As Moderna expands its mRNA vaccine pipeline to target Epstein-Barr, shingles, cancer and autoimmune diseases, scientists warn the company’s COVID-19 shots may be suppressing immune function, reactivating latent viruses and potentially causing the very conditions their new products aim to prevent.
During its Vaccines Day Event for investors on March 28, Moderna announced progress on multiple mRNA-based vaccines and therapeutic candidates in its “pipeline.”
Three vaccines targeting Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), Varicella-zoster virus (VZV, chickenpox and shingles) and Norovirus are advancing to “pivotal late-stage development,” the company said.
Moderna also announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is expected to approve its respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine mRNA-1345 for older adults. This is part of an expected $52 billion market for Moderna’s infectious disease vaccines.
“We continue to explore the application of mRNA in the potential treatment of cardiovascular and other ischemic vascular diseases,” Moderna’s website states in its product plans for therapeutic areas.
The company also is developing mRNA solutions for cancer and autoimmune diseases.
Citing the well-documented and often serious adverse reactions to the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines, some scientists and doctors said they are concerned about the dangers of existing and new mRNA formulations.
They also question whether Moderna is attempting to profit from solutions for diseases its products are causing.
Blocking the ‘foot soldiers of the immune system’
Synthetic-modified RNA (modRNA) in the cells suppresses innate immunity that keeps latent viruses at bay and protects against new infections, according to Brian Hooker, Ph.D., chief scientific officer at Children’s Health Defense.
“One of the mechanisms involves microRNAs that suppress the production of cellular interferon, which is extremely important for attack against viral infections as well as tumor suppression,” Hooker told The Defender.
Hooker pointed to the June 2022 paper by Stephanie Seneff, Ph.D., Dr. Peter McCullough and others that explored innate immune suppression by mRNA vaccines.
The authors proposed that vaccine-induced interferon suppression blocks the proper functioning of CD8+ T cells — often called the foot soldiers of the immune system — allowing dormant viruses to reactivate and, in the case of VZV, to cause shingles, the “adult” version of chickenpox.
A 2021 paper reported 54 cases of herpes zoster (shingles) emerging an average of 7 days after COVID-19 vaccination. A 2022 paper reported 10 cases of herpes zoster reactivation within one to three weeks after COVID-19 vaccination.
Yet the authors of both papers claimed a definitive link between the vaccines and the symptoms could not be established.
French scientist Hélène Banoun, Ph.D., in “La Science face au Pouvoir: Ce que révèle la crise Covid-19 sur la biopolitique du XXIe siècle” (“Science versus Power: What the Covid-19 crisis reveals about 21st-century biopolitics”), wrote that the disorganization of the innate immune system and its receptors contribute to the reactivation of latent viruses — including herpes, shingles, human papillomavirus (HPV) and RSV.
Many people infected by EBV or VZV become healthy, asymptomatic carriers, according to Banoun.
“These viruses, as well as other viruses or bacteria — such as the Koch bacillus responsible for tuberculosis — can remain dormant throughout life, or be reactivated during immunosuppression,” Banoun told The Defender.
Banoun also cited leprosy reactions following mRNA injections observed in numerous countries. “Despite the sophistication of mRNA vaccines, some side effects apparently reactivate diseases thought to have been relegated to the past,” she wrote.
Numerous case studies (here, here and here) correlate the development of EBV-related symptoms and antibodies with COVID-19 mRNA vaccines.
Matthew Matlock, a combat veteran and Ironman athlete, self-reported at the April 2022 meeting of the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee that he suffered from the reactivation of EBV, in addition to cardiac and mast cell disease issues, after receiving the second dose of Pfizer’s COVID-19 shot.
Moderna is creating two versions of a vaccine for EBV: mRNA-1189 for prevention and mRNA-1195 to address the long-term effects, specifically multiple sclerosis and a subcategory of lymphoma in solid organ transplant patients.
Moderna reportedly paused its EBV vaccine trial last year when a subject developed myocarditis.
Moderna does not mention other long-term EBV effects such as chronic active EBV, EBV-associated cancers, anemia, rupture of the spleen, thrombocytopenia, hepatitis, myocarditis and diseases of the nervous system including encephalitis, meningitis and Guillain-Barré syndrome.
Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said the market for the EBV vaccines is expected to be several billion dollars.
Turbo cancers and autoimmune diseases
Banoun noted the role of anti-spike IgG4 (immunoglobin subtype 4) in spike-induced immunotolerance, writing that it “takes over from other IgG after repeated vaccinations” and increases the expression of PD-L1 (programmed cell death ligand 1), which can prevent the immune system’s T cells from attacking and killing cancer cells.
IgG4 is an antibody the immune system produces in response to infections or vaccinations. It has anti-inflammatory properties but can also bind to the same targets as other antibodies, blocking their effectiveness.
Overexpression of IgG4 can lead to IgG4-related disease, a chronic inflammatory condition with lesions that can dysregulate organ functioning and even cause death.
According to a 2023 study, IgG4 antibodies induced by repeated vaccination may generate immune tolerance to the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, rendering the mRNA vaccines ineffective.
Mikolaj Raszek, Ph.D., a genomics sequencing specialist and founder and director of Merogenomics, in a recent tweet cited a January 2024 article in Viruses showing abnormal IgG4 antibodies in nearly all mRNA-vaccinated Individuals:
“They’re suggesting that having too much antigen eventually will lead to T cell exhaustion, and if you have T cell exhaustion this is how you might start correlating that with development of autoimmunity …
“More and more scientists are becoming leery of these IgG4 antibodies that basically seem to be observed in almost all of the mRNA vaccinated individuals.”
The authors of the Viruses article noted that a high level of IgG4 in the serum is considered pathogenic as it could trigger autoimmune diseases, cancer and other illnesses.
