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Last Posted: Mar 20, 2023
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Should COVID vaccines be yearly? Proposal divides US scientists
M Kozlov, Nature, January 27, 2023

Scientists are split about a US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) proposal to update COVID-19 vaccines once a year, similar to the agency’s approach for annually updating influenza vaccines. At a meeting of the FDA’s vaccine advisory panel on 26 January, some researchers argued that the proposal to offer an updated vaccine every US autumn would help simplify the country’s complex COVID immunization schedule and might boost uptake as a result. But other scientists were less convinced about the timeline — or whether healthy adults should be urged to receive an annual COVID-19 jab at all.

mRNA revolutionized the race for a Covid-19 vaccine. Could cancer be next?
J Wosen, Stat News, November 21, 2022

The unprecedented success of messenger RNA vaccines against the coronavirus is raising hopes that the technology could lead to new and better vaccines against a much older public health scourge: cancer. In some ways, the challenge is similar: The aim of any vaccine is to focus the immune system’s response against a particular molecule, or antigen, whether that’s a piece of a virus or a protein that coats tumor cells. There’s one important difference, however: Cancer vaccines are generally treatments rather than preventative measures.

Interim Recommendations from the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices for the Use of Bivalent Booster Doses of COVID-19 Vaccines - United States, October 2022.
Rosenblum Hannah G et al. MMWR. Morbidity and mortality weekly report 2022 11 (45) 1436-1441

During September-October 2022, FDA authorized bivalent mRNA vaccines for use as a booster dose in persons aged =5 years who completed any FDA-approved or FDA-authorized primary series and removed EUAs for monovalent COVID-19 booster doses. Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna bivalent booster vaccines each contain equal amounts of spike mRNA from the ancestral and Omicron BA.4/BA.5 strains. After the EUA amendments, ACIP and CDC recommended that all persons aged =5 years receive 1 bivalent mRNA booster dose =2 months after completion of any FDA-approved or FDA-authorized monovalent primary series or monovalent booster doses.

After Giving Up on Cancer Vaccines, Doctors Start to Find Hope
G Kolata, NY Times, October 10, 2022

Encouraging data from preliminary studies are making some doctors feel optimistic about developing immunizations against pancreatic, colon and breast cancers. That view is a far cry from where the field was a decade ago, when researchers had all but given up. Studies that would have seemed like a pipe dream are now underway. Researchers foresee a time when anyone with a precancerous condition or a genetic predisposition to cancer could be vaccinated and protected.

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Disclaimer: Articles listed in the Public Health Genomics and Precision Health Knowledge Base are selected by the CDC Office of Public Health Genomics to provide current awareness of the literature and news. Inclusion in the update does not necessarily represent the views of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention nor does it imply endorsement of the article's methods or findings. CDC and DHHS assume no responsibility for the factual accuracy of the items presented. The selection, omission, or content of items does not imply any endorsement or other position taken by CDC or DHHS. Opinion, findings and conclusions expressed by the original authors of items included in the update, or persons quoted therein, are strictly their own and are in no way meant to represent the opinion or views of CDC or DHHS. References to publications, news sources, and non-CDC Websites are provided solely for informational purposes and do not imply endorsement by CDC or DHHS.

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