RFK Jr.'s vaccine pullback stokes fears of lost medical breakthroughs

• The mRNA divestment "risks stalling progress in some of the most promising areas of modern medicine," Jerome Adams, surgeon general during the first Trump administration and now a professor at Purdue University, told Axios.
• "Walking away from this technology now would be like pulling funding from antibiotics after penicillin or from computers after the microchip. It's short-sighted and puts us at a disadvantage globally."

State of play: Kennedy said last week that HHS's Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority would pull nearly $500 million worth of contracts with universities, drug companies and other labs working on new mRNA vaccines.

• No new mRNA-based projects will be launched as the administration shifts to "safer, broader vaccine platforms," he added.
• Scientists refute the implication that mRNA vaccines are unsafe. The technology that brought mRNA COVID vaccines in Trump's first term has been in development for decades. Large scientific trials and real-world data have shown that the vaccines are safe and effective — and capable of training the body's immune system to create antibodies to fight a host of afflictions.

HHS, when asked for the research on which Kennedy based this decision, sent Axios a link to a citation collection put together by anti-COVID vaccine advocates, including Steven Hatfill, who promoted the use of the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine to treat the virus before vaccines were available despite reports of safety issues.

Friction point: mRNA technology is what allowed the most common COVID vaccines to be deployed so quickly, and it's essential to responding to new viral pandemic threats, said Cynthia Leifer, a professor of immunology at Cornell University's College of Veterinary Medicine.

• "When we have a pandemic, we need to act quickly. We don't have time to wait several years or decades to do testing of older platforms the way they were normally done in years past," she said.
• "The newer technology could allow us to move so much faster to develop and have these vaccines rolled out to protect people when a pandemic is ongoing," Leifer added.
• Researchers are also studying how mRNA technology could treat or prevent cancer, HIV, and other chronic diseases — and the science so far is promising. Now, they're worried that progress could be lost.
• "If we stop now, we could delay or even miss the next generation of cures entirely," said Adams, the former surgeon general.

Zoom out: Scientists say some of Kennedy's other changes are stifling innovation, too.

• Kennedy is working to implement massive staff cuts at HHS, reduce funding for research labs' overhead costs and end National Institutes of Health grants for a wide swath of projects.
• The cuts, along with the broader Trump administration's immigration restrictions, has already started to steer promising international scientific talent away from the country.
• Kennedy also is reportedly considering overhauling the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, whose independent experts establish care and coverage guidelines to account for advances in medical treatments and new disease trends. Its past work included recommending beginning mammograms at 40, which has been credited with saving thousands of lives.

The other side: HHS denies that its changes will stymie medical advances.

• "Those concerns are unfounded and not supported with facts," HHS Communications Director Andrew Nixon told Axios.
• Kennedy's decision to cut BARDA funding for mRNA work won't affect other government uses involving the technology, HHS said. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has endorsed mRNA COVID vaccines for most adults.

Between the lines: An independent and bipartisan commission warned Congress in April that China has already pulled ahead of the U.S. in key life sciences areas.

• The U.S. can stay dominant, but it only has a few years to strengthen its position — and it needs to put significant resources into biotechnology resources, the commission's report said.

Reality check: It's impossible to know whether breakthroughs actually won't happen as a result of these policy changes, or which advances we could miss out on.

• "That is a long-term impact that is hard to measure. What cure wasn't found? What question wasn't asked and investigated?" Richard Besser, CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, said.
• mRNA therapy start-ups are also still raising private investment, which could keep research moving.

Tina Reed contributed reporting.