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Jonathan Wosen is STAT’s West Coast biotech & life sciences reporter. You can reach Jonathan on Signal at jwosen.27.

Messenger RNA vaccines fueled the response to the worst pandemic the world has faced in a century and led to a Nobel Prize. This week, they’re set to face intense scrutiny from critics doubtful of the safety and efficacy of these shots.

On Wednesday, a subcommittee of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee is holding a hearing on, in its own words, “The Corruption of Science and Federal Health Agencies: How Health Officials Downplayed and Hid Myocarditis and Other Adverse Events Associated with the COVID-19 Vaccines.”

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The hearing comes as some state legislatures look to ban mRNA vaccines, and as the Trump administration is gathering information about mRNA research funded by the National Institutes of Health, triggering fears that grants for such work could soon be terminated. The federal government recently announced plans to focus NIH’s own work on universal flu and coronavirus vaccines employing chemically inactivated whole viruses. 

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