Category: 8. Health

Investigators found a large burden of hospitalization due to community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) for adults in the US, and a large fraction was caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae. The results showed that many cases were from serotypes covered by V116 (Capvaxive), an FDA-approved adult-specific 21-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine.¹

“We estimated an annual incidence of 340 hospitalizations for CAP per 100 000 adults, which is within the range of estimates from previous prospective studies conducted prior to the COVID pandemic,” the study authors said.¹ “Approximately 14% of hospitalizations for CAP had evidence of S pneumoniae infection, and the majority of those pneumococcal detections corresponded to serotypes included in the newly licensed V116 vaccine, which was not commercially available during the study period.”

In June 2024, the FDA approved V116 for the prevention of pneumococcal disease and pneumococcal pneumonia in adults 18 years and older, which included serotypes related to a majority of invasive cases. Serotypes for the prevention of invasive disease include 3, 6A, 7F, 8, 9N, 10A, 11A, 12F, 15A, 15B, 15C, 16F, 17F, 19A, 20A, 22F, 23A, 23B, 24F, 31, 33F, and 35B as well as serotypes for the prevention of pneumonia that include 3, 6A, 7F, 8, 9N, 10A, 11A, 12F, 15A, 15A, 15C, 16F, 17F, 19A, 20A, 22F, 23A, 23B, 24F, 31, 33F, and 35B. Serotypes 15A, 15C, 16F, 23A, 23B, 24F, 31, and 35B are not covered by any other FDA-approved pneumococcal vaccines.²

In a study (NCT05425732) conducted between July 13, 2022, and November 22, 2022, investigators found that V116 met noninferiority criteria compared with PCV20 for the 10 serotypes in both vaccines. For the 11 serotypes unique to V116, the vaccine met superiority criteria when compared with PCV20, according to the study authors.³

Investigators of the current study included 2016 patients who were hospitalized with all-cause pneumonia, with 1571 patients with blood culture collections and 433 patients with respiratory or sterile compartment specimen cultures. Among all patients, 13.8% had evidence of pneumococcal CAP and 9.8% had evidence of pneumococcal CAP caused by serotypes included in V116, according to the study authors. The median age was 60.1 years, and 36% of patients were Black, 4% were Hispanic, and 60% were White. Furthermore, 92.4% lived in a community dwelling and 27.7% had interactions with children 5 years old and younger.

Approximately 18.4% and 13.8% of patients had a history of vaccination with a pneumococcal polysaccharide or conjugate vaccine, respectively. Investigators found that there was no difference in characteristics for patients with pneumococcal CAP and pneumococcal CAP due to serotypes included in V116. However, the proportion of patients with pneumococcal CAP who interacted with children under 5 years old was higher at 36.2%.¹

Over 4 years, the overall estimated annual incidence of hospitalization for all-cause CAP was 340 per 100,000 adults, but the incidence varied among study years. Investigators found that the low was 192 per 100,000 adults in year 4 and the high was 878 per 100,000 adults in year 2—which was the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. For pneumococcal Cap and CAP due to serotypes in V116, investigators found the overall annual incidence for hospitalization was 43 and 30 per 100,000 adults, respectively, and the incidence per year was similar, with the highest in year 2 and lowest in year 4. Investigators found that in year 4, there were 12 detections of serotypes that were included in PCV15, PCV20, and V116; 4 not included in V116; 4 included in both PCV20 and V116; and 8 included in V116 but not PCV15 or PCV20, according to the results.¹

“With vaccination as the primary preventive measure for pneumococcal pneumonia, improved pneumococcal vaccines with appropriate vaccination coverage could lessen the burden of severe pneumonia on the US population, especially among older adults,” the study authors concluded.¹

READ MORE: Pneumococcal Resource Center

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REFERENCES

1. Grijalva CG, Johnson KD, Resser JJ, et al. All-cause and pneumococcal community-acquired pneumonia hospitalizations among adults in Tennessee and Georgia. JAMA Netw Open. 2025;8(8):e2524783. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.24783

