Florida’s surgeon general has warned healthcare providers against using Pfizer and Moderna’s COVID-19 mRNA vaccines due to concerns over genetic contamination.
Joseph Ladapo requested that providers prioritise other non-mRNA vaccines and treatments to ensure patient safety. He also called for the FDA to take greater regulatory responsibility in ensuring the integrity of the human genome.
Gov. Ron DeSantis has echoed concerns over mRNA vaccines and recently stated that Floridians would not be used as “guinea pigs” for unproven booster shots.
In November, Ladapo asked the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to investigate reports of foreign DNA material in Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccines. Ladapo argued that if mRNA vaccines were efficient delivery vehicles for mRNA, they may also be vehicles for delivering contaminant DNA, resulting in a process known as DNA integration. However, on Dec. 14, the FDA Director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, Peter Marks, wrote to Ladapo stating that animal studies over the past decade and global surveillance data showed no evidence of genotoxicity or genomic disruption.
Despite Ladapo’s concerns, the FDA stated that the practical risk of DNA integration was “quite implausible” and refuted the idea that mRNA vaccines presented a viable risk.
Ladapo contested the FDA’s claims, arguing that they had not performed adequate DNA integration assessments and that genotoxicity studies were an insufficient tool for assessing DNA integration risk. According to Ladapo, “If the risks of DNA integration have not been assessed for mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, these vaccines are not appropriate for use in human beings.”
