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Earlier this month, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced he’s cutting nearly $500 million in funding for mRNA vaccine development from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority. Famously, mRNA technology is what led to safe and effective COVID vaccines less than a year after the start of the pandemic.
The $500 million cuts to vaccine contracts will target COVID and flu research, but experts say the effects will stretch beyond this. These cancellations will make waves for other aspects of health within the United States and sow further distrust in science and medicine, experts told HuffPost.
Kennedy has a history of anti-vaccine beliefs and has falsely linked vaccines to autism, a claim that has been debunked over and over.
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When asked about the negative impacts of these cuts, Andrew Nixon, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, told HuffPost, “The COVID pandemic has long been over and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is applying the latest, gold-standard science and shifting investment for vaccine development in new vaccine technologies — based on whole-virus inactivated vaccines, which offer a broader immune response and have a longer track record of safety and public acceptance.”
The statement goes on: “mRNA technology received substantial investment through Operation Warp Speed, and HHS’ decision to wind down its mRNA vaccine development activities marks a necessary pivot in how we steward public health innovations in vaccines. This is a continuation of the Operation Warp Speed model of investing in technology with the most potential to help Americans.”
Doctors and scientists who spoke to HuffPost disagree with this decision for a multitude of reasons and want you to know that this will impact your health.
First of all, RFK Jr.’s reasons to pull back mRNA funding aren’t accurate, experts say.
Four experts told HuffPost that Kennedy’s claims about mRNA vaccines aren’t accurate.
Kennedy has said the mRNA vaccine can’t keep up with COVID mutations, which is “completely incorrect,” said Lucky Tran, a scientist and public health communicator. Kennedy also claimed the vaccines don’t work well against upper respiratory tract infections, “which is absolutely wrong,” said Dr. Paul Offit, the director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, who has published a Substack post debunking Kennedy’s mRNA claims.
″[Kennedy] has some ideas, some thoughts, that are just not scientifically accurate about vaccinations in general,” added Dr. Bobby Mukkamala, the president of the American Medical Association.
Kennedy also uses terms that don’t apply to this kind of virus, and “he sounds like he knows what he’s talking about, he uses scientific terms,” Offit said. But, once again, he’s not right.
“He shouldn’t say anything. Really, just don’t say anything — just say ’I’m doing it because I want to do it … just be honest — ‘I’m doing it because I don’t like mRNA technology, because I’m trying to firm up my political base, and I know that my base doesn’t like mRNA technology,’” Offit said.
“That would be a lot more honest than trying to give scientific reasons that are wrong,” Offit said.
An HHS spokesperson disputed that notion, saying that Kennedy “bases his policy decisions on the latest gold standard science, guided by a team of highly qualified experts.”
These cuts mean we won’t be prepared for the next pandemic.
MRNA technology is what allowed for the development of the COVID vaccine in 2020.
“The hero of the COVID pandemic … is NIH [the National Institutes of Health], and the reason that they’re the hero is in 2002-2003 when [SARS-CoV-1] raised its head again in China, NIH began working on a mRNA SARS-1 vaccine,” Offit said.
While SARS-CoV-1 never took off in the United States, it infected thousands of people in other parts of the world. As it spread, scientists in the United States researched how to make an mRNA vaccine for coronavirus in case it was needed (no vaccine was made or needed since it didn’t impact the U.S.), Offit explained. So, when SARS-CoV-2 came around in 2020, scientists had previous research to work from when developing a COVID vaccine.
With Kennedy’s $500 million funding cuts to BARDA, “you lose a lot of that research development so that when the next pandemic comes in … you won’t have that information. So at the very least, we’re going to be less prepared,” Offit said.
No one wants to think about living through another pandemic, but it could happen, and mRNA technology allows scientists to quickly develop vaccines based on decades and decades of research, said Elisabeth Marnik, the chief science officer at Those Nerdy Girls, an online organization dedicated to sharing accurate health and science information.
“If you cancel research, even if it’s just for COVID or flu vaccine research, that built a lot of basic technology that you can use to treat other diseases. And so that’s now under threat.”
– Lucky Tran
“We know the technology works, we know the safety of the technology, and we can just tweak that one part, that mRNA sequence, to apply to whatever virus that we’re trying to tackle,” she said.
“Cutting this research funding looking into how mRNA vaccines could work for these other respiratory viruses is sad, because, again, it’s going to make it harder for us to develop new vaccines, particularly for illnesses where we might need to do so quickly in the case of a future pandemic,” Marnik said.
Illustration: HuffPost; Photo: Getty Images
MRNA technology can be used for other medical treatments, too.
“Messenger RNA [mRNA], although it’s been vilified for political reasons, is really a molecule of life, and it’s a molecule of hope. It’s a fundamental molecule that exists in all of our bodies and required for all life to exist,” Tran said.
“In terms of technology, mRNA is one of the most promising technologies for preventing and treating not just COVID but any kind of disease that you can think of,” Tran added.
