In August, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) cancelled nearly $500 million in contracts that funded mRNA vaccine development. The mRNA technology was the most commonly used platform in COVID-19 vaccines, which are credited with saving millions of lives. Bill Hanage, professor of epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, offers thoughts on why he thinks the decision is short-sighted.
Q: In announcing the decision, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that “data show vaccines fail to protect effectively against upper respiratory infections like COVID and flu.” Is that accurate?
A: That’s nonsense. The vaccines that we had available in this country against COVID were mRNA vaccines, vaccines that have saved millions of lives in the U.S. alone over the last few years, and many more worldwide.
Now suddenly we’re hit with a roadblock to further study them, to further develop them, and so the promise of these vaccines—which people have received Nobel Prizes for developing because of how much good they did—is suddenly being strangled almost at birth in this country. It’s somewhat obvious to say, but just because this country isn’t studying it doesn’t mean that other countries can’t, and so all of the benefits that come from that will just end up going somewhere else.
Secretary Kennedy is right that these vaccines do not protect against infection over the long term. However, they DO protect us from severe disease, very effectively. And it’s that which saved so many lives during the worst years of the pandemic, and it is that which has enabled us to get back to normal life. Throwing out all that we have gained scientifically, medically, socially, and so on, is very, very short-sighted.
Q: What are the benefits of mRNA vaccines compared with other types of vaccines?
A: mRNA vaccines introduce a small piece of the genetic material of the virus itself to the cells of our body. Our bodies then make small parts of that virus for a short period of time, long enough to mount an immune response against it. For COVID vaccines, that immune response prevents infection over the short term, and over the long term protects us from being seriously ill.
It’s worth noting that these vaccines were designed and were being developed within a matter of weeks, before the pandemic was even named a pandemic. The speed with which these things can be developed is hugely important because in a pandemic, every day counts. This is the best way we currently have of making vaccines quickly, based upon decades of research, much of which was funded by the National Institutes of Health. Exactly the sort of research which has now been cut.
We should be acutely aware of the number of different infectious threats that can be thrown at us, and once you’ve got a really great new tool in your toolkit, why would you throw it away? Why would you turn your back on mRNA technology when it’s helped us so much?
Q: HHS said that the Biomedical Advanced Research Development Authority, which funded mRNA vaccine development, would focus on “platforms with stronger safety records and transparent clinical and manufacturing data practices.” What are your thoughts on the safety of mRNA vaccines?
A: These vaccines have now been given to millions upon millions of people, including me. Almost certainly including the person reading this. The potential for causing harm is something we look at very carefully. We chase up even the faintest hint that there could be an association between vaccines and any adverse outcome. We have found that there is an association between myocarditis [inflammation of the heart muscle] and the vaccine, in particular in adolescent males, but it’s important to note that COVID itself causes myocarditis more than vaccination does.
So you essentially have the chance of getting myocarditis from the vaccine, or from COVID, and the risks of getting COVID are worse than the [the risks of the] vaccine. Even so, myocarditis is a very rare outcome, which became apparent once we had delivered hundreds of thousands of doses.
Presentations to the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices [a federal advisory committee that develops recommendations on the use of vaccines] have expressed concerns that we do not know enough about the long-lasting consequences of mRNA vaccines. This sounds reasonable, but unless we have good reason to think, based on existing evidence, that there is something there to worry about, we are more concerned about figuring out how they can help the existing problems that we have rather than hypothesizing that they might have other [adverse effects] that we don’t know about.
Even if you agreed there was something that needed to be studied here, in that case, why has the administration pulled $500 million worth of funding on mRNA vaccines? If you want to know more about them, that’s fine, but how are you going to know more about them by pulling funding?
Q: What are the ramifications of the mRNA defunding on the readiness of the U.S. to deal with future pandemics and the nation’s biosecurity overall?
A: Very negative. There is no upside. There is only downside. We would be fighting any future pandemic with one hand tied behind our back.
Even if you are concerned about biological threats from malicious actors, again, you’re throwing out one of the most important tools you have at your disposal to protect the public. There is no universe in which this decision makes America and the American people more safe than they were.
Secretary Kennedy at some point said that President Trump deserves the Nobel Peace Prize for Operation Warp Speed, which led to these vaccines, and is an unambiguous success story for which the first Trump administration deserves respect.
It’s hard to explain how the Secretary can think that the President deserves the Nobel Peace Prize for this, while at the same time believing that these vaccines are the most harmful that have ever been made. There’s an inherent contradiction there.