This blog will be longer than most and I’m afraid, more technical than most. But there’s a lot to talk about. I need to explain how vaccines used to be made, how messenger RNA works and who deserves the credit for the speedy development of mRNA Covid-19 vaccines. As I said, the subject is complicated and I will do my best to streamline at the risk of over-simplifying.
The old way: A harmless likeness or a part of the virus had to be found that would serve as the antigen, the stimulus to produce antibodies. It could be a chemically killed virus (Salk polio vaccine) , an attenuated weakened virus ( Sabin’s) or a viral segment( Hepatitis A and B). Once introduced into a susceptible person the immune system had to recognize it as a foreign substance to be eliminated and make protective antibodies. That process could take up to ten years and explains why Trump’s promise that a vaccine would be available within a year of the pandemic’s onset was met with such skepticism. He knew that a different type of vaccine, using modified messenger RNA was in the horizon.
The RNA way: RNA carries information that it copies from a limited region of a strand of DNA. It then carries that message to the cell’s microsome, the protein factory where the specific protein is synthesized. We have known that messenger role of RNA (mRNA) since 1960. We still had to discover how to synthesize messenger RNA and how to safely inject it into a host who would not destroy it. Finally we had to learn how to program it to carry the specific desired instructions. Each step took decades by dedicated researchers around the world and each discovery added one more small piece to a large complex jigsaw puzzle. The puzzle would be completed by the Covid virus.
The modified technology was ready and waiting when the Covid-19 pandemic arrived December 2019. Workers in the Wuhan Virus Laboratory isolated the virus in January 10, 2020 and un-coded its gene sequence. The information was shared with the labs working on mRNA vaccines. They had the last piece of the jigsaw puzzle. After many decades of painstaking research done by countless laboratory nerds around the world, the mRNA vaccine was ready for its first application. It took $116 million of NIH funding, $148 million from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority and $72 million from the Department of Defense to develop the mRNA vaccine before the Covid pandemic.
All funds came from you, the taxpayer. Since 1990, the driving force has been a Hungarian-born scientist Katalin Karikó. Her funds came from the NIH when she worked in the US and German government where she finished her work. It was an “overnight” success more than half a century in preparation. It was ready to be tested.
Testing began April 2020. It was facilitated by having a waiting pool of 74,000 volunteer subjects, the extreme level of contagiousness and a population where everyone was susceptible. It didn’t take long to see that the vaccine was more than 90% effective in preventing symptomatic COVID-19 infections.
Two more phases were needed; mass production and mass distribution. They were achieved by two successive administrations. I’ll start with Trump’s Operation Warp Speed (OWS) with its goal to produce 300 million doses by January 2021. Operation Warp Speed was directed by HHS Secretary Azar and Defense Secretary Esper. The program underwrote the costs Moderna’s research and. guaranteed Pfizer that it would purchase about $2 billion of its vaccine or 100 million doses once it gets approved. OAS succeeded in speeding up the development (especially for Moderna), manufacturing and distribution of vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics.
This was a public private partnership. Since the public contributed $32 billion, it is certain that without public investment, there would be no mRNA vaccines. The private sector can claim responsibility for finding the solutions for diagnostics and therapeutics but the vaccines rightfully belong to the public. Nevertheless, Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna are making combined profits of $65,000 thousand every minute and $34 billion in 2021. These companies have produced five new billionaires during the pandemic, with a combined net wealth of $35.1 billion. So this partnership had the public putting up the money for the vaccine and the private taking out the profits.
Who gets the credit for the mRNA vaccine’s success? Is it Katalin Kariko for devoting decades to come up with the mRNA?. Esper and Azar for their work with OWS creating a literal army to get the vaccine mass produced? How about Biden who managed to raise the percent of immunized Americans from 3% when he took office to 69.5%?
Nope. Only one person claims credit; Trump. “As you know, I got them done in nine months, and it was supposed to take anywhere from five to 12 years. I broke their a**,” Trump said. “And you know who doesn’t like me too much? the FDA? because they were very bureaucratic, and I got it done.” Newsweek June 2020