Washington (AFP) – US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cited false claims to justify terminating 22 federal contracts for mRNA-based vaccines, researchers said Friday, a day after the World Health Organization called the decision a major blow. Kennedy on Tuesday announced the cancellation of contracts worth around $500 million, marking his latest attempt to infuse vaccine skepticism into the core of US health policy.
Citing medical experts, disinformation watchdog NewsGuard identified a series of false claims about the vaccines – credited with saving millions of lives during the Covid-19 pandemic – that Kennedy promoted to explain the termination. Kennedy claimed that mRNA vaccines were responsible for “new mutations” of the virus, thus creating new variants that can prolong pandemics.
“Kennedy is mistaken in statements made when ceasing funding for mRNA vaccine development,” Stephen Evans, a professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told the London-based Science Media Centre. “No vaccine, including mRNA encourages new mutations.”
Kennedy also made two previously debunked claims about the effectiveness of the vaccines. He stated that mRNA vaccines “fail to protect effectively against upper respiratory infections like Covid” and added that mRNA technology “poses more risks than benefits.” Evans said the vaccines were “extremely effective against Covid, preventing deaths, hospitalisations and clinical or sub-clinical infection.”
“No vaccine has a zero incidence of side-effects, some of which can be serious, but the benefits of both mRNA vaccines and other types of vaccine – lives saved and illness reduced – hugely outweigh the risks,” Charles Bangham, a professor of immunology at the Imperial College London, told the Science Media Centre.
On Thursday, WHO immunisation figurehead Joachim Hombach called the US decision to terminate the contracts a “significant blow.” “mRNA vaccines are a very important technology and platform which has served us extremely well for Covid. We also know there is very promising work going on in relation to influenza vaccines,” he said.
Echoing those comments, US experts have warned that the funding cuts threaten critical research and public health around the world. “This sets back vaccine science by a decade,” Andrew Pekosz, a professor of molecular microbiology and immunology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, wrote on X. “Of course they didn’t read the science or listen to the experts…if they did, they wouldn’t have made this decision.”
Kennedy, who spent two decades sowing misinformation around immunization, has overseen a major overhaul of US health policy since taking office. He has fired, for example, a panel of vaccine experts that advise the government, replacing them with his own appointees. In its first meeting, the new panel promptly voted to ban a longstanding vaccine preservative targeted by the anti-vaccine movement, despite its strong safety record. He has also ordered a sweeping new study on the long-debunked link between vaccines and autism.
© 2024 AFP
