months for that reason - especially since I have virus induced asthma. But the government originally marketed it as preventing Covid. This and going out of its way to pressure tech companies to suppress what we all agree is the truth now has led to Covid anti-vaxxers.

The vaccine prevents illness, that's exactly what you are quoting. Thats what the trial was looking for. Look at the chart, about incidence. It absolutely did prevent getting Covid.

I don't understand what you are trying to say. It doesn't merely prevent sever disease, it prevents all incidence of disease.

I’m saying that the government claimed that getting the vaccine would “prevent Covid”. Traditionally, when people take “vaccines” that’s the expectation.

When the government was suppressing information that now everyone agrees is true - that the vaccines don’t prevent Covid and that the effects were short lived, they lost credibility and the same people who didn’t fight traditional vaccines like we all took as kids became anti-vaxxers and now are railing against vaccines that do actually prevent you from getting diseases

None of this is true. The vaccines prevent covid. The government suppressed nothing.

I'm not sure what confusion leads you to say these things, but it is misinformation that you should stop spreading. If I were to encounter somebody saying things like this in a professional context I would immediately question their judgement on all matters, because somebody repeatedly spouting misinformation in the face of contrary data and then claiming there was a conspiracy on top of it all are not the words of a reliable person.

Really? Not even the governments official line anymore is that the vaccines “prevent” Covid. The official line which I agree with completely is that it reduces the risk of serious illness and hospitalizations

It’s beyond silly to still argue in 2023 that the vaccine prevents Covid.

You cannot possibly tell me that you don’t know a number of people who have gotten vaccinated and still got Covid.

Notice that nowhere does the government claim that the vaccine prevents it.

From the CDC

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/vaccine-b...

> Prevents serious illness: COVID-19 vaccines available in the United States are safe and effective at protecting people from getting seriously ill, being hospitalized, and dying.

>A safer way to build protection: Getting a COVID-19 vaccine is a safer, more reliable way to build protection than getting sick with COVID-19.

> Offers added protection: COVID-19 vaccines can offer added protection to people who had COVID-19, including protection against being hospitalized from a new infection.

> It’s beyond silly to still argue in 2023 that the vaccine prevents Covid.

This is a unthinking semantic misdirection.

It is clear that vaccination does not prevent every case of covid in the vaccinated. No-one is seriously saying that, and you don't seem stupid enough to actually think that this "all or nothing" reading is the intended meaning.

it is equally clear that vaccination lowers the risk of catching covid. That is to say: it prevents some cases. As well as reducing the risk of serious illness and hospitalizations.

Vaccination prevents covid, a percentage of the time. It is not perfect, but gives you better odds no not catching the infection. Therefor: Vaccination prevents covid.

As the parent poster said, "you should stop spreading misinformation". Are you usually prone to simplistic, conspiratorial thinking, or do you just have a poor diet of sources of information?

Can you show any evidence that you are less likely to catch Covid if you have been vaccinated? None of the official wording that I have seen from the CDC or the medical industry has said that

> As well as reducing the risk of serious illness and hospitalizations.

I’m not arguing that.

> As the parent poster said, "you should stop spreading misinformation". Are you usually prone to simplistic, conspiratorial thinking, or do you just have a poor diet of sources of information?

So it’s a conspiracy that I’m arguing based on information I’m citing from the CDC? If you find reliable information from the CDC, DHHS, etc I’ll concede that point.

> Can you show any evidence that you are less likely to catch Covid if you have been vaccinated

Can you show me evidence that it's the same likelihood? I am curious as to why you would think that. And I don't see anywhere where the CDC says so. The "serious outcomes" that they talk about are simply easier to measure. But you must have got this deeply misguided idea from somewhere.

So you can’t measure it, the CDC nor the DHHS claim it. But you just know it to be true?

> So you can’t measure it,

I didn't say that, I just decided that I'm not doing your googling for you. As the saying goes "Dude, I've known you for ten seconds & enjoyed none of them, I'm not taking homework assignments from you. "

The usual play by anti-vax trolls is to act persuadable enough to send people off on long excursions. They're not actually convincible of course, no matter what you say to them they'll trot out the same garbage talking points to some else soon.

So I’m acting as an “anti-vax” troll by citing from the CDC and DHHS and saying that I agree with what they say?

It seems like you are acting more like the troll by refusing to believe the exact words that come from the CDC and DHHS and just having a “belief” system without proof.

