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Yomiuri Shimbun
6 days ago
- Yomiuri Shimbun
How RFK Jr.'S Mrna Crackdown Affects Vaccine Making and Future Pandemics
The Trump administration's decision to terminate hundreds of millions of dollars to develop mRNA vaccines and treatments imperils the country's ability to fight future pandemics and is built on false or misleading claims about the technology, public health experts said. Vaccine development is typically a years-long process, but mRNA technology paired with massive injections of federal funding during the coronavirus pandemic drastically slashed the timeline. The first covid shots, based on mRNA, were in people's arms less than a year after the United States recorded its first coronavirus case – a signature achievement of the first Trump administration. The flexible technology provided a road map for how to quickly respond to pathogens that are constantly evolving, including H5N1 avian bird flu, a candidate to spark the next pandemic. But research into H5N1 mRNA vaccines were among nearly two dozen mRNA projects supported by the government's biodefense agency that were terminated or altered, according to a Department of Health and Human Services statement released Tuesday. The moves affect $500 million in projects, according to HHS, including covid and flu therapeutics and vaccines. 'This represents a significant setback for our preparedness efforts in responding to infectious-disease outbreaks,' said Dawn O'Connell, the former assistant secretary of preparedness and response at HHS during the Biden administration. If viruses change, mRNA can be quickly rebooted and manufactured. But HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has criticized mRNA vaccines, arguing that they are ineffective at fighting upper respiratory infections and keeping up with the mutations of a virus. Kennedy has a history of disparaging the mRNA coronavirus vaccines, in 2021 falsely calling them the 'deadliest vaccine ever made.' He has also said there was a 'poison' in it – claims refuted by medical experts. He has also been under pressure from anti-vaccine activists who say he has not done enough to remove mRNA vaccines from the market. The full scope of mRNA projects terminated was not immediately clear. Multiple companies mentioned by HHS did not immediately respond to questions. A spokesman for Moderna, which previously lost funding to develop an mRNA bird flu vaccine, said the company was not aware of new contract cancellations. The AstraZeneca program that HHS is restructuring is an RNA-based pandemic influenza vaccine that is in early stages of development. The company is exploring options for next steps, a spokeswoman said. An inhaled mRNA treatment for flu and covid being developed at Emory University was terminated. Some late-stage projects are proceeding, such as early human testing of an mRNA-based H5N1 candidate being developed by Arcturus Therapeutics 'to preserve prior taxpayer investment,' according to HHS. Gritstone Bio, which HHS said had a project proposal rejected, already ceased operating earlier this year after declaring bankruptcy. A terminated contract to Tiba Biotech was for a H1N1 flu treatment that was not based on mRNA, but a different RNA technology. The company received a stop work order late Tuesday afternoon. 'This comes as a surprise given the Department's stated goal of winding down mRNA vaccine development,' Jasdave Chahal, Tiba's chief scientific officer, said in an email. 'Our project does not involve the development of an mRNA product and is a therapeutic rather than a vaccine.' 'It's going to deter innovations,' said Dorit Reiss, a professor at the University of California College of the Law at San Francisco, whose research focuses on vaccine law and policy. 'Why invest in new technologies if the government can not only refuse to fund them, but if it's going to cancel already promised contracts?' HHS said in its statement that 'other uses of mRNA technology,' such as cancer treatments, are not affected by the announcement. But researchers worried that the Trump administration's criticism of the mRNA technology would have a chilling effect on one of the most promising fields in medicine. In 2023, Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman shared the Nobel Prize in medicine for fundamental work on mRNA that enabled the development of coronavirus vaccines. 'It's absolutely perplexing why this is happening,' said Jeff Coller, a professor of RNA biology and therapeutics at Johns Hopkins University who has studied mRNA for more than three decades. 'You have to sort of scratch your head to wonder why the secretary is directing these sort of actions against probably one of the most powerful platforms in medicine that has come along in the last 20 years.' Six scientific and medical experts said Kennedy and HHS offered misleading assessments of mRNA technology as they announced the termination of research. Here are the issues they flagged with some of the statements: 'The data show these vaccines fail to protect effectively against upper respiratory infections like COVID and flu,' Kennedy said in a statement. It's true that mRNA vaccines can be ineffective at preventing coronavirus infections, although data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows they still offer some protection. But several scientific experts noted the primary purpose of vaccination is to prevent hospitalizations and death, which the mRNA vaccines have effectively done, according to CDC data. The FDA has not approved an mRNA flu vaccine, so experts said it was premature to make sweeping claims about its potential efficacy. 