U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced yesterday that HHS will cancel 22 federally funded mRNA vaccine development projects worth $500 million—a move infectious disease specialists and biosecurity experts warned was “dangerous” and “short-sighted,” reports the AP.
The contracts were between the federal emergency preparedness agency, Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) and leading pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer and Moderna to develop vaccines for respiratory viruses like COVID-19 and the flu—building off the breakthroughs credited with slowing the 2020 coronavirus pandemic and saving millions of lives, reports Axios.
In a statement, Kennedy claimed the mRNA vaccines “fail to protect effectively against upper respiratory infections,” and that funding will shift to “safer, broader” platforms like whole-virus vaccines.
“We’re weakening critical countermeasures at the very moment that global health risks are intensifying,” former BARDA director Rick Bright told STAT.