Doctors decry RFK Jr decision to slash vaccine grants

Julia Musto, The Independent

Doctors are sounding the alarm about potentially deadly consequences of the Donald Trump administration's decision to slash $500 million in funding for mRNA vaccine development, saying the "deeply troubling" move could leave Americans defenceless in the face of a biological attack, or another pandemic. Leading physicians and vaccine specialists were among the medical and scientific experts who told The Independent that years of progress had been lost, including the lessons learned during Covid.

"This is a deeply troubling development that will, in the short term, leave the US poorly prepared for a pandemic or biological attack, and, in the long term, stifle medical innovation upon which so many Americans depend for life saving cures," Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at the Brown University School of Public Health, said in an email.

Health and Human Services Sec. Robert F Kennedy Jr announced on Tuesday the termination of 22 projects, including contracts with Emory University and Covid shot-makers Moderna, Pfizer, and AstraZeneca. "We're shifting that funding toward safer, broader vaccine platforms that remain effective even as viruses mutate," Kennedy said. While Kennedy, who has questioned Covid vaccine safety and previously falsely claimed the measles vaccine contains foetal debris, cited a review of "the science" in terminating the project. But Dr Nuzzo said the "attack on mRNA vaccine technology rests on phony and false claims, proven so by real facts and evidence".

She continued: "It is, however, aligned with his long-held and deadly determination to sow doubts about all vaccines and to restrict the ability of the American people to access vaccines. Our nation will pay dearly for this decision in dollars and lives."

The mRNA vaccines work differently from traditional vaccines, which inject a weakened virus into the body to trigger an immune response. Instead, mRNA vaccines teach the cells to make small and harmless pieces of virus that trigger the same response. The anti-vaxxer movement and Kennedy have inaccurately claimed that mRNA Covid vaccines are deadly and that vaccines "poisoned" American children but they are safe according to decades of public research and countless government assessments.

The only mRNA vaccines currently available are Covid vaccines. They were able to be brought to market so quickly because scientists didn't need the virus to make them, and the vaccine material can be created in a lab. Research also has been underway to produce mRNA vaccines against cancer and other infectious diseases, work that has been going on for decades.

"While most would associate mRNA vaccine technology with Covid, it was in development for over half a century and the US government's partnership in that development goes back decades," Richard Hughes IV, a former vice president of public policy at mRNA vaccine manufacturer Moderna who teaches vaccine law at George Washington University Law School, told The Independent.

"These kinds of partnerships are what drive innovation and save us from public health emergencies. When we lose this kind of progress, we create future public health risks."

Scientists know it's only a matter of time before the next pandemic, when vaccines may once again be needed en masse. Dr. Jake Scott, an infectious diseases physician and Clinical Associate Professor at Stanford University School of Medicine, said that no other vaccine technology could provide the world with a vaccine as quickly as is need during a pandemic. He noted that Kennedy's decision was rewriting the history of the pandemic and the lifesaving track record of mRNA vaccines. "Vaccines aren't some niche drug. We're not talking about some rare skin cancer drug. We're talking about medicines that apply to literally every human being on the planet and we should have learned from the Covid pandemic that everyone is potentially susceptible to pandemic," Dr Scott said.

In what experts have labelled an assault on science, the Trump administration has eliminated grants and dramatically reduced the workforce of federal health and science agencies. Theses actions, and Kennedy's mRNA cuts, are likely in response to government vaccine mandates and restrictions, Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine expert at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, told The Independent.