The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has canceled almost $500 million in funding for mRNA vaccine projects, alleging worries about safety and efficacy.
They are winding down nearly two dozen mRNA vaccine development efforts under the Center for the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), which is responsible for medical countermeasures that would be part of the nation’s first response to, among other things, pandemics and emerging diseases like COVID-19. The research company for which I am an investigator is part of the BARDA network that would be activated to validate therapies in times of health emergencies.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has criticized the vaccines for not being protective against infection, apparently not understanding that avoiding infections is not the primary purpose of the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines. It is to reduce risk of severe illness, hospitalizations and death, and they have been immensely successful at achieving those outcomes.
He is still pushing the idea that vaccines cause autism, a hypothesis debunked by careful and methodical research. He fired all 17 members of the prior internationally renowned vaccine advisory committee that advised CDC, and removed medical organizations from vaccine working groups. He selected “experts” with inadequate credentials to be on decision-making committees. Based on peer-reviewed scientific papers, Kennedy’s appointees have produced 28% of the number of publications of the experts that were removed, and at least four of his new members have not published anything.
To quote Kennedy in his video announcement, “To replace the troubled mRNA programs, we’re prioritizing the development of safer, broader vaccine strategies, like whole-virus vaccines (a 70-year-old technology) and novel platforms that don’t collapse when viruses mutate.” He has that exactly wrong.
Traditional vaccine development techniques have required growing attenuated or otherwise modified viruses, often in chicken eggs or giant vats of host cells. This can take many months to get enough product, which then requires purification. Then the efficacy and safety studies need to be done. This approach he favors historically has taken up to a decade to develop and validate a vaccine. Hopefully you have read my recent column on his desire to also eliminate animal research. Those concerns are magnified here.
The value of mRNA biotechnology is its rapid adaptability to the inevitable evolutionary mutations as I wrote in many of my COVID columns during the pandemic. Many may have forgotten, or never knew, that the COVID-19 genome sequence was published by a Chinese scientist in January 2020 and scientists had a working and validated mRNA based vaccine here in the U.S. before the end of that year — an absolutely astounding accomplishment based on the all-hands-on-deck mentality and efforts of the healthcare industry and generous federal funding by Operation Warp Speed by the first Trump administration. Why Trump is allowing Kennedy to taint that effort by undermining its foundational science is perplexing and ironic.
The mRNA approach starts with the identification of the piece of genetic code that carries instructions for making specific targeted viral proteins, not the virus itself. Scientists inject that blueprint and the body makes just enough of that protein to elicit an immune protection — thus producing its own vaccine dose. It’s a nimble and agile response. mRNA technology is flexible, cheaper and more conducive to rapid vaccine production compared with other platforms, allowing manufacturers to make more doses in a shorter period of time. Eleven billion vaccine doses were administered within 14 months once the original mRNA vaccines were approved. Millions of lived have been saved, in case one doesn’t remember all the refrigerated morgue trucks during the early COVID pandemic before the vaccines were available.
This rapid development and production are its other advantages, especially in an era of possible bioterrorism and constant risk of a new pandemic, e.g., a bird flu variant that can cross over to humans and mutate to allow human-to-human infections. his is why public health advocates are so alarmed by Kennedy’s HHS directive. Biosecurity experts, even from Trump’s first administration, think this is a threat to our national security.
And I think it’s even worse. The expertise and infrastructure to evaluate future pathogens, much less develop a vaccine and treatment strategies, have been undermined and hindered by Kennedy and the DOGE people Trump permitted to run amok in our federal healthcare system. We will need to rely on experts and medications developed by other countries in the future. They will be using American trained scientists and American technologies developed in 2025 but which are not welcome here, and Trump’s America will be using technology from 1950.
There’s a rumor, hopefully false, that Trump and Kennedy want to pull the COVID vaccines off the U.S. market soon. They just announced restrictions on their availability. Certainly, if MAGA nation wishes to not get mRNA-based vaccines, that is their right. One can foresee evolutionary benefits to that decision. But that position should not take away the ability for others who believe in the science to have access to those therapies. If they still think the government has that right to take away what it perceives as harmful, then we can discuss AR-15s, too.
HHS needs to maintain America’s leadership in vaccine research, and mRNA expertise and technology are pillars of that strategy. mRNA is also focused on prevention and treatment of cancer and other diseases by creation of novel immunotherapies. We will have to see if those potential and promising applications are impacted by Kennedy’s directive.
Hardly making America great, or healthy, again.
Irving Kent Loh, M.D., is a preventive cardiologist and the director of the Ventura Heart Institute in Thousand Oaks. Email him at drloh@venturaheart.com.
This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Dr. Loh: Why the cancellation of mRNA biotechnology funding matters
Reporting by Dr. Irving Kent Loh / Ventura County Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