I have posted from only three websites to support my arguments - the CDC, DHHS, and Yale medicine.

You have posted…nothing

You're reading between the lines of those sources, and seeing what you want to see, things that they simply never say. And to these you cling, lest you learn more. It's dishonest.

If it ducks like a quack...

Multiple people have now told you to stop spreading misinformation. But, keep digging.

> You should apply a bit more critical thinking to the lines you have been fed.

That's incredibly ironic coming from someone who unironically uses the term "misinformation", which is an anti-science emotional manipulation tool meant to suppress dissension, and uses manipulative language like:

> I would beg you to look back at where you picked up these bits of misinformation, and completely eliminate those sources from your information diet. They can not be trusted, and will infect you again with bad info that puts your health at risk.

I think if the vaccine decreased the severity and mortality rates of the disease it targets, we absolutely would call it a win.

Flu vaccine. I'm talking about the flu vaccine.

I agree and I said as much. I am arguing more about definitions and marketing than anything else that led to skepticism. Besides the looney bins, very few were anti vax about the traditional vaccines we all had to get to attend school. We saw those as effective to prevent the diseases they were meant to.

I was first in line when it came to Covid “vaccines” and kept up to date with boosters because I knew even the common cold can trigger my overactive immune system/asthma.

I’ve had Covid twice and I was coughing for a couple of weeks. It was more irritating than anything else. I attribute my not having a more severe reaction to the vaccines. It probably wouldn’t have been that bad with the other preventive asthma meds I take now.

But the marketing by the government behind the vaccines and the early suppression by the government and the tech industry of information about the long term effectiveness has set us back.

Sounds like you are moving the goalposts from “it doesn’t help at all (after 9 months) and isn’t even a vaccine” to “there was poor government marketing and tech industry actions were bad”, which are very different things.

I think that downplaying the benefits of the vaccines is somewhere between uninformed and irresponsible. I don’t care nearly as much about criticism of government commas and the tech industry.

You mean when I said in my original post

> But, I think it was a disservice to call something a vaccine

It was a severe disservice because it increased skepticism and reduced uptake

> I think that downplaying the benefits of the vaccines is somewhere between uninformed and irresponsible

What part do you disagree with? Even the pro-vaccine side which I’m one of says effectiveness declines to near zero after six to nine months without a booster.

> I don’t care nearly as much about criticism of government commas and the tech industry.

You should care because they are a major cause of the anti-vaxxers and causing people to die and be hospitalized unnecessarily because of ineffective messaging

I’m not sure we are having a productive conversation about the word “vaccine” or vaccine effectiveness, so I don’t have anything else to add there.

When I said I don’t care as much about criticism of government comms (commas was a typo) and the tech industry, I meant I’m not too concerned that you are criticizing them. I don’t think I fully agree with you, but I don’t feel strongly enough that I would have replied to your comment if that was all it appeared to be about.

“didn’t seem to reduce the chance of you catching it”

It absolutely did reduce chances of catching/testing positive for COVID early on, and that benefit shrank over time as the virus mutated.

“the effects of the vaccine completely disappeared within 6-9 months”

I’m not sure about odds of catching it, but reduced odds of hospitalization and death do persist beyond 9 months.

Also, see the flu vaccine, as someone else has already referenced. Do you put quotes around “vaccine” when you refer to those?

Did you even read where I said

“ that even if the “vaccines” did reduce the severity and number of deaths it was a win”

> I’m not sure about odds of catching it, but reduced odds of hospitalization and death do persist beyond 9 months.

We don’t know that. Most people who cared enough to get the vaccine, also probably cared enough to get booster shots as recommended. Every study shows that the effectiveness completely disappears within 6-9 months without a booster.

I am one of those who got the booster.

And you arguing with me about the effectiveness when I’m arguing about the messaging shows how out of touch people are on HN with the significant number of Covid/anti-vaxxers.

“ Did you even read where I said…”

I did. You said “if” as if maybe they didn’t.

“We don’t know that.”

Yes we do. Boosted vs not boosted is differentiated in case, hospitalization, and death data.

In the context of the entire post, how could you infer that I was arguing against vaccines when I explicitly said I’m not an anti-vaxxer?

Well, I don’t think I was the only one that had issues with your original comment.

As someone else mentioned, unfortunately “I’m not anti-vax, but…” is a common anti-vax opening line. I believe you now, though.

