While the COVID-19 shots are referred to as “vaccines,” they do not meet the classical definition of a vaccine. Health authorities needed to change the definition1 to accommodate the COVID shots and shut down the argument that, as experimental gene therapies, they may be riskier than traditional vaccines.
Meanwhile, based on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s definition2,3 of “gene therapy” they’re clearly gene therapies, and both Moderna4 and BioNTech5 acknowledge this in their Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) registration statements.