Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
Medicine

FDA Reverses Decision and Agrees To Review Moderna's Flu Vaccine (nytimes.com) 149

The Food and Drug Administration has reversed its decision on Moderna's flu vaccine and has agreed to review it for possible approval, Moderna announced on Wednesday. From a report: Last week, the agency rejected Moderna's application for review of a new flu vaccine, saying the company's research design was flawed. But in subsequent discussions the company said that the agency had relented and agreed to begin a review.

Moderna said it split its application for the flu vaccine based on age, seeking a traditional approval for people 50 to 64 years old, and accelerated approval for those 65 and older. The company also said it agreed to conduct an additional study among those 65 and older once the vaccine reached the market. Moderna said on Wednesday that the F.D.A. set a deadline of August to decide whether to approve the vaccine. If it is authorized, it would be available for those older adults in the flu season that begins later this year.

The vaccine uses messenger RNA technology, which Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has repeatedly criticized as unsafe and ineffective. The mRNA approach, which instructs the body to produce a fragment of a virus that sets off an immune response, was widely successful in Covid vaccines and is considered generally safe by public health experts and scientists.

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

FDA Reverses Decision and Agrees To Review Moderna's Flu Vaccine

Comments Filter:
  • by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Wednesday February 18, 2026 @10:50AM (#65996354)

    And they would have won. And the damages could have been extreme.

    • by gtall ( 79522 ) on Wednesday February 18, 2026 @11:17AM (#65996430)

      The damages have already happened. The major vax producers have announced cuts to the mRNA research and are going close a few facilities and going to lay off some workers. Exactly as those intellectual midgets, RFK and the anti-vaxxers and the Maggots intended. Now they are trying to eat their cake and everyone else's too.

      mRNA is the most exciting of the vaccine technologies. They were working on anti-cancer vaccines, and those were mRNA as well.

      To the pearl clutching anti-vaxxers and Maggots who got their dainty little panties in a twist by hearing mRNA and thinking DNA, mRNA is not taken up by cells to produce DNA. mRNA codes for amino acids, not DNA. You are pissing up the wrong tree, dolts. Learn how those vaccines (and DNA and RNA and mRNA) work before you lose what's left of your reasoning capabilities. Here's a helpful wiki so you have no excuse to wallow in ignorance any longer:

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      • by gweihir ( 88907 )

        "Damages" not "damage". I do agree on the damage.

    • The check must have cleared.
  • by nightflameauto ( 6607976 ) on Wednesday February 18, 2026 @10:51AM (#65996360)

    "Also, vaccines are unsafe and cause autism."

    I'm assuming we're days away from, "Just have your kids snort coke off of toilet seats. Look what it's done for me!"

  • Morons in charge! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by methano ( 519830 ) on Wednesday February 18, 2026 @11:03AM (#65996390)
    This kind of cassette loaded methodology for the production of vaccines, may be one of the grater medical advances of the century. And the "brilliant" zeros of the tRump administration have decided to trip it up at every opportunity. Shame, shame, shame on the thirty-nine percenters who back this garbage no matter what!
    • by Teun ( 17872 )
      You're right, it's the idiots in charge.

      As it says, public health experts and scientists do believe mRNA can work fine but it's just these people that have been laid off and idiots like the Orange One and RFK have taken over.

      Luckily they are (yet) to cross the oceans.

    • You are wasting time arguing about stupid shit while consolidation of power proceeds. Nobody cares about autism, people dying, etc. They care about Absolute Power. And they continue to grab at it while we argue about stuff that is not at the same level of severity as the total loss of Freedom.

  • by gnasher719 ( 869701 ) on Wednesday February 18, 2026 @11:07AM (#65996402)
    I cannot see any reason why anyone with the slightest understanding how vaccines work would consider the mRNA part of mRNA vaccines to be dangerous.

    An mRNA vaccine is injected in your body, and tells your body to produce something as close as possible to the real virus, but not causing damage. After one day, the mRNA vaccine itself dies. It disappean from your body with no trace at all. Claims that they would cause changes to your DNA are pure nonsense. Claims that they would cause autism are pure nonsense. The mRNA vaccine does nothing but convince your body to produce something similar to the virus for one day.

