According to Iowa State University’s David Verhoeven, vaccines using mRNA technology have been shown to reduce disease on farms, and it’s all but impossible for them to end up in your food.
While effective vaccines for COVID-19 should have heralded the benefits of mRNA vaccines, fear and misinformation about their supposed dangers circulated at the same time. These misconceptions about mRNA vaccines have recently spilled over into worries about whether their use in agricultural animals could expose people to components of the vaccine within animal products such as meat or milk.
In fact, a number of states are drafting or considering legislation outlawing the use of mRNA vaccines in food animals or, at minimum, requiring their labeling on animal products in grocery stores. Idaho introduced a bill that would make it a misdemeanor to administer any type of mRNA vaccine to any person or mammal, including COVID-19 vaccines. A Missouri bill would have required the labeling of animal products derived from animals administered mRNA vaccines but failed to get out of committee. Arizona and Tennessee have also proposed labeling bills. Several other state legislatures are discussing similar measures.
I am a researcher who has been making vaccines for a number of years, and I started studying mRNA vaccines before the pandemic started. My research on using mRNA vaccines for cattle respiratory viruses has been referenced by social media users and anti-vaccine activists who say that using these vaccines in animals will endanger the health of people who eat them.
But these vaccines have been shown to reduce disease on farms, and it’s all but impossible for them to end up in your food.
Read the full story at Farm Journal’s Pork.
[Source: Farm Journal’s Pork 19 May 2023 by David Verhoeven]