Medical Experts in Horror After RFK Jr. Pulls $500M in Vaccine Research Funding

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is facing heavy criticism from medical professionals after he announced on Tuesday that he was ending financial support for research into mRNA vaccines.

In his announcement, Kennedy said that he was canceling $500 million worth of research aimed at using mRNA technology to develop new vaccines. Instead, he said the Department of Health and Human Services would prioritize “the development of safer, broader vaccine strategies, like whole-virus vaccines and novel platforms that don’t collapse when viruses mutate.”

mRNA technology is the basis for major vaccines that were developed earlier this decade to protect against Covid-19. A 2022 study referenced on the National Institutes of Health’s website estimates that Covid-19 vaccines prevented 14.4 million deaths in their first year of availability.

Given the success of these vaccines, many medical experts expressed shock and horror at Kennedy’s decision to pull the plug on funding further research.

“I don’t think I’ve seen a more dangerous decision in public health in my 50 years in the business,” Mike Osterholm, an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota, told The Associated Press in an interview. Osterholm also emphasized that mRNA vaccines allow for rapid production, which he said was a critical factor in combating pandemics.

Neil Stone, an infectious diseases doctor at the University College Hospital for Tropical Diseases in London, argued on X that the mRNA funding decision shows Kennedy is a “dangerous anti-vaccine fanatic” who is jeopardizing America’s leading role in providing invaluable medical research.

“RFK Jr. is systematically turning the USA from the leader in science to an ideologically anti-scientific backwater of quackery and pseudoscience,” he added. “It will take years to come back from it.”

Mike White, an associate professor of genetics at Washington University in St. Louis, said that Kennedy’s decision would put the U.S. at a disadvantage in future medical research developments.

“Completely insane decision to walk away from one of the most promising medical technologies, allowing the U.S. to get smoked in this area of biotech by other countries with more foresight,” he commented on X.

Alastair McAlpine, a pediatric infectious diseases physician, described Kennedy’s actions to shut down mRNA research as “insanity” given that “no other technology promises to provide as much protection against an array of diseases.” As a result, he wrote on Bluesky, “never has America been more vulnerable.”

Biomedical scientist Lucky Tran, who currently serves as the director of science communication and media relations at Columbia University, took stock of all of Kennedy’s actions and concluded that they fit in with a broader anti-vaccine agenda that is not just limited to mRNA vaccines.

“At his confirmation hearing, RFK Jr. claimed he wouldn’t take away vaccines,” he wrote on Bluesky. “So far he has: Removed Covid vaccine recommendation; fired the CDC’s vaccine committee; replaced scientists with antivaxxers; cancelled vaccine hesitancy research; pulled $500 million in mRNA vaccine research.”

Jonathan Reiner, a professor of medicine and surgery at George Washington University, similarly warned that it was unlikely that Kennedy would be satisfied solely with cutting off funding for mRNA vaccines.

“RFK Jr. simply doesn’t believe in vaccines and he has the power to take them away from the American public,” he wrote. “This is just the beginning.”