    The advantage of mRNA vaccines is that when a new vaccine is needed, 90% of the work is already done, and has been tested in real life by hundreds of millions of people. All that needs doing is to "program" it to produce a possibly modified virus, which is about six weeks of work. It can also be programmed to produce multiple different viruses, so one mRNA vaccine can protect against multiple flu variants, or multiple flu variants and the latest Covid variant. Six weeks is much faster than what we have now, where we wait for the flu season in Australia and hope we get the same flu six months later in the northern hemisphere.
    • by kqs ( 1038910 )

      I cannot see any reason why anyone with the slightest understanding how vaccines work would consider the mRNA part of mRNA vaccines to be dangerous.

      I see the problem. "You cannot reason a person out of a position they did not reason themself into in the first place." Well, the "anyone with the slightest understanding" part is a problem too.

      When you've decided that Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt are your logic, you become the perfect servant of grifters.

    • It disappean from your body with no trace at all.

      If even Jar-jar can understand mRNA vaccines, maybe there's somebody out there who can explain to Wormdome?

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      I cannot see any reason why anyone with the slightest understanding how vaccines work would consider the mRNA part of mRNA vaccines to be dangerous.

      You have it all there already: The anti-vaxx idiots not understand how vaccines work and they understand mRNA even less. They also have zero clue about risk management.

      I always find it hilarious that the direct lie about autism from vaccines was not even anti-vaxx. It was specifically against one vaccine to promote another one. But for the anti-vaxxers, that is already a far too complex idea and far outside of their level of understanding.

    • Iâ(TM)m for the mRNA vaccines, but have a question about a statement you make. âoeAfter one day, the mRNA vaccine itself dies.â
      First, this implies the mRNA is alive. I find that worrisome if it is. Second, how do we know that it is âdeadâ(TM) or inactive after a day? Is that itâ(TM)s half life or is there something that hard limits it to about one day? If itâ(TM)s âliveâ(TM) in the vial for weeks before administering it, what changes to make it go kaput. I woul

      • the mRNA vaccine is segments of mRNA encased in lipid nano-proteins. There is nothing about it that was ever alive. Nothing about it metabolizes or has any ongoing life-like behaviors. It cannot die, since it was never alive.

        the lipid nanoproteins are taken into your cell, the mRNA is released, and your regular cellular machinery builds proteins out of it.
        These proteins are selected proteins from the virus intended to show your immune system a part of the virus that it can produce antibodies from, withou
      • Transcription and temperature lead to higher rates of mRNA decay and thus shorter half-life. If you're using the mRNA then it breaks down more quickly. If you have put it in a cold sterile environment and potentially added things to inhibit transcription or slow decay, then it keeps much longer. mRNA isn't terribly stable, I doubt there is even a measurable amount in your body after a week.

    • And it's one of the few social studies that is repeatable.

      Basically the universe is really chaotic and bad things happen for no reason.

      In a universe like that you need to feel like you have some agency and that you can understand the decisions you are making and that those decisions will have a positive outcome for you and your family.

      As a result people do not like relying on experts because you're basically forced to give in to chaos when you do that. Because you have had to acknowledge that yo
    • You oversold it with the "but not causing damage".
      It's very important to be accurate here, or the antivaxxers will invalidate your position.

      mRNA segments tell your body to produce actual proteins from the virus.
      This, unsurprisingly, can be immunoreactive and damaging in similiar was as the actual virus.

      What's important, is that it is far less so than the actual virus.
      • mRNA segments tell your body to produce actual proteins from the virus.
        This, unsurprisingly, can be immunoreactive and damaging in similiar was as the actual virus.

        What's important, is that it is far less so than the actual virus.

        What is important is the fact this is a false choice irrelevant to the topic at hand.

        The choice at hand is NOT between natural infection and mRNA vaccination.

        It is between flu vaccination with a typical protein analog vaccine and flu vaccination with an mRNA vaccine.