2. Biscaldi L. FDA approves pneumococcal 21-valent conjugate vaccine Capvaxive. Drug Topics. June 18, 2024. Accessed August 12, 2025. https://www.drugtopics.com/view/fda-approves-pneumococcal-21-valent-conjugate-vaccine-capvaxive

3. Platt HL, Bruno C, Buntinx E, et al. Safety, tolerability, and immunogenicity of an adult pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, V116 (STRIDE-3): a randomised, double-blind, active comparator controlled, international phase 3 trial. Lancet Infect Dis. 2024;24(10):1141-1150. doi:10.1016/S1473-3099(24)00344-X

Just as insulin therapy revolutionized life for people with type 1 diabetes (T1D) a century ago, a new implant may one day do the same by tackling the disease’s biggest challenge—keeping transplanted insulin-producing cells alive long enough to restore normal blood sugar.

In type 1 diabetes, the body’s immune system turns against itself, destroying the pancreatic β-cells that produce insulin. “Without insulin, the body has no way to deliver glucose—sugar—into muscle and tissue cells to generate energy,” Minglin Ma, PhD, a professor of biological and environmental engineering in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) at Cornell University and the paper’s senior author, explained. People with T1D manage the condition through daily insulin injections or pumps, but even with treatment, the disease can lead to “life-threatening complications including severe hypoglycemia events and irreversible organ damage caused by chronic hyperglycemia,” the study noted.

Cell replacement therapy has shown promise, but most patients must take lifelong immunosuppressive drugs to prevent rejection. “…developing an immunosuppression-free strategy to protect the transplanted cells is imperative to fully harness the potential of cell therapy for curing T1D,” the authors wrote.

One such strategy is macroencapsulation, in which insulin-producing cells are housed within a semipermeable device that shields them from the immune system while allowing glucose, insulin, nutrients, and metabolic wastes to diffuse. Yet these systems often fail because the encapsulated cells have insufficient oxygen. “One of the major challenges is that the implant itself often dies due to the lack of oxygen after implantation,” co-first author Lora (Phuong) Tran, a PhD candidate at Cornell, said. “In our lab, they had success in mice that lived over one year, and they controlled the diabetes very effectively with some small capsules without oxygen generation. However, when we scale up, we need more cells, we need more density, especially. We need a higher dose. If we implant without generating oxygen, the cells often die within two weeks.”

Ma’s lab, in collaboration with Giner, developed the BioElectronics-Assisted Macroencapsulation (BEAM) system, described in the paper, “A continuously oxygenated macroencapsulation system enables high-density packing and delivery of insulin-secreting cells,” recently published in Nature Communications. The platform combines “a miniaturized implantable electrochemical oxygen generator (iEOG) with a scalable, linear cell pouch designed for minimally invasive implantation and retrieval.”

The iEOG “enables continuous oxygen supply via electrolysis of tissue moisture,” delivering oxygen through a silicone tube that runs through the cylindrical cell pouch. The capsules are engineered to be “immune protective and last for a long time without… fouling of the membrane,” co-author Linda Tempelman, PhD, said.

In vitro, the BEAM system kept both rat insulinoma (INS-1) cell aggregates and primary human pancreatic islets alive and functional under severe hypoxia (one percent oxygen) at a high packing density of 60,000 islet equivalents per milliliter. Non-oxygenated controls showed “significant cell death… and almost no insulin-positive cells” within 24 hours.

In an allogeneic rat model, the oxygenated system reversed diabetes “for up to three months without immunosuppression, while non-oxygenated controls remained hyperglycemic,” wrote the authors. When oxygenation stopped, blood glucose spiked “right after oxygenation cessation…[suggesting] that a continuous supply of oxygen may be vital for the long-term function of pancreatic islets in cell encapsulation systems.”

This is the proof of concept, Tempelman said. “We really proved that oxygenation is important, and oxygenation will support high cell-density capsules.”

