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The media learned nothing from COVID. Reporters covered what happened with Moderna's mRNA flu vaccine in a deliberately confusing way, as if they work for the drug company. Here are some things you wouldn't know from reading the legacy press but will read in RACKET: - Moderna compared its mRNA flu vaccine against a flu vaccine that CDC doesn't recommended for seniors and only has ~14% efficacy in people >50. It could be as low as 0%. This is a trick drug companies use to inflate apparent efficacy, but it's unethical. You're not supposed to deny people in the control group the best standard of care. And Moderna didn't answer my questions about that. - Both the Biden and Trump administrations told Moderna that it should pick a vaccine that the CDC actually recommends in seniors to compare with its mRNA one. - Moderna had evidence four years ago its mRNA flu vaccine was actually worse than the standard of care for seniors, but plowed hundreds of millions into the vaccine anyway, daring the FDA to say no (and it actually did!). - Rates of fever and chills were higher after the mRNA flu vaccine than after flu cases in Moderna's clinical trial. Rates of serious side effects that keep you in bed were much higher for the mRNA flu vaccine. - It took the refusal to file to force Moderna into finally committing to study the efficacy of its mRNA vaccine against one of the flu vaccines that CDC actually recommends for seniors. This has been painted by the media either as a dangerously unhinged move (last week) or a capitulation to Moderna (this week) depending on which makes Vinay Prasad look worse any given day. The end result: FDA is finally getting the data it wanted.