This week, Florida’s Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo took the drastic step of calling for a halt to the administration of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, citing a discredited theory that posits the jabs may carry “risks of contaminant DNA integration into human DNA.”
Let’s be clear: Ladapo’s claims are utterly false.
He neglected to mention that the FDA has firmly rebutted the idea of the vaccines’ genotoxicity. And consider this: COVID-19 vaccines are among the safest and most effective vaccines in public health, with over a billion doses of the mRNA vaccines administered.
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Ladapo is a doctor, so many people will believe him. But his claims are false and dangerous. Disinformation on vaccine safety will cost lives, not only from COVID-19, but also from pandemics that have yet to come—as well as from childhood diseases that are entirely preventable, including measles and chickenpox.
Dr. Ladapo claimed that Simian Virus 40 (SV40) promoter/enhancer DNA fragments are present in the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines and would integrate with our own DNA—a scary scenario, but completely untrue. The FDA resolutely refuted these dubious claims, citing the implausibility of such integration and a lack of evidence for genotoxicity—scientific conclusions Dr. Ladapo continues to reject or even ignore.
No SV40 proteins are present in the mRNA vaccines, which merely signal the immune system to attack the COVID-19 virus. Moreover, no safety concerns related to residual DNA fragments have been raised from the scores of people who have received the vaccines. The FDA warned that vaccine “misinformation and disinformation" like that offered by the Florida Surgeon General results in lower uptake of vaccines, contributing to continued severe outcomes from COVID-19, especially among the most vulnerable.
Dr. Ladapo also is confused about the differences between DNA and mRNA vaccines. The distinction is important: while DNA vaccines carry a hypothetical risk of integration into the host’s genome, mRNA vaccines do not because they target the cytoplasm outside the nucleus (where DNA is located). And while Dr. Ladapo criticizes the FDA, it’s important to understand that the FDA’s guidance is fully aligned with all other rigorous regulatory authorities, ranging from the WHO to the European Medicines Agency and the United Kingdom’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency. There is worldwide scientific agreement on the vaccines’ safety and effectiveness.
Beyond being inaccurate, his claims are irresponsible. The mRNA vaccines for COVID-19 have been a spectacular success.
Without mRNA technology, it would have taken many years to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, while mRNA vaccines were marketed within one year. Their rapid development and uptake made reducing the severity of the pandemic possible. One study in the Lancet estimated that COVID-19 vaccines prevented 14.4 million global deaths from COVID-19 between December 2020 and December 2021, rising to 19.8 million deaths averted when using excess deaths as an estimate of the pandemic’s true toll. Recommending against the use of mRNA vaccines despite robust evidence of their success is not just foolish but dangerous, particularly at a time when rates of COVID-19 are rising throughout the country along with other respiratory diseases.
Over 29,000 patients were admitted to hospital with COVID-19 in the week ending Dec. 23, according to CDC data—a 16.7% increase from the week prior. COVID-19 is not going away any time soon, and eroding the public’s confidence in vaccines removes them from our arsenal of effective tools in fighting the disease.
More worrisome is that Dr. Ladapo’s move could erode trust in mRNA technology generally. It is a remarkable technology, whose inventors received the prestigious Nobel Prize in Medicine. And mRNA technology is likely to bring us vaccines for existing and future threats. Several mRNA products are in clinical trials for influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), which are currently causing major spikes in hospitalizations.
Most vaccines use a weakened or inactivated version of a virus to trigger an immune response. Developing vaccines with these crude technologies and modifying them to be effective against viral mutations is hugely time consuming and expensive.
By contrast, mRNA vaccines “teach” the body's cells how to produce proteins that train the immune system how to recognize and fight off a virus. These vaccines cannot enter the nucleus of the cell where our DNA is located. What results is a platform or “plug-and-play” technology to create vaccines in rapid time and at lower cost.
As platform technologies, mRNA vaccines and therapeutics have the potential to prevent and eliminate countless other diseases, even cancer. Allowing disinformation about how these technologies work to run rampant would diminish these vast possibilities for global health by eroding public trust in the technology. Already, Idaho has a bill pending that would criminalize giving an mRNA vaccine.
Surgeons general are highly respected figures who are entrusted with safeguarding the public’s health. We look to public health officials for reliable information on how to keep ourselves and our families healthy and safe. As Florida Surgeon General, Dr. Ladapo is entrusted with the public’s welfare and yet has repeatedly offered up anti-science and anti-vaccination disinformation, revealing a pattern of abuse of the public trust.
The truth is that vaccination is a modern miracle. When we invest in vaccines, they repay us with our lives. But technological advancements in vaccination can only take us so far. Without trust in the science—trust in public health—lifesaving tools will languish and lives will be lost.
