Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced last week he is stopping the federal government’s funding for most of its mRNA vaccine development activities.
The name of the vaccine is shorthand for messenger ribonucleic acid, which dates back to research in the 1960s. It relies on the body’s DNA cells to make a spike protein that creates immunity.
In a brief statement posted to X, Kennedy said scientists now know mRNA technology has proven to be an ineffective vaccine when the body is fighting a mutating virus.
After consultations at FDA and NIH, he said, it was determined mRNA technology "poses more risk than benefits to those respiratory viruses."
Kennedy also announced the cancelling of 22 mRNA development programs, worth about $500 million, at the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority. That facility is HHS' strategic preparedness and response center.
Most of the vaccines developed during the pandemic were mRNA vaccines, such as the Pfizer shot and the Moderna shot.
Studies are finding the spike protein produced by the shots can damage the heart and other organs. Dr. Peter McCullough, who emerged as a prominent critic of mRNA shots during the pandemic, tells AFN ending the research is a good start.
“But that's far from the entire U.S. government portfolio of messenger RNA activities,” he says. “They also occur elsewhere in the National Institutes of Health and in DARPA, the research unit of the military.
Winding down all mRNA development will take time, McCullough says, so Kennedy's announcement seems more symbolic, he says.
"He's signaling that messenger RNA vaccines are very unlikely to be safe and certainly, so far, have failed," he says.