They speculated this could be due to the long-lasting spike protein produced by the vaccines and suggested this could lead to the desensitization of CD4+ and CD8+ T cells, leading to immune system exhaustion.
“The induction of immunological tolerance by repeated vaccinations could perhaps explain the large number of deaths occurring in vaccinated people who received a third dose compared with unvaccinated individuals in some European countries,” they wrote.
In their paper, Seneff and McCullough linked vaccine-induced immunosuppression to neurodegenerative diseases, myocarditis, immune thrombocytopenia, Bell’s palsy, liver disease, cancer and other impairments.
Geert Vanden Bossche, Ph.D., also warned that vaccine-induced elevated levels of IgG4 could lead to turbo cancers. Many oncologists have reported rapidly developing cancers, often in younger people, that have already progressed to Stage 3 or 4 by the time they are diagnosed.
Banoun said that until a few years ago, Moderna developed mRNA vaccines solely to fight cancer. “It is certain that we are witnessing an increase in the incidence of cancer certainly due to anti-COVID RNAs,” she said.
Banoun said the mRNA-6981 product under development by Moderna is designed to increase PD-L1 levels to prevent the progression of autoimmune hepatitis by limiting the immune system’s self-reactivity.
However, as already noted, elevated PD-L1 can block the immune system’s cancer-fighting properties.
“This therapy is a double-edged sword, as it will not be specific and risks inducing immunotolerance to other pathologies such as infections and cancers,” Banoun said. “Moderna will then be able to develop other mRNAs against induced cancers.”
Other cancer-targeting mRNAs in Moderna’s pipeline include mRNA-4157 for melanoma and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC); mRNA-5671 for NSCLC, pancreatic and colorectal cancers; mRNA-4359 to “stimulate effector T cells that target and kill suppressive immune and cancer cells that express high levels of target checkpoint antigens”; and mRNA-2752 for direct injection into tumors and lymphomas.
Moderna also said it is developing several mRNA therapeutics that it believes “have the potential to help the millions of patients battling autoimmune diseases.”
SARS-CoV-2 spike protein can cause many of the same diseases
Moderna may also be responding to diseases caused by the spike protein in the original SARS-CoV-2 virus itself.
There is ample evidence at this point to suggest that the virus was engineered specifically to be more virulent to humans.
Researchers in this 2022 study of COVID-19-infected people found elevated levels of EBV-related antibodies as well as herpes virus 6A and human endogenous retrovirus K antibodies.
Symptoms attributed to “long COVID” (which may include symptoms attributable to the mRNA vaccines) include difficulty breathing, chest pain, heart palpitations, fatigue, brain fog, sleep problems, dizziness, pins-and-needles feelings, post-exercise malaise, a change in smell or taste, depression or anxiety, stomach pain or diarrhea, joint or muscle pain, rashes and changes in menstrual cycles.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website states that these symptoms are similar to those reported by people with chronic fatigue syndrome, also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis.
Dr. Michelle Perro, an integrative medicine pediatrician and executive director of GMO Science, told The Defender that because people with long COVID may have an exacerbation of underlying chronic infections, “the production of mRNA vaccines, which are problematic from the experience with COVID, is faulty at best.”
“These vaccines were in the pipeline way before COVID and got a pass with the EUA [emergency use authorization] to unleash the technology,” Perro said.
“There is nothing good to be said about using this process [mRNA] in ‘vaccine’ development,” she said. “This technology should be abandoned immediately until further data is available.”
Moderna has recently been pushing a vaccination campaign aimed at long COVID prevention.
‘Hello shingles!’ Existing vaccines may be cause of diseases
The mRNA shots may not be solely responsible for the reemergence of viruses like chickenpox. In her March 29 Substack post, Jennifer Margulis discussed the chickenpox vaccine and its relationship to the rise in shingles cases.
Until the chickenpox vaccine was added to the childhood vaccination schedule in 1995, the virus was associated with “only 100 deaths each year out of nearly 4 million cases,” she wrote.
Margulis questioned why such a relatively mild disease would need a vaccine if the purpose of the scheduled vaccines was to prevent serious disease. She noted that fewer than one-third of European countries even recommend universal vaccination for children.
Citing a 2022 study, Margulis highlighted some of the serious adverse reactions to the chickenpox vaccine, including meningitis, encephalitis and death. Other adverse effects reported include thrombocytopenia, pneumonia, severe rashes, skin infections and seizures.
Margulis argued that removing the wild virus from circulation through wide-scale vaccination campaigns had reduced the natural immunity of adults who in times past were allowed to fight the infection as children.
“This natural immunization boost is pretty much gone,” she said, adding, “Hello shingles!” and pointing out that “mRNA-1468 is the vaccine Moderna is developing to help protect adults from shingles.”
More products in Moderna’s pipeline
Other products in Moderna’s pipeline include an HIV vaccine, a combined RSV-HPV vaccine, a pediatric RSV vaccine, a pandemic flu shot, a cytomegalovirus vaccine and an endemic HCoV (human coronavirus) vaccine; vaccines for Lyme disease, Zika, Nipah and Mpox; a therapeutic to promote relaxin, a naturally occurring cardio-protective hormone; and a combined COVID-19-flu shot.
Blackstone Life Sciences has agreed to invest $750 million in Moderna’s flu vaccine in exchange for milestone payments and royalties, Yahoo Finance reported.
The stock value of Moderna rose 3% after the announcements, approaching $111 per share, bringing the 2024 increase to 11.2% as of March 28, which is well above the industry average.
The current price is still well below the $450 price per share Moderna enjoyed in mid-2021 at the height of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout.
Source: Moderna Developing mRNA Vaccines for Diseases Linked to COVID Shots • Childrens Health Defense