Let’s be clear: The primary reason to be vaccinated against shingles is that two shots provide at least 90% protection against a painful, blistering disease that a third of Americans will suffer in their lifetimes, one that can cause lingering nerve pain and other nasty long-term consequences.

The most important reason for older adults to be vaccinated against the respiratory infection RSV is that their risk of being hospitalized with it declines by almost 70% in the year they get the shot, and by nearly 60% over 2 years.

And the main reason to roll up a sleeve for an annual flu shot is that when people do get infected, it also reliably reduces the severity of illness, though its effectiveness varies by how well scientists have predicted which strain of influenza shows up.

But other reasons for older people to be vaccinated are emerging. They are known, in doctor-speak, as off-target benefits, meaning that the shots do good things beyond preventing the diseases they were designed to avert.

The list of off-target benefits is lengthening as “the research has accumulated and accelerated over the last 10 years,” said William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee.

The strongest evidence for off-target benefits, dating back 25 years, shows reduced cardiovascular risk following flu shots.

Stanford researchers seized on a natural experiment in Wales in 2013, when the first shingles vaccine, Zostavax, became available to older people who had not yet turned 80. Anyone who had was ineligible.

Over 7 years, dementia rates in participants who had been eligible for vaccination declined by 20% — even though only half had actually received the vaccine — compared with those who narrowly missed the cutoff.

https://www.medscape.com/s/viewarticle/vaccines-are-helping-older-people-more-than-we-knew-2026a10001ix?ecd=wnl_tp10_daily_260117_MSCPEDIT_etid8032703&uac=298313PJ&impID=8032703

In addition to the post above, mRNA technology has been used to help fight skin cancer and melonoma.........

Moderna mRNA-based drug cut the risk of recurrence or death when combined with immunotherapy Keytruda

 In combination with an approved immunotherapy, the mRNA drug cut the risk of recurrence or death nearly in half after five years compared with melanoma patients who got only the immunotherapy, drugmaker Moderna said.

Moderna is developing the drug, called intismeran autogene, in partnership with Merck, which makes Keytruda, the immunotherapy used in the trial.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/moderna-mrna-based-drug-cut-the-risk-of-recurrence-or-death-when-combined-with-immunotherapy-keytruda/YIEAZAPP5ZEE3PWJLVRU6XFI3E