The Hill reports:

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision this week to cancel hundreds of millions of dollars in mRNA vaccine funding will leave the United States unprepared for the next pandemic and other public health emergencies, public health experts warned.

“I’ve tried to be objective & non-alarmist in response to current HHS actions—but quite frankly this move is going to cost lives,” President Trump’s former surgeon general, Jerome Adams, said in a post on the social platform X.

“mRNA technology has uses that go far beyond vaccines … and the vaccine they helped develop in record time is credited with saving millions.”

The first COVID-19 mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna hit the market in 2021, just a year after the virus first appeared. Vaccines typically take years to develop, but the mRNA shots were developed in record time thanks to a massive influx of funding from the first Trump administration, dubbed Operation Warp Speed.

The COVID shots proved safe and effective, and they helped bring about an end to the pandemic. Experts say mRNA technology has the potential to revolutionize treatments for evolving pathogens, especially bird flu, because the platform can be easily modified.

On Tuesday, Kennedy canceled $500 million worth of contracts related to mRNA vaccine research funded by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA).

Instead, he said the agency will focus on platforms with “stronger safety records.”

Public health experts point out that reviews of the hundreds of millions, if not billions, of doses of mRNA shots administered worldwide have found very few adverse events.

“It’s pretty clear that the administration, or at least the secretary, has a political vendetta not just against vaccines but against mRNA in general,” said Jeff Coller, a professor of RNA biology and therapeutics at Johns Hopkins University.

Coller said the move will put the U.S. behind other nations in biomedical research and sends a “clear message” to scientists and the industry that it is not wise to invest in mRNA technology because if they do, they will likely not receive funding or approval from the federal government.

Jennifer Nuzzo, a professor of epidemiology and director of the Pandemic Center at the Brown University School of Public Health, told The Hill that the cancellation is a threat to national security, as it opens the U.S. to future public health emergencies caused by biological warfare.

“One of the ways that we deter that from happening is to say the United States is absolutely committed to preparedness,” Nuzzo said. “When we take them off the table and leave nothing in their place, we basically signal to our adversaries that we are no longer interested in defending ourselves.”

In the long run, Nuzzo said, winding down research efforts on mRNA vaccine platforms will stifle medical innovation coming out of the U.S., including new treatments for diseases like cancer.

“It’s troubling on a number of fronts,” she said. [Continue reading…]