John F. Bonamo, M.D., MS, FACOG, FACPE, Executive Vice President and Chief Medical and Quality Officer, RWJBarnabas Health, explains why messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines are much safer than other vaccines we have used in the past.
TRANSCRIPT:
The COVID-19 vaccines that have been developed for COVID are unique in that they are a new type of vaccine called a messenger vaccine, an mRNA vaccine. We have not had an mRNA vaccine before.
These are much safer than vaccines we have used in the past.
In the past, we used inactive germs and inoculated people with the germs. We’re not doing that right now.
We’re inoculating them with a code, to make a protein, to fight off the infection. And so, we don’t have very long-range results because this is brand new.
But they have been working on these for 30-40 years, this type of inoculation. And we are lucky that got it to work for the SARS-CoV-2 virus which is COVID-19.