At our annual meeting, we had a talk from Rational Vaccine CEO Agustin Fernandez on how he was involved.
“I get facial cold sores. I probably caught them as a child but as an adult they suddenly got really bad: I was lucky if I had a week between recurrences. The pain on my face and around my eye was terrible. Even high doses of antivirals did not work for me. I literally tried everything.
Then I read online that Dr William (Bill) Halford, a professor at a university in Southern Illinois, had created a vaccine.
In 2010, he was diagnosed with cancer and given a year to live. His 20 years of research was all going to die with him. [It meant that he knew didn’t have time to go through regular medical hoops.] So, he used vaccine on himself and had no unwanted effects. Tests showed that it appeared to give him immunity [antibodies] that would prevent him from catching it. So he injected his family. He wrote about it and patients started calling him.
He knew that chickenpox vaccine works both as a preventative and as a treatment and that it is a similar virus. [Chickenpox is human herpes virus type 3.] So, he thought his new vaccine, created as a preventative jab, could also work as a treatment. He started giving it to students at his university who asked for it. And that was when I read about it.
I got the injections
I called him from Universal Studios, LA, where I was a film producer. At that time, I was really, really desperate. I was in pain all the time. I told him: “I’ll give you all my money, I have to get this.” He explained that it was illegal for him to sell it, but that he would give it to me. I went to Illinois. He gave me three injections, once a month. After the third one, my outbreaks stopped.
I could not believe it. It was amazing. This was about 2013. Over the next three years I had three or four outbreaks. The nerve pain was gone. But Bill told me that I might need boosters, so I felt I had to make sure the vaccine remained available.
I pretty much left my life in California and moved to Illinois and studied virology with Dr Halford. It was amazing to work with this brilliant mind. There I met other doctors, such as Dr Gershberg who is still involved in the project, and I learnt so much. In 2015, I licenced, from his university, the technology that Bill had created. And with Bill, I co-founded the company.
I wanted the study to be done properly. But Bill, knowing his cancer had come back aggressively, decided he was going to take the vaccine to St Kitts – in the photo.
By doing injections in the Caribbean, he would avoid USA’s Food and Drug Administration’s requirements and regulations. He met with the authorities in St Kitts and got permission. I raised the money to fund this phase 1 study.
He injected 21 patients, most from the US, some from England. I met so many other patients. All of them were serious sufferers, people having more than 12 outbreaks a year, some were having 24. I learned that I was not the worst!
When he went back to his university, they really lauded him. The mayor of the town declared his birthday ‘Bill Halford Day.’ They presented the research to Congress. And I raised a bit more money from Peter Thiel.
Rational Vaccines applies to the authorities
In 2016, I had to take over the company when Bill died. About a year later, a lot of bad press came up because we had not got FDA appro-val. I went to meet with the FDA with a team of lawyers because the press looked so bad. The FDA were actually very gracious but did say that we would have to repeat phase 1 in the USA. This is customary. But at the same time, we had a meeting with the MHRA [Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Authorly] in England. They were truly fantastic. The assessors knew everything. They knew about Bill’s irregular behaviour, but commented that:
“We want to cure herpes in humans, not in mice. [Bill had skipped that stage.] So, this phase 1 data is very reassuring. Please submit for an ILAP [an ‘innovative license and accessing passport’] study here. Make sure you use the same product you used in St Kitts, because that’s what you have data on.”
England really adopted us, they understood the need and gave us the fast track. It cost us about $40 million to establish the ‘Good Manufacturing Practice’ that they require to ensure the product remains consistent all through the trials.
We had everything ready to go for phase 2… And then Covid hit. We couldn’t get the vaccine manufactured; we couldn’t get trial sites. Some of our investors said we should close the company down. But I was optimistic, so we didn’t.
Long safety data
However, during Covid, in the US, we were able to do safety follow-ups on all the patients we could find out of the 21 vaccinated in the Caribbean. We also found some of the patients from Halford’s first vaccinations in 2010 and his family members. This gave our little company remarkably long safety follow-up data. These people had an immune response that showed that ten years later they still have immunity.
Now we are raising money… The vaccine is available in Honduras; in Germany people can get it through an ‘early access programme.’ We hope to soon be able to provide it in Montana and Texas through an early access programme.
We are working with a global manufacturing company. Our plan is to gear up to run a trial that will lead us to official approval in the UK and other countries.”
We thanked Agustin. Keep up with all research: you get monthly updates from us by subscribing.
Page published 14/10/2026