The team plans to scale up to pig studies and eventually human trials. Tempelman envisions broader applications: “We see an age where people will be getting implants with allogeneic cells… long term to treat things that your body is missing.”

For the two million Americans with T1D, the BEAM system could someday shift cell therapy from experimental to routine care, bringing a century-old dream of an insulin-free life closer to reality.

Multiparametric MRI’s positive predictive value for detecting prostate cancer improves when lower apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values and patient prostate-specific antigen density (PSAD) thresholds data are incorporated, investigators have found.

The results could help further clarify mpMRI’s benefits for this indication, noted a group of researchers led by Simon John Christoph Soerensen, MD, of Stanford University. The study findings were published August 12 in Radiology.

“Prostate multiparametric MRI (mpMRI) with MRI/ultrasound fusion biopsy improves the detection of clinically significant prostate cancer (csPCa) compared with systematic biopsy alone … and use of PI-RADS version 2.1 has reduced variability in acquisition, interpretation, and reporting,” the investigators wrote.

What’s tricky is that there tends to be a high false-positive rate from mpMRI for detecting prostate cancer, with positive predictive values (PPVs) of 35% for PI-RADS categories three or higher (i.e., intermediate or ambiguous likelihood of csPCa, high likelihood of the disease, to very high likelihood).

Adding data such as lesion apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) value and patient prostate-specific antigen density (PSAD) could further refine PPVs, according to researchers. To assess the impact of these factors on mpMRI PPV for clinically significant prostate cancer across PI-RADs scores, they conducted a study that included 944 men with median prostate-specific antigen levels of 7 ng/mL and prostate volume of 46 cm³.

The study included data from 1,388 PI-RADS category 3 or higher lesions identified on mpMRI between January 2017 and December 2022, which were worked up via an MRI/ultrasound transrectal fusion biopsy within 180 days (median time from MRI to biopsy among the study cohort was 36 days). Twenty-two abdominal radiologists interpreted the mpMRI scans, with each reading at least 10 exams. Lesions were categorized as true positive if a genitourinary pathologist determined that targeted biopsy indicated a Gleason score grade group 2 or higher.

The group reported an overall lesion-level PPV for csPCa of 34%. PPV varied according to PI-RADS score:

mpMRI performance for categorizing csPCa
PI-RADS score	PPV
3	11%
4	33%
5	59%

When the team added ADC and PSAD data to mpMRI exam results, it found that low ADC and high PSAD were independent predictors of higher PPV (odds ratio, 3.52 and 3.35, respectively, with one as reference, p < 0.001). In fact, overall PPV increased from 12% for lesions with high ADC and low PSAD to 60% for those with low ADC and high PSAD, the group reported.

Graph shows the impact of dichotomized apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) value and prostate-specific antigen density (PSAD) on positive predictive values (PPVs) across Prostate Imaging Reporting and Data System (PI-RADS) categories. In PI-RADS categories 3, 4, and 5, PPVs increased from 5% to 32%, 14% to 59%, and 24% to 73%, respectively, when comparing the group with ADC values of more than 0.9 × 10⁻³ mm²/sec and PSAD less than 0.15 ng/mL² to that with ADC values of less than or equal to 0.9 × 10⁻³ mm²/sec and PSAD greater than or equal to 0.15 ng/mL². The model represents estimates at a fixed lesion size of 1.2 cm, the median value of the study cohort. Figure and caption courtesy of the RSNA.

The study suggests that “incorporating lesion-level ADC values and patient PSAD thresholds substantially improves PPV at each PI-RADS category, suggesting a role for systematically adjusting lesion interpretation with these metrics,” the investigators wrote.

They did caution, however, that the study did not analyze “potential decreases in sensitivity and in negative predictive value of mpMRI when incorporating ADC and PSAD thresholds,” and urged these issues to be further evaluated in future studies intended to explore refinements of PIRADS guidelines.

The complete study can be found here.

