Yesterday was a massive win for the Make America Healthy Again movement.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that the US Health and Human Services is beginning to shut down its mRNA vaccine development program.
Kennedy, in the announcement, shared the reason behind the HHS’s decision to get rid of the program was due to the vaccines’ ineffectiveness against COVID-19.
CNN provided more details on RFK Jr.’s move:
US Health and Human Services is “winding down” its mRNA vaccine development and will instead fund other vaccine platforms through the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, the agency said Tuesday.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a statement that BARDA would terminate 22 mRNA vaccine development investments, suggesting the vaccines “fail to protect effectively against upper respiratory infections like Covid and flu,” despite evidence they protect against severe disease and death from Covid-19 and show promise against influenza. HHS said some final stage contracts will continue, but “no new mRNA-
“We reviewed the science, listened to the experts, and acted,” Kennedy said.
“Going forward, BARDA will focus on platforms with stronger safety records and transparent clinical and manufacturing data practices,” HHS said. “Technologies that were funded during the emergency phase but failed to meet current scientific standards will be phased out in favor of evidence-based, ethically grounded solutions – like whole-virus vaccines and novel platforms.”
Messenger RNA is a single strand of the genetic code that cells can “read” and use to make a protein. With the Covid vaccine, mRNA instructs cells in the body to make the particular piece of the virus’s spike protein. When the immune system sees it, it recognizes it as foreign and is then prepared to attack when there is an actual infection.
The vaccines were particularly useful during the Covid-19 pandemic because they can be developed and manufactured quickly. Multiple peer-reviewed studies have shown that mRNA vaccines developed under Operation Warp Speed during the first Trump administration were highly effective at preventing severe disease and were repeatedly demonstrated to be extremely safe.
Watch Kennedy here:
Breaking: The US Department of Health and Human Services has determined that mRNA technology “poses more risk than benefits”
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has canceled 22 investments in mRNA technology development, citing scientific evidence and the views of top experts… pic.twitter.com/Shg53KKpgv
— Rukshan Fernando (@therealrukshan) August 5, 2025
The Alaska Beacon reported that in Kennedy’s most recent press conference in Alaska, he claimed the HHS plans to create “universal” vaccines:
U.S. Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr., in an Anchorage news conference, justified his decision to cancel about $500 million in federal funding for mRNA vaccine development by claiming that the vaccine developed to fight COVID-19 actually “prolonged the pandemic.”
“The mRNA vaccines, you know from COVID, don’t work,” he said, contradicting medical experts, at the news conference, held Tuesday at the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium headquarters in Anchorage.
ADVERTISEMENTKennedy pointed to the COVID-19 virus mutating, “to which the vaccine was ineffective.”
But that led to the development of adapted vaccines to target variants like the Omicron virus, beginning in 2022, that were shown to be effective in preventing infection and severe disease.
Vaccines work by prompting the body’s natural immune response to fight infection. Kennedy repeated his questionable claims casting doubt on the science of vaccines, and said the Trump administration is “putting major funding” toward the National Institute of Health to develop a “universal vaccine.”
“We’re going to fund that money. We’re going to shift that money to develop universe vaccines that are much better technology, much safer,” he said Tuesday.”
In a social media post, the president of the American Medical Association criticized the cancellation and countered Kennedy’s claims.
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