The Department of Health and Human Services has announced that it will be ending its mRNA vaccine development program, and former Surgeon General Jerome Adams is warning that “this move is going to cost lives.”
In a video released on Tuesday, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime vaccine conspiracy theorist, informed the public that the department’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) had “begun canceling” 22 mRNA vaccine development investments. The contracts being canceled are worth $500 million.
Kennedy claimed that mRNA technology, which uses synthetic gene sequences to teach cells how to create antibodies without needing to introduce viral particles, doesn’t “perform well against viruses that infect the upper respiratory tract,” such as Covid-19. Kennedy went on to assert that mRNA vaccines “can actually prolong pandemics as the virus constantly mutates to escape the protective effects of the vaccine.”
“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.
Unsurprisingly, Kennedy is misleading the public about the science behind vaccines. A 2023 study published by the National Institute of Health on the effectiveness of mRNA vaccines against Covid found that “despite certain drawbacks such as strong immunogenicity and the potential for triggering irrelevant immune responses, the authorized mRNA vaccines are considered highly effective and safe.”
Jerome Adams, who served as surgeon general for the bulk of President Donald Trump’s first term, wrote on X that while he has “tried to be objective and non-alarmist” about recent decisions made at HHS under Kennedy, “quite frankly this move is going to cost lives.”
“mRNA technology has uses that go far beyond vaccines … and the vaccine they helped develop in record time is credited with saving millions,” Adams wrote.
Love Music?
Get your daily dose of everything happening in Australian/New Zealand music and globally.
Kennedy has waged a full-fledged war against the nation’s vaccination infrastructure since his confirmation to Trump’s Cabinet. The secretary downplayed the severity of a deadly measles outbreak in Texas — a disease that had almost been eliminated by robust public vaccination programs. In June, he fired an entire panel of vaccine experts tasked with helping shape seasonal vaccine recommendations, and replaced them with loyalists and ideologues.
The health secretary said during a House Appropriations Committee hearing in May that he didn’t “think people should be taking medical advice from me.” Unfortunately for the nation, the danger lies not just in Kennedy’s dismissible advice, but in his ignorance of science as he destroys the nation’s health systems, and the devastating consequences the teardown could have on Americans’ health.
From Rolling Stone US