Breast cancer remains one of the top and most deadly cancers for women all over the world. Usual treatments like chemotherapy, hormone therapy, radiation, and surgery have undeniably helped patients live longer. Yet, these come with substantial adverse effects and, often, therapy resistance. There is therefore a growing push to integrate natural compounds to help boost efficacy and potentially lessen those adverse effects.

A 2025 study published in Frontiers in Oncology examined how prunus armeniaca (PA) extract and bee venom (BV) work together against human breast cancer cells MCF-7 (ER-positive) and MDA-MB-231 (TNBC).¹ The mix of PA and BV given in doses from 0 to 500 µg/mL enhanced the cell kill rate. For MCF-7 cells, the needed dose to kill half the cells (IC₅₀) was as low as 35.15 µg/mL, and for MDA-MB-231 it reached 73.80 µg/mL.¹ Cell groups grew approximately 83% less, and apoptotic morphology increased from 3.2% to 65.3% at 70.3 µg/mL as shown by acridine orange/ethidium bromide (AO/EB) staining. Tests also noted an approximate 59% reduction in cell migration.¹ These findings show the pro-apoptotic and anti-invasive capabilities of this natural combination.

Backing these results, studies on different types of cancer show that PA and BV might change additional tumor-suppressive pathways. Notably, a test on cells from pancreatic and lung cancer found that combining PA and BV raised p53 levels and dropped Bcl-2, contributing to apoptosis.²

Meanwhile, live tests examining natural adjuvants alongside standard care have shown strong results. A 2024 study in Scientific Reports examined how bee venom, hesperidin (from citrus), and piperine (from black pepper) work, with or without tamoxifen (Soltamox; Mayne Pharma), in MCF-7-derived breast tumors in rats. Combinations of these natural compounds raised apoptotic markers (Bax, Caspase-3) and lowered genes against cell death and for new blood vessel growth (Bcl-2, VEGF). Tests on cell cycles found that both tamoxifen and hesperidin alone made the cells stop at G₀/G₁ phase, but the inclusion of bee venom and piperine shifted the stop to G₂/M phase, indicating an enhanced antiproliferative action.³

In the laboratory setting, work by Khamis et al. (2018) backed these findings: hesperidin, piperine, and BV, when used together, strengthened the effects of tamoxifen on MCF-7 and T47D cells. This was shown by apoptosis induction and G₂/M phase arrest in most treatment combinations.³ These studies show that simple natural compounds like PA, BV, and piperine on their own or mixed with chemo may enhance apoptotic activity, slow down cell growth, stop cell invasion, and modulate critical cell cycle dynamics.

These natural compounds offer dose-sparing potential, as enhanced efficacy could allow lower doses of conventional drugs and reduce toxicity; multi-targeted action, by simultaneously affecting apoptosis, angiogenesis, metastasis, and cell-cycle progression to help overcome resistance; and accessibility, since dietary compounds like hesperidin and piperine may serve as cost-effective adjuvants. However, making this hope real for clinical use requires validation through careful safety assessment, considering effects like adverse reactions or hemolysis from BV and plant extracts—along with strategies to improve bioavailability, such as encapsulation or nano-delivery systems, and well-designed clinical trials to determine efficacy, pharmacokinetics, immune responses, and optimal dosing.

REFERENCES

1. Kadasah SF, Alrefaei A, Abd Al Galil FM, Alqahtani AM. Synergistic antiproliferative and pro-apoptotic effects of prunus armeniaca and bee venom on breast cancer cells. Frontiers. July 31, 2025. Accessed August 12, 2025. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/oncology/articles/10.3389/fonc.2025.1647710/abstract.

