I am a bit embarrassed to admit that I am taking a perverse pleasure in watching this catfight between Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna play out. Not to gloat, but I find it validating and rather satisfying to watch these companies file lawsuits and counter lawsuits that boil down to a schoolyard squabble over who came up with the ideas and initial proof of concept for using mRNA for developing drugs and vaccines – when neither actually did the initial "proof of concept" work. Companies that have exploited and unethically weaponized my early work and ideas for enormous profit while also seeking to write me out of history. "O what a tangled web." 

Just to be clear (for the haters), I received a total of one US dollar for my pioneering work, discoveries, and patents relating to my graduate research involving mRNA delivery at the Salk Institute, UCSD and Vical between 1986 and 1990. I played no role in development of any gene therapy-based COVID vaccine; the record shows that I was one of the early objectors to the rushed worldwide deployment of this technology, and I actively highlighted the (now proven) fact that the SARS-CoV-2 "Spike" protein expressed using this technology is a toxin. For speaking about which I was widely criticized, "fact-checked" and ridiculed in corporate media (and by the likes of Dr. Paul Offit). 

Furthermore, I discovered and documented the profound toxicity (in both cell culture and in animals) associated with the use of cationic lipids for delivering mRNA and DNA during the 1990s, documented and disclosed this at a conference (that I organized) where I invited and first met Dr. K. Kariko (about a decade after my initial work at the Salk).