'One mutation and the vaccine becomes ineffective,' Kennedy said in a video. The coronavirus keeps evolving in a way that makes it easier to infect people who have some immunity from vaccination or prior infection. But medical experts said the mRNA vaccines have been resilient in maintaining protection against severe outcomes. Manufacturers have also been able to update formulas annually to better target new variants. 'That is actually one of the most powerful aspects of mRNA vaccines: that you can, in real time, develop new mRNAs against the virus as the virus changes,' Coller said. 'I'm not sure why that would be considered a bad thing.' 'We've seen now these epidemics of myocarditis,' Kennedy said at a news conference. Coronavirus vaccines designed using mRNA carry a very small risk of myocarditis, which is inflammation of the heart, from the coronavirus vaccine, particularly in young men. However, medical experts said the data shows there is not an 'epidemic' of the condition; in fact, the rates of myocarditis and other heart illness are much higher from the virus instead of the vaccine. Jessica Malaty Rivera, an infectious-disease epidemiologist, said this rhetoric was part of the pandemic revisionist 'revenge tour.' 'Calling it an epidemic is absolutely misleading,' she said. 'Technologies that were funded during the emergency phase but failed to meet current scientific standards will be phased out in favor of evidence-based, ethically grounded solutions – like whole-virus vaccines and novel platforms' – HHS statement Scientific experts said a variety of vaccine types are often required to fight emerging infectious diseases. In some cases, whole-virus vaccines have been known to have serious side effects. Peter Hotez, a physician and co-director of the Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, said he was surprised to hear HHS tout whole-virus vaccines because China had used a whole-virus vaccine for coronavirus that was 'pretty mediocre,' Hotez said. Kennedy is 'pushing a technology that is actually probably the most problematic of all vaccines we could pick,' Hotez said.
Japan Today
6 days ago
- Japan Today
Trump once hailed mRNA vaccines as a 'medical miracle.' Now RFK Jr. is halting advancement
FILE - President Donald Trump speaks about the coronavirus in the Rose Garden of the White House, May 15, 2020, in Washington. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, left, and Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention listen. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File) By AMANDA SEITZ President Donald Trump hailed as a 'medical miracle' the mRNA vaccines developed to combat the deadly COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Now, his health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is effectively halting the vaccine technology's advancement. Kennedy announced Tuesday that the federal government is canceling $500 million worth of mRNA research development contracts, putting an end to U.S.-backed hopes for the vaccine technology to prevent future pandemics, treat cancer or prevent flu infections. It's a sharp pivot from how Trump and top officials described the technology during his first term. Here's a look at what Trump and some of his closest advisers have said about mRNA vaccines that were credited with slowing the pandemic five years ago. 'A COVID-19 vaccine is the thing that will get Americans back to normal everyday life,' said Redfield, in a Sept. 16, 2020, statement. Americans were still donning face masks as one of the few ways of protecting themselves from a virus that had killed nearly 200,000 in just over six months. Redfield promised that the new vaccines — developed for the first time using mRNA technology — would offer a return to normalcy. 'Don't let Joe Biden take credit for the vaccines ... because the vaccines were me, and I pushed people harder than they've ever been pushed before .. The vaccines are — there are those that say it's one of the greatest things. It's a medical miracle.' Trump said on Nov. 26, 2020, during a news conference in the White House. Weeks earlier, Trump had lost the election in a bitter race against Democrat Joe Biden. As the Republican grappled with leaving Washington and continued to plan for the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccines, he reminded reporters that he oversaw the development of the new shots. 'They say it's somewhat of a miracle and I think that's true,' Trump said on Dec. 8, 2020, during a speech at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. The event celebrated 'Operation Warp Speed," the government-funded project that accelerated vaccine development with pharmaceutical companies. Trump was promoting the shots as the government prepared to offer them to frontline health workers. 'It's clear that many Americans are learning these vaccines are safe and extraordinarily effective,' Azar said on Dec. 16, 2020, at a news conference. The government was shipping out mRNA vaccines to states, preparing to distributed it to the masses. Azar noted that a vast majority of Americans — between 70% to 80%, according to polls — intended to get the new COVID-19 vaccine that would be available to the public in the coming months. 