Fact Check: Are COVID Vaccines Being Used To Beat Cancer? – Newsweek

President Joe Biden's State of the Union Speech on Thursday attempted to set out achievements in office from the economy to foreign policy, amid booing echoes from Republican detractors, particlarly over immigration.

After Biden's speech, a CNN poll found that 62 percent of people who watched it said the policies proposed by the president would move the country in the right direction. The poll of 529 people was conducted by researchers SSRS.

Former President Donald Trump called the address "angry" and "polarizing" as the two men prepare for their likely matchup in November's presidential election.

One statement, however, that invited disbelief outside of Congress was one claim that vaccines used to treat COVID were now being used in the fight against cancer.

The Claim

During his State of The Union Address on March 7, 2024, President Joe Biden said: "The pandemic no longer controls our lives. The vaccines that saved us from COVID are now being used to help beat cancer, turning setback into comeback. That's what America does."

The Facts

The president's comments were met, by some, with incredulity.

Right-wing commentator @EndWokeness, posted on X, formerly Twitter, on March 7, 2024, viewed 1.5 million times, with an upload of the SOTU speech, writing "Biden announces that the COVID vaccine is being used to cure cancer."

Entrepreneur and conservative conspiracist Mario Nawfal also wrote, in a post viewed 162,000 times: "BIDEN: COVID VACCINES FIX CANCER."

Whether it was disbelief, or a very literal interpretation of Biden's comments, that the patented COVID vaccines were being used for other treatments, the remark picked up attention.

However, research since the pandemic has found that the technology used in the COVID vaccines may be useful in the treatment of other life-threatening illnesses and conditions.

In August 2023, Biden announced the launch of a new program to develop messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, the same technology used in COVID-19 vaccines, to train immune systems to "fight cancer, autoimmune disorders, and infectious diseases more effectively."

The $24 million "Curing the Uncurable via RNA-Encoded Immunogene Tuning" or CUREIT will investigate how "mRNA and related technologies" can trigger immune responses, such as prompting immune cells to target and attack tumors.

Interest in mRNA research has exploded since the pandemic with global trials underway that will examine whether an mRNA treatment can be used to treat melanoma, lung cancer, and other cancers. mRNA is a molecule that essentially teaches human cells how to trigger an immune response to the disease.

In traditional vaccines, a piece of a virus, known as an "antigen," would be injected into the body to force the immune system to make antibodies to fight off future infection. But mRNA-based methods do not use a live virus.

In the case of COVID, mRNA vaccines give cells the instructions to make a "spike" protein also found on the surface of the virus that causes COVID. The body kickstarts its immune response by creating the antibodies needed to combat those specific virus proteins.

Once the spike protein is created, the cell breaks down the instructions provided by the mRNA molecule, leaving the human immune system prepared to combat infection. The mRNA vaccines are not a medicine, nor a cure, but a preventative measure.

Studies have already found that personalized mRNA vaccines may help trigger anti-tumor responses. A 2023 study funded by the National Institutes of Health found a strong anti-tumor immune response among half of a group of pancreatic cancer patients who were given an mRNA vaccine.

While some researchers have looked at tumor regressive responses to COVID-19 vaccines in animal or small-scale human observation, it seems that only a bad faith or narrow interpretation of Biden's comments could have driven the idea that he was literally referring to the treatments developed by Pfizer, Moderna and others, and not new technologies.

The Ruling

True.

mRNA technology used to develop the COVID vaccines is being used in new trials to treat a potentially wide range of cancers. The White House announced $24 million in funding last August which would, in part, explore the use of mRNA vaccination technology in the treatment of cancer.

The comments about Biden appear to be a literal interpretation of his words i.e. that the exact same vaccines used to treat COVID-19 will be used to treat cancer too.

FACT CHECK BY Newsweek's Fact Check team

Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

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Fact Check: Are COVID Vaccines Being Used To Beat Cancer? - Newsweek