There are mRNA vaccines in clinical trials for things like HIV, cystic fibrosis, Alzheimer’s, diabetes and even certain kinds of cancer, Tran said.
While the funding cuts target COVID and flu, the full scope is not clear, Tran added. And, either way, the cuts will have huge impacts on COVID and other disease research.
“But what people need to understand is that … if you cancel research, even if it’s just for COVID or flu vaccine research, that built a lot of basic technology that you can use to treat other diseases. And so that’s now under threat,” explained Tran.
If someone is diagnosed with a cancer that doesn’t have a standard treatment, it’s important to fund research that’s finding new ways to treat that cancer, said Mukkamala.
“Just imagine all of the countless lives that we could save if we funded science and made sure this technology was continued to be supported,” Tran said.
Kennedy’s funding cuts will make the U.S. — and the world — more vulnerable to disease outbreaks and less able to treat chronic illnesses, Tran said.
“To cut the funding because you don’t think it’s a good way to treat COVID is indirectly saying, ‘I don’t think it’s a good big way to treat anything,’” Mukkamala said.
And, Kennedy has praised mRNA technology when used for certain things, Offit said.
“I think it is ironic that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. hails the work that was done at our hospital, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, for that small child who had a liver enzyme defect, and that liver enzyme defect was ameliorated by providing him with the gene he needed … so, we did a gene therapy on a little baby. Well, how was that gene therapy administered? With mRNA,” Offit said.
“So, on the one hand, [Kennedy] constantly criticizes the mRNA technology as a platform, and then on the other hand, he hails its technology when it’s used for gene therapy,” Offit noted.
When asked for comment, HHS spokesperson Nixon said, “HHS is continuing to invest in ongoing research on applications in cancer and other complex diseases.”
It further sows distrust in mRNA technology.
According to Tran, targeting mRNA technology will create mistrust regarding mRNA-based technologies. (This comes at a time when vaccine hesitancy, in general, is at a high. Vaccination rates in kindergarteners are decreasing.)
Mistrust in mRNA has a chilling effect on all parties — patients may be wary of safe mRNA treatments, researchers may be less likely to study mRNA if they’re tracking the funding instability and pharmaceutical companies, which are very risk-averse, may not want to pursue frequently politicized mRNA technology, Tran explained.
This could be the difference between a patient receiving lifesaving treatment or that lifesaving treatment existing at all.
“It’s going to instill uncertainty in general, in terms of, is the FDA going to even be willing to consider this technology? Are they going to have this bias, regardless of what the data says?” Marnik added.
It’ll set America back as a leader in science.
As projects are canceled, scientists may look to continue their research elsewhere, in places where it will be funded.
“I think that there are a number of people in this country who work on mRNA technology who will likely leave and go to other countries that are advancing the technology, including China and Germany and others,” Offit said.
The move to limit mRNA funding in the U.S. may benefit other countries that want to scoop up these researchers, he added.
“There’s a lot of things America does well. One of them is science. We are a beacon of science in this world. And I think that this dims the light,” Offit noted.
It will take time for projects to move overseas, said Tran, which will delay mRNA advancements. This could be deadly for folks with conditions that could benefit from these emerging treatments, Tran added.
More, if there is a time when we need mRNA technology from another country, we’ll be “shopping in the yellow pages,” said Mukkamala, and asking other countries what technology they have that we could use.
“That’s just not good as a leading country when it comes to research on this planet,” added Mukkamala.
It’ll hurt the economy and cause job loss.
Beyond health impacts, these funding cuts will likely mean job loss, too.
“Those grants that were canceled were paying for research positions, and maybe some of those people will find new jobs, but some of them might not be able to, because that money is gone,” Marnik said.
There’s going to be an economic factor to these funding cuts, she noted — “because not only is this money being used to further scientific progress and improve human health, but it’s also creating jobs and fueling local economies, and any type of cut is going to have impact on the economy.”
With so much impacting the economy right now, like Donald Trump’s tariffs and more, it’s hard for folks to understand that these science funding cuts also have a big economic impact, Marnik said.
There are things you can do to advocate for science funding.
You don’t have to sit back and watch as this scary reality unfolds. Instead, you can speak up in support of science.
You can do this by calling your local elected officials and advocating for the funding of science, Tran said. “Because I think at the end of the day … biomedical research benefits everyone who [your elected officials] are meant to represent.”
There have been budgetary wins in the past after folks spoke up and marched in the name of science, he noted.
“Speaking up really does work, organizing does work and supporting that research really does work,” Tran said.
“But I think even more basic than that is just talking about how amazing this technology is with your friends and family, building that trust, because I feel a lot of trust happens at the local level, like between your friends and family,” Tran said.
Let your family know you’re getting the COVID shot and tell your friends about the potential advancements of mRNA technology, Tran said.
“There are these real conversations we can all have within our communities that will make a difference,” Tran said.