'It takes somewhere between five and 10 years to put a vaccine on the street. Look what we did. Now, that's because of the great work of the scientists who had done the research on mRNA vaccines and others because of industry working on this, they just didn't wake up one day and start working on it,' Perna said during a podcast interview that aired on May 9, 2023. Reflecting in an interview about his time overseeing 'Operation Warp Speed,' Perna credited the mRNA technology with the government's ability to get shots in arms mere months after the pandemic started claiming lives in the U.S. in 2020. 'Take credit because we saved tens of millions of lives. Take credit. Don't let them take that away from you,' Trump said on Dec. 19, 2021 during a live interview with former Fox News host Bill O'Reilly. Daily COVID-19 deaths had ticked down to 1,500 compared to 3,000 from a year earlier after Americans began receiving their first doses of the mRNA vaccines. Trump revealed to O'Reilly and the audience that he had just gotten a COVID-19 booster. The crowd booed. © Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Yomiuri Shimbun
7 days ago
- Yomiuri Shimbun
RFK Jr. Pulls $500 Million in Funding for Vaccine Development
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Department of Health and Human Services will cancel contracts and pull funding for some vaccines that are being developed to fight respiratory viruses like COVID-19 and the flu. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced in a statement Tuesday that 22 projects, totaling $500 million, to develop vaccines using mRNA technology will be halted. Kennedy's decision to terminate the projects is the latest in a string of decisions that have put the longtime vaccine critic's doubts about shots into full effect at the nation's health department. Kennedy has pulled back recommendations around the COVID-19 shots, fired the panel that makes vaccine recommendations, and refused to offer a vigorous endorsement of vaccinations as a measles outbreak worsened. The health secretary criticized mRNA vaccines in a video on his social media accounts, explaining the decision to cancel projects being led by the nation's leading pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer and Moderna, that offer protection against viruses like the flu, COVID-19 and H5N1. 'To replace the troubled mRNA programs, we're prioritizing the development of safer, broader vaccine strategies, like whole-virus vaccines and novel platforms that don't collapse when viruses mutate,' Kennedy said in the video. Infectious disease experts say the mRNA technology used in vaccines is safe, and they credit its development during the first Trump administration with slowing the 2020 coronavirus pandemic. Future pandemics, they warned, will be harder to stop without the help of mRNA. 'I don't think I've seen a more dangerous decision in public health in my 50 years in the business,' said Mike Osterholm, a University of Minnesota expert on infectious diseases and pandemic preparations. He noted mRNA technology offers potential advantages of rapid production, crucial in the event of a new pandemic that requires a new vaccine. The shelving of the mRNA projects is short-sighted as concerns about a bird flu pandemic continue to loom, said Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine expert at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. 'It's certainly saved millions of lives,' Offit said of the existing mRNA vaccines. Scientists are using mRNA for more than infectious disease vaccines, with researchers around the world exploring its use for cancer immunotherapies. At the White House earlier this year, billionaire tech entrepreneur Larry Ellison praised mRNA for its potential to treat cancer. Traditionally, vaccines have required growing pieces of viruses, often in chicken eggs or giant vats of cells, then purifying that material. The mRNA approach starts with a snippet of genetic code that carries instructions for making proteins. Scientists pick the protein to target, inject that blueprint and the body makes just enough to trigger immune protection — producing its own vaccine dose. In a statement Tuesday, HHS said 'other uses of mRNA technology within the department are not impacted by this announcement.' The mRNA technology is used in approved COVID-19 and RSV shots, but has not yet been approved for a flu shot. Moderna, which was studying a combination COVID-19 and flu mRNA shot, had said it believed mRNA could speed up production of flu shots compared with traditional vaccines. The abandoned mRNA projects signal a 'shift in vaccine development priorities,' the health department said in its statement, adding that it will start 'investing in better solutions.' 'Let me be absolutely clear, HHS supports safe, effective vaccines for every American who wants them,' Kennedy said in the statement. Speaking hours later Tuesday at a news conference in Anchorage, Alaska, alongside the state's two Republican U.S. senators, Kennedy said work is underway on an alternative. He said a 'universal vaccine' that mimics 'natural immunity' is the administration's focus. 'It could be effective — we believe it's going to be effective — against not only coronaviruses, but also flu,' he said.
