Social Media Posts Misinterpret Biden on mRNA Cancer Vaccines

COVID-19 vaccines are not “being used to cure cancer,” as social media posts falsely claim, misinterpreting President Joe Biden’s reference to mRNA cancer vaccines during his State of the Union address. Biden was referring to the mRNA technology used to make the COVID-19 vaccines and being studied by researchers to treat cancer.

The Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are the first vaccines using the messenger RNA technology to be approved for use, but they’re not the first ever developed. The history of mRNA vaccines started decades before the pandemic, and included research on mRNA...