GUEST COLUMN, Jonathan Agin, Executive Director Prep4Gold

 

The childhood cancer that took my daughter’s life has a near-100% fatality rate — about half of children with the tumor die within 9 months of diagnosis, and less than 1% live past the age of five. There are numerous other forms of childhood cancer that are similarly difficult to treat. Unfortunately, the federally funded National Cancer Institute recently eliminated the entire Pediatric Brain Tumor Consortium, which was about to host an experimental vaccine trial that could have been a breakthrough in the fight against those sorts of tumors.

This is not the only bad news that children with cancer recently received. The Department of Health and Human Services announced major research funding cuts in August, terminating nearly $500 million in mRNA vaccine development contracts as part of a "necessary pivot" away from mRNA technology.

That pivot is a grievous mistake — mRNA technology is one of the most promising paths forward for treating cancer and a slew of other diseases.

Treating cancer is never simple. Each tumor is slightly different, and the genetic mutations that drive cancer are always changing and accumulating. No two patients’ cancers are exactly alike.

And our current arsenal of treatments — systemic therapies like chemotherapy and radiation — are blunt, outdated, "one-size-fits-all" instruments.

When physicians must poison all of their patients to successfully treat a fraction, it is beyond obvious that a new approach is needed.

This is why mRNA technology is so revolutionary. It works by using the body’s own cells to produce harmless fragments of a target protein. The immune system then reacts to this protein, attacking it and creating an effective response for the future. The elegance lies in the platform’s adaptability: mRNA can be reprogrammed and customized quickly to address different threats. This means the mRNA could be designed to target tumor cells — without harming healthy tissues.

The power of this approach has already been demonstrated. During the Covid-19 pandemic, President Trump’s Operation Warp Speed harnessed mRNA to deliver effective vaccines in record time.

It was one of America’s greatest scientific achievements in modern history — and it offered additional benefits to cancer patients. Researchers have found that the vaccine helped "rev up" patients’ immune systems, improving their response to standard immunotherapies. A recent study in Nature concluded that cancer patients who received an mRNA-based Covid-19 vaccine within 100 days of starting therapy were twice as likely to be alive three years after beginning treatment.

Researchers are now building from such successes, testing more personalized mRNA vaccines to generate immune responses in lung, breast, prostate, and even pancreatic and brain tumors. So far, these trials have yielded promising results in some of the deadliest forms of cancer.

The reason for HHS’s pivot wasn’t bad science — it was bad optics. National Institutes of Health director Jay Bhattacharya cited public mistrust as the main reason for a shift away from mRNA technology.

The source of that skepticism is understandable: confusing messaging and mandates during the pandemic undermined public confidence in Covid-19 vaccines specifically and mRNA technology generally. But the answer to mistrust is not retreat. It is education, transparency, and continued support for lifesaving treatments.

The current administration once embraced mRNA and proved what American science is capable of when it has the resources to move quickly and can do so again. Children with the tumor that took my daughter’s life deserve more than outdated therapies; they deserve the best of what American innovation can deliver.

Jonathan Eric Agin is the executive director of PREP4Gold Childhood Cancer Organization, a non-profit focused on childhood cancer prevention. This article originally appeared in the DC Journal.