Moderna's bivalent Covid vaccine? Less protection than their previous vaccine.

[thewayne]

FDA regulators are mad because Moderna did not release all of their study information to the vaccine advisory board, which, upon closer study, shows that 1.9% of people who received Moderna's original vaccination subsequently caught Covid, while the bivalent vaccine - which should have offered increased protection against the Omicron variants - had an infection of 3.2%!

Moderna received $5 billion from the US government to develop this vaccine and then didn't disclose all of the study information, apparently in an effort to get it approved and make more profits.

From the CNN article: "The six FDA and CDC advisers interviewed by CNN said that this infection data wouldn’t have changed how they voted, because the data had such limitations, but it still should have been presented to them."

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/01/11/health/moderna-bivalent-transparency/index.html

New England Journal of Medicine summary of the studies:
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2213907

The NEJM article at least has a disclaimer: "Limitations of our study include the small sample size and follow-up period of our groups. We also note that the between-group comparisons were not controlled for factors such as age, vaccine type, and health status, which may have had an effect on antibody responses. These findings may be indicative of immunologic imprinting, although follow-up studies are needed to determine whether antibody responses will deviate over time, including after the administration of a second bivalent booster."

https://science.slashdot.org/story/23/01/16/1612250/fda-vaccine-advisers-disappointed-and-angry-that-early-data-about-new-covid-19-booster-shot-wasnt-presented-for-review-last-year

Comments

[dewline]

Oh.

Shit.

[thewayne]

Yeah. It's reasonably effective, but not increased effectiveness by tuning for Omicron.

My first three Covid vaxes were Moderna, but my fourth was Pfizer - not covalent - and I think I'll try to stick with Pfizer for the future until more AND BETTER info is available re: Moderna.

[dewline]

My first two were Pfizer, the next two were Moderna, the latest was the bivalent edition of Moderna.

Beginning to wonder about other options.

[disneydream06]

That reminds me, I need to start planning for my booster.
3 months post virus. Yippy......
Hugs, Jon

[thewayne]

I'm due my next booster in March, I think.  One thing to be aware of, Jon, I've read from many people that when they get a booster post-Covid, it frequently knocks them flat for a couple of days because you have real Covid nastiness in your blood that the vaccination starts attacking immediately!

[disneydream06]

UGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Of course the only time I have two days off from work in a row are the weekends, and they don't do shots on the weekends.
Unless I wait until Mid March when I took a week off. :o

[silveradept]

That's the kind of thing that reduces public trust in the whole scheme, and the Moderna folks should be rightly castigated for it and suffer increased scrutiny on their next several attempts.

[thewayne]

Most definitely! When the vaccines first became available, I wanted the Pfizer but couldn't get it in my area.  I had the Moderna for my first two or three vaccinations, then finally a Pfizer just before the bivalents came out. (I think I'm due another next month)  My docs suggested that, though they are both RNA vaccines, that it could be beneficial to mix them up.  'Could be' being the operative phrase, as there are no firm studies to back that up.

Pfizer has gotten in to trouble, too, so it's an industry-wide issue, not limited to one company.  But we knew that.

[silveradept]

I'm pretty well mixed and matched at this point, and I want them to keep making things that will keep me from getting dead or hospitalized. And then eventually to keep me from getting it at all.

[thewayne]

The way Covid mutates, I doubt we'll ever be truly rid of it.  But it is softening as they predicted the mutations would do, so with luck it will eventually become a slightly worse common cold. But I'm with you: I'd still prefer to never get it!