Potential Vaccines on the Horizon for RSV 

Respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, made headlines last fall after children’s hospitals were at capacity due to infections with the common – but potentially dangerous – virus.  

People can be reinfected with RSV often throughout their lifetimes. For most, it causes a mild cold, with a runny nose, cough or fever. But infants and older adults are at higher risk of a severe infection and hospitalization – especially those with heart and lung disease or weakened immune systems, or premature and very young babies.
  
There is no vaccine for RSV. But that could change soon for these at-risk groups. 

In two articles, Managing Editor Lori Robertson explains that after decades of research, promising vaccine candidates, and a monoclonal antibody that would act like a vaccine for infants, are moving through the FDA approval process.
 
In these Q&A stories, Lori answers questions about the risks of RSV, how these potential vaccines work, why we’re seeing a crop of candidates now, and what the clinical trials have shown about their effectiveness and safety. 

Dr. William Schaffner, medical director of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, told Lori that we’re “on the threshold of being able to really make an impact on RSV both in infancy and in adults.” 

FDA decisions on the medical products are expected this year.  

For more, see “Q&A on RSV Vaccine Candidates for Older Adults” and “Q&A on RSV Maternal Vaccine and Antibody Candidates to Protect Infants.” 

Reader: Is the following statement true??? Statement made on Fox News: "Consider the case of Hillary Clinton who secretly funded the anti-Trump dossier in 2016 by deploying campaign lawyers to pay ex-British spy Christopher Steele more than $1 million dollars to compose his phony document".

FactCheck.org Director Eugene Kiely: You are referring to a Fox News story written by legal analyst and commentator Gregg Jarrett, who wrote:

Consider the case of Hillary Clinton, who secretly funded the anti-Trump dossier in 2016 by deploying campaign lawyers to pay ex-British spy Christopher Steele more than $1 million dollars to compose his phony document. Candidate Clinton listed it as a "legal expense," even though its sole purpose was to advance her campaign against Trump, her opponent. The Federal Election Commission fined Clinton for brazenly violating campaign finance laws. 

He is correct that the Clinton campaign was fined. Here's what happened:

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Hillary for America (the Clinton campaign) filed campaign finance reports with the Federal Election Commission that showed it paid the law firm of Perkins Coie $175,000 for "legal services." Perkins Coie hired Fusion GPS to conduct opposition research on Donald Trump – research that became known as the “Steele dossier.”

FEC regulations state that campaign expenses reported to the FEC "must be sufficiently specific to make the purpose of the disbursement clear." The FEC determined that there was "probable cause to believe" that the Clinton campaign violated campaign finance law by "misreporting the purpose" of the payment to Perkins Coie. In an agreement with the FEC dated Feb. 22, 2022, the Clinton campaign agreed to pay a civil penalty of $8,000 without admitting guilt. 

According to the FEC, the Democratic National Committee paid Perkins Coie $849,407.97 and the Clinton campaign paid $175,000 – for a total of $1,024,407.97. Perkins Coie paid a total of $1,024,407.97 to Fusion GPS in 2016, the agreement says. Jarrett’s reference to the $1 million included money paid to Perkins Coie by both Clinton and the DNC. 

Republicans often cite the Steele dossier as the reason that the FBI started an investigation of Russia and the Trump campaign – an investigation known internally as "Crossfire Hurricane." But that’s a false narrative, as we have written on several occasions. On Dec. 9, 2019, the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General released a report that, among other things, said “Steele’s reports played no role in the Crossfire Hurricane opening.” 

Wrapping Up

Here's what else we've got for you this week:

• "Migrants DeSantis Flew to Martha’s Vineyard Were Not ‘Deported the Next Day,’ as He Claimed": The nearly 50 migrants Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis flew from San Antonio to Martha’s Vineyard in September were later moved to a shelter at a military base several miles away in Massachusetts. After that, most of them found housing in other parts of the state.
• "No Evidence Scientists Received Grant for Changing Opinion on Pandemic Origins, Contrary to Claims": Republican Rep. Jim Jordan baselessly suggested that former NIAID director Dr. Anthony Fauci gave scientists one of the grants — worth $9 million — to alter the scientific narrative on how the COVID-19 pandemic started. 
• "Diversity Programs Supported by SVB Wrongly Labeled as Donations to BLM": A database that claims to show corporate contributions to the “BLM Movement & Related Causes” doesn’t show any contributions from Silicon Valley Bank to Black Lives Matter. But some conservative commentators are citing it to falsely claim that the bank gave more than $73 million to the organization.
• "Military Equipment Traveling Back to U.S., Contrary to Social Media Posts": A U.S. Army combat team recently completed its European deployment as part of Operation Atlantic Resolve, a series of military exercises in support of NATO. The brigade has returned to Fort Hood, Texas, and its equipment will follow. But social media posts falsely claim the equipment shown in a video is “arriving in Europe” to aid Ukraine. 
• "Fetterman Working on Legislation While in Hospital, Contrary to Social Media Claims": Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman checked into a hospital on Feb. 15 to be treated for clinical depression following his recent stroke. Social media posts falsely claim that Fetterman is “brain dead” and that he hasn’t been seen in public. Fetterman has been shown working from the hospital in a March 6 tweet shared by his chief of staff.

• "Publicaciones difunden falacias sobre el uso de las vacunas contra el COVID-19 en Rusia": Rusia desarrolló una vacuna contra el COVID-19, Sputnik V, en 2020. El presidente Vladimir Putin ha dicho que recibió tres dosis de la vacuna, y el gobierno continúa exhortando a los rusos a vacunarse contra la enfermedad. Pero publicaciones en las redes sociales falsamente afirman que Putin “ordenó la destrucción de todas” las reservas de vacunas contra el COVID-19 en Rusia.