Today, scientists are developing mRNA vaccines for all kinds of other infectious diseases, as well as cancer. And they can be developed or modified with ease and rapidity. They’ve equaled or exceeded COVID-19 vaccines made through traditional means, with respect to both safety and efficacy. Since receiving an emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration in December 2020, many hundreds of millions of mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine doses have been shot into people’s arms in the United States alone. But mRNA vaccines were hustled into commercial viability by Operation Warp Speed, a federal program set up in 2020 to accelerate the development of any vaccine that might stave off COVID-19’s most severe symptoms. Rarely has vaccine development exceeded the speed of paint peeling. Once known only to biology majors, mRNA - more formally named messenger RNA - has entered society’s word list, courtesy of a brand-new kind of vaccine. (Examples: spike protein, intubation, N95, rapid antigen test.) We may not flood our speech with these terms, but we’re at least passingly familiar with them now.Įmerging last but not least, like hope climbing gamely out of Pandora’s box, is an exotic little acronym: mRNA. The COVID-19 pandemic, from which we’re still struggling to emerge, has expanded our working vocabulary, gifting the public lexicon with new, if admittedly mostly gloomy, words and concepts. Catastrophe occasionally apologizes for itself by coughing up a consolation prize.
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