US cancels nearly $500 million in mRNA vaccine grants and issues safety warning

In a decision that has sparked widespread debate and consternation in the scientific community, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the cancellation of nearly $500 million in grants and contracts earmarked for the development of mRNA vaccines. This technology was instrumental in the rapid response to the COVID-19 pandemic, enabling the accelerated development and production of vaccines like those from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.

The announcement includes the cancellation of 22 projects being funded through the Biometric Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), the agency charged with promoting the development of biomedical technologies to address emerging health threats. This measure follows the revocation in May of a nearly $600 million contract with Moderna for the development of an avian flu vaccine, also announced by the Department of Health and Human Services.

The secretary explained that he will allocate that funding to "safer and broader vaccine platforms that maintain their effectiveness even with virus mutations." In a video shared on social media shortly after the announcement, he wrongly claimed that mRNA vaccines do not protect against respiratory diseases like COVID-19 or the flu, and that the rapid mutation of these viruses renders the vaccines ineffective with a single mutation. "As the pandemic has shown us, mRNA vaccines do not work well against viruses that infect the upper respiratory tract," he stated in the video.

Unlike traditional vaccines, which often use weakened or inactivated forms of the target virus or bacteria, mRNA injections introduce genetic instructions into host cells, prompting them to produce a harmless decoy of the pathogen and training the immune system to fight the real thing.

The pioneers of this technology, Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman, received the 2023 Nobel Prize in Medicine for their contribution to the unprecedented pace of vaccine development during one of the greatest threats to human health in the modern era. The reduced funding and shift in technological focus have caused alarm among scientists and public health experts.