The United States Department of Health and Human Services recently announced that it would cancel nearly USD 500 million of funding for mRNA vaccine projects. The reason, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said, was safety and efficacy concerns.mRNA or messenger RNA vaccines hit the news during the Covid-19 pandemic when the world was desperately trying to create vaccines in order to save lives. mRNA vaccines for Covid were developed rapidly, given to thousands of people and are believed to have saved numerous lives.Like all vaccines that we have today, rare cases of adverse effects are possible – but the benefits, say experts far outweigh the risks.How are mRNA vaccines different from the others we have? How effective and safe are they? Can they help with other diseases as well? And what does the cut in funding mean for vaccine development and research worldwide?

Guest: Dr Anurag Agrawal, Dean, BioSciences and Health Research, Trivedi School of Biosciences at Ashoka University

Host: Zubeda Hamid

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