2. Khamis AA, Ali EMM, Salim EI, El-Moneim MAA. Synergistic effects of bee venom, hesperidin, and piperine with tamoxifen on apoptotic and angiogenesis biomarker molecules against xerographic MCF-7 injected rats. Sci Rep. 2024;14(1):1510. Published 2024 Jan 17. doi:10.1038/s41598-023-50729-6

3. 1.Khamis AAA, Ali EMM, El-Moneim MAA, Abd-Alhaseeb MM, El-Magd MA, Salim EI. Hesperidin, piperine and bee venom synergistically potentiate the anticancer effect of tamoxifen against breast cancer cells. Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy. 2018;105:1335-1343. doi: 10.1016/j.biopha.2018.06.105

A stroke happens when the blood supply to part of the brain is cut off, either because of a blockage (called an ischaemic stroke) or bleeding (a haemorrhagic stroke). Around 83% of strokes are ischaemic.

The main emergency treatment for ischaemic strokes is a “clot-busting” process called intravenous thrombolysis. But this only works if administered quickly – ideally within an hour of arriving to hospital, and no later than 4.5 hours after symptoms begin. The faster treatment is given, the better the person’s chance of survival and recovery.

However, not everyone gets an equal chance of receiving this treatment quickly. Notably, research has shown ambulance staff are significantly less likely to correctly identify a stroke in women compared to men.

In a recent study, we modelled the potential health gains and cost savings of closing this gap. And they’re substantial.

The sex gap in stroke diagnosis

In Australia, about three-quarters of people who experience stroke arrive at hospital by ambulance. If paramedics suspect a stroke, they can take patients directly to a hospital which specialises in stroke care, and alert the hospital team so scans and treatment can start immediately.

Research has shown women aged under 70 are 11% less likely than men to have their stroke recognised by paramedics before they arrive at the hospital.

While younger men and women experience stroke at a similar rate, the symptoms they present with may be different, with “typical” symptoms more common in men and “atypical” symptoms more common in women.

Research has shown women and men are equally likely to present with movement and speech problems when having a stroke. However, women are more likely to show vague symptoms, such as general weakness, changes in alertness, or confusion.

These “atypical” symptoms can be overlooked, leaving women more vulnerable to misdiagnosis, delayed treatment, and preventable harm.

What we did

In our study, published recently in the Medical Journal of Australia (MJA), we used ambulance and hospital data from a 2022 MJA study in New South Wales. This is the study we mentioned above that showed paramedics correctly identified stroke more often in men than women under 70.

From this dataset, we identified more than 5,500 women under 70 who had an ischaemic stroke between 2005 and 2018. Using this group, we built a model to compare two scenarios:

1. the status quo, where women’s strokes are identified at the current rate of accuracy; and
2. an improved scenario, where women’s strokes are identified at the same rate as men’s.

We then projected patients’ health over time, including their level of impairment, risk of another stroke, and immediate and long-term survival.

Closing the diagnosis gap would save lives and money

When women’s stroke diagnosis rate was improved to match men’s, each woman gained an average of 0.14 extra years of life (roughly 51 days) and 0.08 extra quality-adjusted life years (QALYs), meaning an additional 29 days in full health.

Scenario two also meant A$2,984 in health-care costs would be saved per woman.

Scaled to the national level based on the number of women under 70 hospitalised with ischaemic stroke each year, closing this gap would mean 252 extra years of life, 144 extra QALYs, and $5.4 million in cost savings annually.

Some limitations

We didn’t have sex-specific data for every aspect of the model, which is in itself a telling sign of the lack of recognition of sex as an important factor in understanding disease. Because of this, we used combined data from both men and women in some parts of our model, which may have affected the results.

Further, the NSW data we used for rates of treatment with intravenous thrombolysis were higher than the national average, so our national figures may be slightly over-estimated.

Beyond stroke – why all this matters

The disparity we found is one example of a broader, systemic issue in women’s health: sex-based differences in diagnosis and treatment that favour men.

Too often, women’s symptoms are misinterpreted or dismissed because they don’t match a “typical” pattern. This can lead to delays, missed opportunities for early treatment, and worse outcomes for women.

In stroke, faster and more accurate diagnosis means people are less likely to die or require long-term care, and more likely to recover better and get back to their daily lives sooner.