> the effects of the vaccine completely disappeared within 6-9 months

I don't know if you are anti-vax person disguising as a "just asking reasonable question" type of person (it's a common tactic), but I had to reply to be sure that anyone reading that understood this was absolutely false.

The impact on the death rate and severe outcome of COVID is being seen even years later, so this is absolutely false this entirely disappear within 6-9 months, this is very well documented. This vaccine allowed us to move forward and make sure our hospitals and entire healthcare system stopped being overrun even when we had a 30-40% of the population contracting the virus, this is an absolute win.

Did you even read my original post?

“even if the “vaccines” did reduce the severity and number of deaths it was a win”

I said in another reply that I have “virus induced asthma”. A simple cold will cause my immune system to overact and cause me severe difficultly breathing. I was first in line for the vaccines and I did an MRNA booster before it was recommended in the US because I read what I thought were credible studies from other countries about needing it after the J and J one shot.

I’ve also said before that “I retired my wife” who was working as a school bus driver because I didn’t feel it was safe before the vaccine came out.

> The impact on the death rate and severe outcome of COVID is being seen even years later

I’m not disagreeing with that. You’re preaching to the choir. I am saying it was a messaging problem to call it a vaccine if it doesn’t prevent you from getting the disease.

I'm not sure where this idea that vaccines 100% prevent disease (or infection) came from. The main reason previous vaccination programs like measles have worked so well is they allowed near eradication so most people never even get exposed, or just less exposed in cases like influenza where there is too much mutation or waning to get close to eradication. That's why immunization requirements at places like schools are useful, if you add too many unvaccinated kids to the mix then even some of the vaccinated kids are likely to get infected and sick. More to the point, lots of people get the flu vaccine and hit or miss whether you still get sick (probably less, but still a bit).

And how many of the other vaccines that were mandated by any government for instance to go to school, required you to get boosters to stay effective and how many lost almost all effectiveness within a year?

Do you really not see the difference in people’s mind why all except a few crazies were willing to get a vaccine that prevented a disease and maybe lost effectiveness after a decade compared to one that didn’t prevent infections and that did require you to get boosters?

It was beyond silly that a cruise I went on in December of 2021 required everyone to be vaccinated (that part is not silly). But at the same time would have accepted my J&J one shot I did in March 2021 where all of the studies showed had lost effectiveness by December.

I had an mRNA booster about a month before it was part of the officially guidelines because I read credible studies by government agencies in other countries about it. But they still would have let me on without it. At that point it was “Covid theater”.

Yeah I got Covid on the cruise and didn’t even realize I had it until I got home. I’m not saying that to poo poo the vaccine. Usually even a simple cold makes my immune system over react. I credit the vaccine to the mild symptoms

> But, I think it was a disservice to call something a vaccine that didn’t seem to reduce the chance of you catching it, the effects of the vaccine completely disappeared within 6-9 months and it didn’t keep you from catching Covid.

I think that that's because the public is used to super-effective vaccines that are so good at preventing you from getting the disease at all that they've started associating that term with that level of effectiveness.

I don't think that's entirely fair, though - whenever we develop a new variant on any technology (e.g. Li-Ion batteries, after NiMh), the new technology usually has some initial performance deficits (e.g. lower capacity), so it seems reasonable to accept that in the case of vaccines as well. "Vaccine" was originally intended to be an indicator of what it was, not how effective it was.

That doesn't excuse the poor and dishonest communication from many governments, though. They should have been very clear about the numbers: "This reduces your chance of contacting Covid by about 60%, and reduces your chance of severe illness by 80% if you do get it" or something.

> We wouldn’t accept that definition for any of the other vaccines like Smallpox, measles, etc

Well, the smallpox vaccine is only 95% effective - it doesn't completely prevent you from getting smallpox, either, and I suspect that that's the case for basically every vaccine in existence.

> didn’t seem to reduce the chance of you catching it, the effects of the vaccine completely disappeared within 6-9 months and it didn’t keep you from catching Covid

These claims seem a bit far-fetched, but I'm open to looking at the evidence if you'll bring it forth.

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/smallpox/vaccine-basics/index.html

From your link.

> The smallpox vaccine protects people from smallpox by helping their bodies develop immunity to smallpox.

Do you see the term “immunity” anywhere on the CDCs sight today with regards to the Covid vaccine?

Are you disagreeing that the Covid vaccine looses almost all effectiveness after 6 to 9 months?

Again from the CDC.

https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2022/s0901-covid-19-boost...

