Link: https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/08/mrna-cancer-vaccine-succeeded-in-phase-3-melanoma-trial-moderna-and-merck-say/

Cross posted from https://slrpnk.net/post/41680206

It's absolutely awesome, I do wonder how we eventually deal with the flood of very sensible vaccines though. Like, of course we can poke children a lot in the first 12 years of their life and probably also combine a few of them like we did before, though there also are a metric fuckton of things mRNA vaccines are possible against. Poking children once every week sounds, uh… complicated.

(Don't get me wrong, I want a world where THAT is our problem)

At least for respiratory vaccines, nasal inhalation might be a future way of reducing pokes. I think I saw early research saying its more effective as its where the problem is, but that getting both might be better than one or the other still.

I’m so excited... For RFK and the US government to ban this due to some yet to be determined autism related reason.

A lot of vaccines are combined. MMR and DTaP, for example, were probably two you got as a child.

Amazing stuff. Good news to hear and soon to be banned from my country because we're being run by fucking morons and pedophiles...

Happened last year, still spite over the COVID vaccine. As referenced in the article:

As such, Moderna and Merck call their mRNA cancer vaccine a type of "neoantigen therapy."

The term avoids both "mRNA" and "vaccine," which draw hostility from Trump's anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. In addition to his concerted efforts to undermine lifesaving vaccines, Kennedy has canceled hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grants for the development of mRNA vaccine technology.

Not sure if this keyword strategy is what saved the program or if this was one of the ones allowed despite the cuts due to so much taxpayer money already invested.

It was spring 2025 where the red state leaders were trying to ban mRNA vaccines, but that never went anywhere to my knowledge, hence the funding being cut to research instead.

Both separated via recent executive order.

Many of the new mRNA vaccines, especially those against cancer, aren't usable that way anyways, e.g. from the article:

individually tailored to target a patient’s unique cancer mutations

So you get those, when you already have the disease, the reason it's called a vaccine is because it's making your immune system fight it instead of directly acting on the cause

Luckily I'm from Europe, we're not yet ruled by demented pedos.

Indeed I thought about the MMR vaccine when I mentioned combining some. Though the side-effects can hit some children quite badly, still better than the illnesses.

Oh, weird. I thought those ran under the name immunotherapy.

Moderna stock went up 200% 🫠

Either that or the shot will cost $1 billion.

HPV vaccines (stops cervical cancer) are a thing here for girls and they don't get them until they're 12. They just go around the schools. This seems like it could be done later too, maybe at the same time.

The vaccine schedule for kids is already pretty hefty. I can't remember how many times we had to get them to the doctor but it felt like a lot when you're already frazzled.

Boys should really get it too, they can transmit the virus causing the cancer… I think in Germany they just did a marketing campaign about this recently to push vaccination rates among men.

True the schedule was already quite a thing, though it probably felt like more than it was. Perhaps they find a way to administer the mRNA vaccines orally like with the old polio one (but this time safely!), that way you could perhaps "sneak" it into a piece of candy or sth.

You're not wearing sunscreen? Nah, I've got the vaccine 😎

Isn't this a rare case of well deserved? Bringing an actual benefit to society and not just random hype.

Yeah I'm not sure what the reasoning is behind not giving it to boys but it's not part of the national vaccine schedule.

Nice, getting rid of the competition.

Yeah, I think it's well deserved, and maybe telling about how groundbreaking this vaccine is.

Cost-benefit is the likely reason.

For comparison: the UK initially concluded the cost-benefit ratio was in favour of girls-only HPV vaccination, but IIUC updated this assessment and offered it to boys too after a public campaign by Jaime Winstone.

That may well be the more correct term, I'm not in a medical profession, just read some articles about it (and news are usually not great about terminology). But as someone in another thread wrote, they're calling this one a "neoantigen therapy" to avoid triggering RFK 🙄

It's honestly hard to tell if it's just Trump waffling, wanting to claim success for something he had nothing to do with, forgetting about this project, getting fooled by the switch in wording, or if they bribed or flattered him before it got cancelled. When so much ego and corruption is involved, it could really be anything.

Every time such a calculation is made they should be forced by law to publicize the calculated worth of a humans life and/or health.

Luckily I’m from Europe, we’re not yet ruled by demented pedos.

The Church begs to differ

They said "not ruled by" not "don't exist".

Church holds no power in most countries these days.

You'd be surprised how effective it can be at swaying their lambs to vote certain way.

MRNA vaccines will cure most cancer, the common cold, and evebtually the majority of human disease related to viruses (think MS, Parkinson's, Malaria, etc)

That why I couldn't believe MAGA shitheads going after the technology they don't even understand.

1 billion and they’ll give it to every 90 year old then say oh… it’s too expensive for those actually working or in school.

Maybe in the USA, here it's once a decade in one country about one thing lol.

Vaccine against wrinkles? Count me in :-D

In the UK at least, decisions and rationale about which vaccinations and treatments should be publicly-funded via the NHS are published quite transparently. For example: https://www.nihr.ac.uk/story/preventing-cancer-extending-vaccination-boys

Vaccinating everyone in the UK against everything for which vaccines are available (even against diseases with very low risk in the UK) would cost so much that the NHS would have to cut treatments with very high benefit-to-cost ratio.

Therefore, below a certain benefit-to-cost threshold, the UK has no reasonable choice except to withhold public funding. The HPV vaccine for boys was right on that threshold. IMO, the UK did the right thing by funding the clear benefit (HPV vaccine for girls, whose risk was significantly higher per existing evidence) and extending it to boys when additional evidence showed it was worth doing so.

I'm still so white that I'd burn. No vaccine against that.

Yet 😎

Mumbling with a mouth full of gravel: the vaccine changes your DNA and regrows your foreskin and autism.

Functionally this is a non issue. The wording of the order says “once available” which is key language. There simply isn’t a separate vaccine commercially available for these diseases. To develop such a thing would take years, like possibly a decade, and no pharmaceutical company has any interest in spending a ton of money developing unnecessary vaccines that could easily become moot once political power shifts to someone that recognizes rfk led policy is utter nonsense. This doesn’t even mean a shift to Democrat power or a third party, there are several republican senators and congress members that are physicians and vocally oppose this shit

The modified schedule is more of a threat, though it is being fought in court. The biggest issue from this administration (in this regard) is likely going to be erosion. The modified schedule getting to exist as an option for people to choose against aap recommendations, relaxing school requirements, etc that continues this pattern of “worst x outbreak in decades” (currently measles) because it affirms the desires of ignorant morons that think an extremely minimal risk of relatively minor side effects outweighs potentially fatal disease and also simply do not understand or care about the protection of those around them who are in far more danger (infants, cancer patients, people with autoimmune conditions, etc)

Many of the cancers it prevents can be gotten regardless of sex. Among the cancers are throat and colorectal.

Also prevents genital warts, which aren't dangerous (HPV either will cause warts or cancer depending on the strain), but like, you can ensure you don't get genital warts

I have to wonder if vaccinating just some part of the boys' population would have a higher benefit/cost ratio. Or vaccinating only in bigger cities.