This should be the golden age of vaccines

A new study in The Journal of the American Medical Association describes an astounding benefit of receiving the COVID-19 vaccine.

The study, which was undertaken to assess the risks and benefits of SARS-CoV-2 vaccination during pregnancy, didn't just find that women who had taken the vaccine were better protected against getting COVID. It found an overall decrease in premature births as well as a lower incidence of hospitalization for both mother and child. And getting the shot during pregnancy worked even better than getting it before.

Still, as Scientific American reports:

Despite that evidence, the Trump administration’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has removed the recommendation for pregnant people to get vaccinated against COVID, which Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has said he “couldn’t be more pleased” about.

The relationship between the COVID-19 vaccine and lower rates of premature birth is just one of the positive results for vaccines already in use. Multiple studies published in 2025 showed a strong link between the vaccine against shingles and a reduced risk of Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia.

The first of those studies looked at 100,000 adults in the United States who received a vaccine for shingles and compared them to other adults who didn't get that vaccine. It found that those who received the shingles vaccine enjoyed a 17% increase in the time before any diagnoses of dementia.

The second looked at an even larger group in Wales and Australia, where strict age guidelines on the start of vaccination led to a striking difference. In the cohort born just after the start of vaccination, there was an abrupt decline among those diagnosed with cognitive impairment over the next nine years. For those living with dementia, the shingles vaccine also resulted in a lower level of deaths due to dementia.

It's not yet clear that the Varicella-Zoster Virus, which causes shingles along with chicken pox, is also a cause of dementia. But there seems to be a strong connection.

This relationship is part of a growing understanding that many diseases once thought to have other causes are actually the result of infection. For decades, stomach ulcers were thought to be caused by stress and diet, but in the 1980s, researchers showed that Helicobacter pylori bacteria are the primary cause. Gardasil, the vaccine that prevents the development of cervical, vaginal, and vulvar cancers in women, along with anal cancer and some rare mouth and throat cancers in both men and women, isn't actually a vaccine against any component found in the cancer cells. It protects against human Papillomavirus, which can cause those cancers years after the initial infection.

Meanwhile, updated results on immunotherapeutic vaccines to fight pancreatic cancer continue to show astounding results. That's true for both a "one-size-fits-all" vaccine, where about 85% of patients demonstrated a significant immunological response to a key component of pancreatic cancer cells after repeated doses, and for personalized vaccines developed for each patient using MRNA.

Pancreatic cancer is one of the most awful diagnoses anyone can receive. The five-year survival rate is only around 13% and 80% of cancers return even after surgery and chemotherapy. Steve Jobs is one of those who died from pancreatic cancer at the age of 56, showing that no amount of money could protect you from this absolute bastard of a disease — until now.

This vaccine represents what may be the only real hope of survival for the 67,000 Americans diagnosed with pancreatic cancer each year. And yet, Robert Kennedy Jr. has celebrated the cancellation of MRNA vaccine research, claiming that MRNA vaccines can "encourage new mutations and can actually prolong pandemics," which is 100% pure conspiracy theory BS.

However, with multiple breakthroughs on the horizon, including the tantalizing possibility of a vaccine against multiple forms of cancer, Health and Human Services is "winding down" MRNA vaccine research.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has announced a plan to end mRNA vaccine work funded by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), a major escalation of Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign against both vaccines and mRNA in general.

That cut also ended development of a vaccine against bird flu, which, while it may have fallen out of the news, continues to pose a looming threat.

The science is golden. But the politics ... that's just dark.