> They can help restore protection that has waned since previous vaccination

> Do you see the term “immunity” anywhere on the CDCs sight today with regards to the Covid vaccine?

No, but that could be because individuals like you have extremely opinionated views of what "vaccine" and "immunity" mean, and they don't want further confusion to spread.

> Are you disagreeing that the Covid vaccine looses almost all effectiveness after 6 to 9 months?

OK, I was open-minded and willing to examine evidence that you provided, but you instead provided zero evidence and responded in a hostile manner. It's clear that you're not arguing in good faith. We're done here.

> No, but that could be because individuals like you have extremely opinionated views of what "vaccine" and "immunity" mean, and they don't want further confusion to spread.

So now your excuse is that the CDC is not being truthful or when evidence from reliable sources doesn’t agree with your worldview you dispute the evidence? How are you any better than the anti-cancers who do the same.

I haven’t in this entire thread cited any evidence that didn’t come from either the CDC or the DHHS.

> OK, I was open-minded and willing to examine evidence that you provided, but you instead provided zero evidence and responded in a hostile manner. It's clear that you're not arguing in good faith. We're done here.

Really? You mean the evidence you are ignoring from the CDC? Why do you think the government recommended booster shots six months later before there were any changes in the formulation.

I’m presenting quotes from the CDC. Not sone website I found while sitting on the toilet.

> Really? You mean the evidence you are ignoring from the CDC?

Where is the evidence? You never presented it. You linked to https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2022/s0901-covid-19-boost..., which literally does not contain the word "month". There's nothing in there about the vaccine "looses almost all effectiveness after 6 to 9 months".

> I haven’t in this entire thread cited any evidence that didn’t come from either the CDC or the DHHS.

Then it will be trivial for you to drop links supporting your position, right here, in a response to me. You still haven't done that. You don't even have to provide links to CDC or DHHS - I'll take something from a medical journal. Just don't get all uppity when you haven't actually provided that evidence yet.

> Why do you think the government recommended booster shots six months later before there were any changes in the formulation.

The human immune system slowly loses its resistance to disease over time after an immune response. This is normal. This does not imply that it's worthless after 9 months. That's the evidence that I'm asking for that you have not provided.

One more try: in your comment, place your evidence in a block formatted like this:

HERE: [link] "quoted section of text that provides evidence for your claim that the Covid vaccine looses almost all effectiveness after 6 to 9 months"

https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/how-long-will-coronavirus-...

> Data about the vaccines waning contributed to a decision in the fall of 2021 to make booster shots available

Why do you think boosters are being made available? Do you really think that if all I did was the J&J in March 2021 I would have any defense in September of 2023?

The CDC did actually change their definition of vaccination in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. The updated definition is more scientifically accurate, but the timing of the change caused a lot of public confusion and the CDC did a bad job of communicating the reason for the change.

https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-976069264061

And this exactly the point I’ve been making, the incompetence of the CDCs messaging and even worse suppressing information that we all know to be true now based on the latest messaging of the CDC has done harm to vaccine programs that have been generally accepted by everyone.

Maybe you should check the actual endpoints for the trials you mention.

The government repeatedly pressured tech companies to suppress information about the short term effects of the vaccine and that it didn’t prevent infection.

It was only later on that they admitted as much. This led to many people not trusting anything the government said.

People don't like the answer "we don't know that", so they will ask experts until they get one who answers the question.

People don't have time to understand the context of complicated subjects, so they ask experts who answer quickly.

People can't test every statement for truth, so they ask experts who answer confidently.

And then people feel like they've been lied to, because we don't know all the answers, the answers are complicated, and we need to change our minds sometimes because we were wrong.

It's easy to blame "the media" or "the experts" or "the elite" for these problems, but there are a lot of hard problems in this world that need a lot of context to really understand in a meaningful way.

Yes, media, experts, and elites abuse their position. Solving this problem requires more work than just replacing them.

Your instinct that something is wrong with authority figures is correct, but I feel like you've gone down a narrow channel for the answers.

> Your instinct that something is wrong with authority figures is correct, but I feel like you've gone down a narrow channel for the answers.

I am not doubting the science or the statements that come from the CDC, DHHS, or the established respected medical community.

I’m criticizing the government more for actively, denying and suppressing information that they admit now to be true.

