The Future of Medicine is Now — If Bureaucrats Get Out of the Way

When Jonas Salk developed one of the first polio vaccines, he based the vaccine on a “killed” or deactivated virus as opposed to a live one. That innovative approach bucked the conventional wisdom of the time — and countless people have undoubtedly benefited from it.

Today, we yet again have the opportunity to receive untold benefits from the bold work of scientific trailblazers in our ongoing fight against COVID-19 — if government gets out of the way.

Hungarian-born scientist Katalin “Kati” Kariko has spent her career working on the idea that messenger RNA (mRNA) could direct cells to generate their own therapies and vaccines — the underlying scientific basis of both Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna’s COVID vaccines. Her pioneering approach could change the trajectory of disease and illness for an untold number of future patients in a wide array of disease areas, such as cancer, stroke, and influenza. But much of the impact of Dr. Kariko’s work, while revolutionary, threatens to be stalled by government barricades to medical innovation.

Read the rest of the op-ed at RealClearPolicy.

Naomi Lopez is the Vice President for Healthcare Policy at the Goldwater Institute.