mRNA in your food

NSW fast tracks vaccines for cattle

A couple of weeks ago the Deputy Premier, Minister for Agriculture of New South Wales (NSW), Australia announced that mRNA vaccines for Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) and Lumpy Skin Disease (LSD) will be fast tracked.

Photo by Daniel Quiceno M on Unsplash

The NSW Department of Primary Industries have partnered with the Queensland Government, the Federal Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and Meat and Livestock Australia. These will be the first mRNA vaccines for these diseases and will be created by US biotech company, Tiba Biotech.

Deputy Premier and Minister for Regional NSW, Paul Toole wants to prepare for a potential outbreak and so has written to vaccine manufacturers to develop both vaccines by 1 August 2023.

Cattle are currently vaccinated for FMD using traditional live attenuated virus vaccines and there is no LSD vaccine in use in Australia. Therefore, Minister for Agriculture, Dugald Saunders, wants mRNA vaccines quickly because they are “cheaper and quicker to produce, highly effective and very safe.”

Except for there haven’t been any trials to see if these vaccines are highly effective and very safe because they haven’t been designed yet.

Meat and Livestock Australia managing director Jason Strong said “This type of vaccine technology may not require the longer testing and approval processes required for conventional vaccine development and importation as it does not use animal products”.

Sounds reassuring?

The NSW Government has spent 229 million Australian Dollars (144 million USD) on biosecurity so far this year.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, mRNA technology is an exciting development but it is relatively new and needs far more extensive testing.

Fact checkers from last year said vaccinated Mothers didn’t have mRNA in their breast milk. Studies this year contradict those fact checks and say they do. Before mRNA is pumped into every animal on the planet, I want long term studies showing what happens to that mRNA, whether it transfers via milk and meat, how long it takes for the mRNA to degrade and most importantly how it interacts with humans if it passes to them.

For all we know, the mRNA could transfer to humans, where our cells start producing proteins from the FMD and LSD viruses.

It’s opening a whole can of worms to not test these things and to fast track approval is ridiculous.

Looks like I will be eating bugs after all!