On another note almost everything that the government has done in handling Covid since the vaccines have come out has done more harm than good:

1. Vaccine mandates for a vaccine that has since been shown not to be effective long term without a booster. I for the J and J vaccine March 2021. I could show that as proof of vaccination and that alone and I would still be in compliance even though all of the science shows it doesn’t mean anything two years later without boosters (which I’ve done on schedule and still got Covid twice. It was mild each time)

2. Mask mandates after the vaccine was widely available - in practice mostly ineffective because people were wearing cloth masks and not wearing them correctly. At that point I had no sympathy for people who died from Covid who refused to get vaccinated. They made their choice using their own free will.

> It's even amazing that mRNA vaccines actually made it to the market, and if it hadn't been for the pandemic, there's a good chance that it would be another 15 years before they do, and this mRNA vaccination tech has been brewing since the 90s, I think?

Maybe then they would have gone through proper testing before unleashing them onto the world population.

They did go through proper testing. They had been going through lots of testing for years, incrementally, slowly, just like the vaccines in this article. It was only the pandemic that provided the money and urgency to do it sooner rather than later.

Please do not let politics bleed into science.

A couple of months of human trials (that started before animal trials were finished) isn't proper testing. Each mRNA vaccine (like any other type of vaccine) is a standalone product. Testing the general viability of mRNA technology isn't the same as testing a specific mRNA vaccine.

Says who? Seriously? Some random paper taken out of context and copied onto lists that anti-backers uncritically copy and paste? And animal trials? That's not going to tell you much of anything about human safety!

In any case, if it was a gamble, the gamble paid off, because deployment has proven to be incredibly safe.

The only vaccine that has safety questions was the more traditional vaccine from Johnson and Johnson, and they are very very rare, if they exist.

All this data is out there, anybody who has safety concerns has not bothered to educate themselves, think critically, and examine the data.

We all have different risk tolerances, but along any possible health metric, not being vaccinated is far less safe than being vaccinated for the people the vaccine is indicated for.

> In any case, if it was a gamble, the gamble paid off, because deployment has proven to be incredibly safe.

Has it? What long term trials have been carried that show that?

Yes, of course! It's required of every single drug.

Earlier in the pandemic, the fear mongering was that the existence of these standard monitoring trials (phase 4) meant that the vaccine was inadequate tested before. See for example:

https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-vaccine-monitor...

Ongoing monitoring of complaints is a required part of all quality systems. The core of our regulation system requires the ability to detect subtle problems that can only appear after lots and lots of people have been treated.

There are forces within our society that are spreading FUD about basic institutions, transforming our society from a high trust, efficient, informed society to a low-trust inefficient corruption-prone society. Fearmongering about well established safety practices is at the core of it all, IMHO.

You tell me they're monitoring the vacciness, but what I asked for is proof of your statement about proven safety.

> Fearmongering about well established safety practices is at the core of it all, IMHO.

These vaccines didn't go through well established safety practices. They skipped them to be put to use as soon as possible. People who pointed this out were outright called "antivaxxers."

> There are forces within our society that are spreading FUD about basic institutions, transforming our society from a high trust, efficient, informed society to a low-trust inefficient corruption-prone society.

There's no need for conspiratorial thinking. Basic institutions proved themselves to the general public to be highly incompetent and corrupt.

That's unfortunately not the case.

Yes, mRNA based meds had been going through proper testing. They kept failing due to severe safety problems that only appeared after multiple doses.

https://www.statnews.com/2017/01/10/moderna-trouble-mrna/

It never proved safe enough to test in humans, according to several former Moderna employees and collaborators who worked closely on the project

mRNA is a tricky technology. Several major pharmaceutical companies have tried and abandoned the idea, struggling to get mRNA into cells without triggering nasty side effects.

The problems were big enough that Moderna was being written up as an impending car crash. As recently as 2017 their drugs weren't safe enough to deploy in humans because the body reacted badly after being exposed to multiple doses.

So what did they do? Well, unfortunately for us, they didn't know how to solve the safety problems and gave up. Instead they switched from drug development to vaccine development, and why did they do that?

The indefinite delay on the Crigler-Najjar project signals persistent and troubling safety concerns for any mRNA treatment that needs to be delivered in multiple doses, covering almost everything that isn’t a vaccine, former employees and collaborators said.

Oh dear. Safe only if you don't take it more than once.

The reason no further mRNA tech has come to market since isn't because the pandemic made the same things happen faster. It's because the problems with mRNA drugs were never actually solved. The pandemic obliterated all standards and safety mechanisms, creating a mass hysteria that steamrollered any objections in its path. Now the hysteria has faded, the problems are reasserting themselves.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com