More than 12.7 billion doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered since the treatment became available nearly two years ago. Some have received one or two doses, while others have had multiple doses. Yet many don’t know what these shots actually contain.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) website provides ingredient lists for curious consumers to consider. For example, vials from Moderna and BioNTech/Pfizer famously contain messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA). This is a genetic sequence designed to program your cells to manufacture a spike protein, thereby training the immune system to guard against the signature spike of the COVID-19 virus in the wild.
Less well-known ingredients include a different mix of lipids (fats). Pfizer’s shot, for example, contains 4-hydroxybutyl, and Moderna’s contains SM-102. These shots also include polyethylene glycol, cholesterol, a few salts (such as potassium chloride and sodium chloride), and sucrose (sugar). Johnson and Johnson’s (Janssen’s) vaccine doesn’t contain mRNA but instead features as its main mechanism of immune system training a recombinant, replication-incompetent adenovirus expressing the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein.