Both the question and the answer show a serious lack of scientific understanding.

When asked at a U.S. Senate hearing whether she thinks mRNA vaccines are safe and effective, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director nominee Dr. Erica Schwartz replied, "I do believe that mRNA technology is safe and effective."

Both the question and the answer show a serious lack of scientific understanding.

Here's the scientifically accurate answer to the question: We don't know the full safety profile of either of the two types of approved mRNA vaccines or the technology. First, It's all too new. Second, we're not even collecting the full data.

Read on for details.

According to U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) scientists and other experts in the field, comprehensive safety data isn't known until a new drug (including vaccines) has been on the market and in widespread use for 7-12 years.

Even now, we aren't getting full information on safety profiles because the data isn't even being collected in the comprehensive manner required for accurate analysis.

The established scientific process requires that all illnesses after vaccination be meticulously recorded regardless of whether a patient or doctor thinks the illness is actually connected to the vaccine.

Most doctors are not following the process. Some misunderstand. Others are willfully ignoring. And no authority is ensuring they do their job.

Doctors typically aren't even asking their ill patients whether they had an mRNA vaccine (for COVID-19 or RSV), which one(s), and when. So they aren't collecting that crucial data.

Most people, including physicians, don't understand that patients being treated for any illness are supposed to be queried.

This means, for example, someone who comes to the ER with a retinal detachment should be asked if he had a COVID-19 vaccine, which one, how many, and when, and then the data should be reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).

Same with someone who becomes sick with a rash, headaches, tendon rupture, stiff neck, depression or chest congestion. Everything.

Even when patients do tell a physician they think an illness might be vaccine-related, the physician frequently, improperly, determines on the front end that he doesn't need to report the possible adverse event to the established database unless he thinks it's connected to the vaccine. That's not how the system works.

No doctor is qualified to make that determination about a new medicine. All illnesses are supposed to be recorded so that previously unrecognized adverse events can be unearthed.

Additionally, many doctors and patients don't understand — and aren't being told — that adverse events from vaccines and other medicine can arise months or years after the medicine is taken.