Vaccine Safety

Are We Really Sure of mRNA Vaccine’s Long-term Safety?

This article should cover everything we know at present that’s important concisely.

Image by Manuel Baumheier from Pixabay

One of the primary drivers of hesitancy about the Covid-19 mRNA vaccine from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna is that it’s a new technology with no long-term safety data. Whereas traditional vaccine technology — such as inactivated, protein-based, and live-attenuated vaccines — has been used to combat infectious diseases for decades.

So, we are relatively more comfortable and less worried about the safety of traditional than modern vaccine technology. We shouldn’t be surprised, though. After all, risk-aversion is a universal trait in humans and animals, built from eons of evolution.

But should we really be that uncertain about mRNA vaccines?

How mRNA vaccines work in brief

The central dogma of molecular biology states that DNA makes messenger RNA (mRNA) via transcription, and mRNA makes proteins via translation.

The mRNA vaccine delivers the protein-coding mRNA inside the cell, capitalizing on the cell’s machinery to translate the mRNA into the desired protein. But mRNA is incredibly fragile and easily degradable. So, mRNA…