So what can we do to close the diagnosis gap?

Investing in better training for paramedics and other emergency responders, so they can recognise a wider range of stroke presentations, could pay off many times over. Public awareness campaigns that highlight atypical stroke symptoms could also help.

Technologies such as mobile stroke units and telemedicine support may be part of the solution, but they must be implemented with attention to sex-specific needs.

The pathogen that causes plague has been identified in a 4,000-year-old domesticated-sheep carcass, suggesting that livestock helped transmit an early, mysterious form of plague that circulated throughout Eurasia during the Late Neolithic Bronze Age (LNBA), according to a study published yesterday in Cell.

Roughly 5,000 years ago, a mysterious kind of plague distinct from that responsible for bubonic plague spread among people throughout Eurasia before disappearing 3,000 years later, leaving scientists curious about its probable zoonotic source and transmission, said the study team, led by Max Planck Institute researchers in Germany.

Strain previously identified only in ancient humans

The investigators studied sheep bones and teeth excavated at Arkaim, a former site of the Sintashta-Petrovka culture, which was known for cattle, sheep, and horse husbandry on the Western Eurasian Steppe.

Until now, the genome of ancient Yersinia pestis bacteria, which can’t spread via fleas as in bubonic plague, had been identified only in ancient Eurasian humans because of a lack of direct DNA evidence tying animals to human infections in prehistory.

Arkaim “offered us a great place to look for plague clues: they were early pastoralist societies without the kind of grain storage that would attract rats and their fleas—and prior Sintashta individuals have been found with Y. pestis infections,” coauthor Taylor Hermes, PhD, of the University of Arkansas and Max Planck Institute, said in an institute news release.

Many infectious diseases emerged during prehistory, coinciding with animal domestication, which presented opportunities for spillover into people, they added. For example, the domestication of sheep, goats, pigs, and cattle and their interface with people are thought to have driven the emergence of deadly human pathogens causing infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, salmonellosis, and measles.

Sheep, humans probably not main spreaders of disease

A comparison of the ancient Y pestis genome from the sheep with other ancient and modern genomes revealed that the sheep Y pestis genome closely matched one that had infected a human at a nearby site at about the same time. 

We collect evidence supporting a scenario where the LNBA lineage, unable to efficiently transmit via fleas, spread from an unidentified reservoir to sheep and likely other domesticates, elevating human infection risk.

“We show that this ancient lineage underwent ancestral gene decay paralleling extant lineages, but evolved under distinct selective pressures, contributing to its lack of geographic differentiation,” the authors wrote. “We collect evidence supporting a scenario where the LNBA lineage, unable to efficiently transmit via fleas, spread from an unidentified reservoir to sheep and likely other domesticates, elevating human infection risk.”

“Collectively, our results connect prehistoric livestock with infectious disease in humans and showcase the power of moving paleomicrobiology into the zooarchaeological record,” they concluded.

But sheep and humans are unlikely to have been the main spreaders of disease, because there are examples of nearly identical LNBA Y pestis genomes at the same time but thousands of kilometers apart, which the researchers say is too far for sick humans or land animals to travel.

Fortunately, the search for pathogens in ancient animal remains is just beginning, because results from past excavations are available for further study. “I think there will be more and more interest in analyzing these collections—they give us insights that no human sample can,” senior author Felix Key, PhD, of Max Planck Institute, said in the release.

At least a dozen countries are interested in developing their own vaccines because they’re losing confidence that the US government will have immunizations ready for the next pandemic, a top biotech investor said.

Other nations have largely depended on the US to make shots that are deployed globally. The Covid-19 vaccines, developed by Pfizer Inc. and Moderna Inc. and embraced by the US government, were used by tens of millions of people around the world.

An international virologist group representing more than 80 research labs across more than 40 countries yesterday reaffirmed their support for the continued development and deployment of mRNA vaccines, a statement that came in response to the United States’ top health agency announcement earlier this month that it was scrapping further work on projects involving the mRNA vaccine platform. 

