The decision by the US health and human services secretary to remove mRNA research funding is ill-informed and dangerous
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cience is not black and white. It’s more complicated and more exciting. It’s a constant process of exploration. An adventure into the unknown. Scientists come up with theories about what might be going on, and then test them. They don’t always get it right. Far from it. But inch by inch, testing, failing and trying again, they make progress.
Robert F Kennedy Jr, during Senate confirmation hearings for the role of secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), seemed to get that. Those who feared what a vaccine sceptic might do in that role breathed again. “I’m going to empower the scientists at HHS to do their job and make sure that we have good science that is evidence based … I’m not going to substitute my judgment for science,” he said.
Yet now, without good explanation or sound science, he is cutting $500m of research funding for mRNA vaccines, claiming that they “fail to protect effectively against upper respiratory infections like Covid and flu”. In fact, no Covid vaccine fully protects against infection, but they have been shown to prevent deaths in billions of people. The 22 contracts that will be cancelled include one with Moderna for a vaccine against bird flu, which many fear could trigger the next human pandemic (and there will be one). Instead, federal funds will go to vaccines developed in more traditional ways.