        • No.

          Your discussion of choice is entirely fallacious.
          I actually entirely agree with you, that in a discussion about the differences between mRNA vaccines, and other delivery mechanisms, there's nuanced discussion to be had.
          However, this discussion wasn't about that at all.

          You tried to make it about that.
          • No.
            Your discussion of choice is entirely fallacious.
            I actually entirely agree with you, that in a discussion about the differences between mRNA vaccines, and other delivery mechanisms, there's nuanced discussion to be had.
            However, this discussion wasn't about that at all.

            The context is a post titled "No reason against mRNA" which proclaims mRNA vaccines are not dangerous. That post was an original response to the TFA about FDA changing its mind and agreeing to look at data from mRNA flu vaccine trials.

            Then you chimed in with "What's important, is that it is far less so than the actual virus."

            Well no that isn't at all what is important here and it isn't even a true statement to boot.

            • The context is a post titled "No reason against mRNA" which proclaims mRNA vaccines are not dangerous. That post was an original response to the TFA about FDA changing its mind and agreeing to look at data from mRNA flu vaccine trials.

              Correct.
              Nowhere did it proclaim that "mRNA vaccines are safer than all other known vaccines"

              Then you chimed in with "What's important, is that it is far less so than the actual virus."

              Correct. Because when judging the safety and efficacy of a vaccine, you're judging it against the infection you're seeking to prevent or mitigate.

              Well no that isn't at all what is important here and it isn't even a true statement to boot.

              Yes it is. Quit spreading misinformation.

              I can see it was a mistake to engage with you in good faith.

              • Correct.
                Nowhere did it proclaim that "mRNA vaccines are safer than all other known vaccines"

                Wait...what? What are you talking about? What are you quoting? Who is saying this?

                Correct. Because when judging the safety and efficacy of a vaccine, you're judging it against the infection you're seeking to prevent or mitigate.

                When you say "you're" who are you referring to and what in the thread is the reference responsive to? No doctor or patient would ever do this. They would weigh all of their options not an arbitrary subset of them. Likewise it makes no sense for a regulatory body to approve new treatments that expose the public to more risk than existing treatments.

                Yes it is.

                No it isn't.

                • No it isn't.

                  From your own fucking link, dude: “But COVID’s worse,” he added. A case of COVID-19 is about 10 times as likely to induce myocarditis as an mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccination, Wu said.

    • Claims that they would cause changes to your DNA are pure nonsense.

      Not pure nonsense, just extremely unlikely. Horizontal gene transfer from reverse transcription is real. However, it's way more likely to have gene transfer via viral infection. The mechanisms just aren't there to readily make mRNA jump into DNA. Already being sick with a viral infection might make mRNA reverse transcription more likely to happen but it's improbable enough to either call impossible or at least nothing to worry about.

    • I cannot see any reason why anyone with the slightest understanding how vaccines work would consider the mRNA part of mRNA vaccines to be dangerous.

      They don't. This is all manufactured to attract your attention and energy away from the power grab.

  • After all, he did get life saving Covid-19 treatment at a military facility in his first term. Maybe someone gave him a reminder.

  • Moral panics can't last forever because sooner or later people figure out that the scary thing you were told about didn't happen.

    So nobody cut your son's dick off and he doesn't think he's a girl because rapid onset gender dysphoria isn't real and also women's sports have not been destroyed and you still don't care about them.

    Now the right wing does not have any viable economic solutions for the problems you face. Just more trickle down economics repackaged yet again.

    So they have to offer an alt
  • by rwyoder ( 759998 ) on Wednesday February 18, 2026 @02:07PM (#65997124)

    1. Decline to review Moderna's new vaccine.
    2. Buy MRNA stock on the depressed price.
    3. Reverse decision not to review vaccine. Sell at a profit!

  • It seems the stable genius' administration functions like a small child across the board.
  • There's a dumb fucking move.

    And the fucktards in congress gave him a pass because of his name.

"There is such a fine line between genius and stupidity." - David St. Hubbins, "Spinal Tap"

Working...