Scientists and public health experts said dismantling the research is a dangerous move that will dramatically hobble US pandemic preparedness. However, the head of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD, on X yesterday amplified what many scientists say is misinformation about mRNA risks and benefits by posting a clip from a far-right political talk show where he said the mRNA vaccine platform is no longer viable for public health purposes.

The Global Virus Network (GVN), which is dedicated to advancing pandemic preparedness, said vaccination is one of public health’s greatest achievements and has prevented 4.4 million deaths each year. It added that mRNA vaccine platforms have emerged as one of the most significant biomedical achievements of the 21^st century, and have reshaped the world’s ability to quickly respond to new viral threats. 

The group estimated that the COVID-19 vaccines averted 7.5 million deaths between 2000 and 2024 globally, and that of the more than 298 million doses administered in the United States in the first 6 months of rollout, fewer than 1% of recipients experienced adverse reactions or complications. GVN added that clinical data suggest between March 2021 and January 2022, mRNA cut the death rate by about 90% and were 94% effective against severe disease during the Omicron wave.

mRNA work continues for other disease threats and cancer therapy

Johan Neyts, PhD, who directs the GVN Center of Excellent in at KU Leuven in Belgium, said in a statement, “Various members of the GVN are working across continents to accelerate innovation in mRNA-based vaccines, not only for coronaviruses but also for dengue, Zika, Lassa fever, and other high-consequence pathogens.” The group noted that the mRNA vaccine platform has also shown promise for cancer immunotherapy.

The statement also said scientific transparency, public health engagement, and a global commitment to research must remain at the heart of mRNA vaccine deployment strategies. GVN said it advocates for a globally coordinated approach to mRNA vaccine development and deployment that hinges on expanding capacity in low- and middle-income countries, supporting next-generation mRNA innovation, and battling misinformation through collaboration.

An international virologist group representing more than 80 research labs across more than 40 countries yesterday reaffirmed their support for the continued development and deployment of mRNA vaccines, a statement that came in response to the United States’ top health agency announcement earlier this month that it was scrapping further work on projects involving the mRNA vaccine platform. 

Scientists and public health experts said dismantling the research is a dangerous move that will dramatically hobble US pandemic preparedness. However, the head of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD, on X yesterday amplified what many scientists say is misinformation about mRNA risks and benefits by posting a clip from a far-right political talk show where he said the mRNA vaccine platform is no longer viable for public health purposes.

The Global Virus Network (GVN), which is dedicated to advancing pandemic preparedness, said vaccination is one of public health’s greatest achievements and has prevented 4.4 million deaths each year. It added that mRNA vaccine platforms have emerged as one of the most significant biomedical achievements of the 21^st century, and have reshaped the world’s ability to quickly respond to new viral threats. 

The group estimated that the COVID-19 vaccines averted 7.5 million deaths between 2000 and 2024 globally, and that of the more than 298 million doses administered in the United States in the first 6 months of rollout, fewer than 1% of recipients experienced adverse reactions or complications. GVN added that clinical data suggest between March 2021 and January 2022, mRNA cut the death rate by about 90% and were 94% effective against severe disease during the Omicron wave.

mRNA work continues for other disease threats and cancer therapy

Johan Neyts, PhD, who directs the GVN Center of Excellent in at KU Leuven in Belgium, said in a statement, “Various members of the GVN are working across continents to accelerate innovation in mRNA-based vaccines, not only for coronaviruses but also for dengue, Zika, Lassa fever, and other high-consequence pathogens.” The group noted that the mRNA vaccine platform has also shown promise for cancer immunotherapy.

The statement also said scientific transparency, public health engagement, and a global commitment to research must remain at the heart of mRNA vaccine deployment strategies. GVN said it advocates for a globally coordinated approach to mRNA vaccine development and deployment that hinges on expanding capacity in low- and middle-income countries, supporting next-generation mRNA innovation, and battling misinformation through collaboration.