The Dangers Inherent to RFK Jr. Defunding mRNA Vaccines

by yaleglobalhealthreview, posted in Uncategorized

BY ESSEY AFEWERKI

It is not particularly groundbreaking to say that the state of public health in the United States is in a historically precarious position. With the re-election and inauguration of Donald Trump to the office of President last January came an all-new presidential Cabinet, with new heads appointed to all major executive branches. This includes the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which, as its mission statement reads, strives to “enhance the health and well-being of all Americans.”1 

Trump’s new HHS Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK), has done perhaps the exact opposite by creating an atmosphere of fear and distrust around the field of medicine. For instance, under his watch, he has allowed the State of Florida to go forward with undoing all state-level vaccine mandates—while admitting to performing zero risk analysis on the consequences of the policy changes.2 Experts project that as a result of just a 15% decrease in measles vaccines, 1 million new cases could develop over the next 25 years.2 

In this same vein, RFK unilaterally fired the entire vaccine advisory at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). This came at the tail end of a confrontation where the CDC Director, Susan Monarez, refused to pass his series of demands to undo the child vaccine schedule on to the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.4 In this manner, RFK has firmly established himself as an antagonistic force to the implementation of life-saving preventative therapies and actively endangered the American people’s human right to health. 

Recently, RFK has gone a step further, making strides to obstruct vaccine development and progress by defunding (by roughly $500 million)10 research in the groundbreaking field of mRNA vaccination. His reasoning represents a dangerous lack of understanding of fundamental medical mechanisms directly pertaining to the field of public health, which he is supposed to oversee.

To establish an understanding of why said defunding is so devastating and the flaws in RFK’s arguments against them, it is important to first identify how mRNA vaccines work. Older, traditional vaccines typically use live attenuated (weaker forms of living pathogens), inactivated (dead pathogens), or subunit (pathogen components) structures to familiarize the immune system with a pathogen. This allows the host to generate antibodies, or targeting molecules trained to identify pathogenic antigens (unique structures) when a real invasion occurs. 11 This process is slow and expensive, requiring safe containment and incapacitation of a virus or bacteria before they are safe for introduction to host immune systems. 10 

In contrast to the old methods, mRNA vaccines work by introducing a piece of messenger RNA (mRNA) into host cells, which encodes genetic instructions on how to build specific pathogenic protein structures.5 The instructions are read and followed by the host’s own cellular machinery, generating harmless antigens for the immune system to familiarize itself against, with zero risk of infection. These mRNA strands are comparatively much faster and cheaper to produce than traditional methods.5 They have even opened new frontiers for the field of preventative medicine. 

The efficacy of mRNA vaccines has already been demonstrated by their role in combating the COVID-19 pandemic. The mRNA technology was used to generate the SARS-CoV-2 surface spike protein and subsequently became the predominant form of vaccination administered. In the future, mRNA protein products could potentially be used to safely train cells to fight cancer tissue, combat allergen material, and even help counteract autoimmune deficiencies.6 Faced with this world of opportunity, RFK chooses to actively reject the extraordinary potential at stake. The reasoning why can only best be explained—then systemically dissected, analyzed, and countered—by examining his own words.

Fundamentally, RFK’s objections to mRNA vaccine research and progress are based on worrying misconceptions about the basic mechanistic functions outlined above. To illustrate this point, in his announcement of the funding changes, he said that mRNA vaccines “encourage new mutations and can actually prolong pandemics as the virus constantly mutates to escape the protective effects of the vaccine.”7 The protective effects of the vaccine purely affect hosts, not the viruses themselves. As such, vaccines do not induce new mutations; rather, they help the body fight off pathogens, reducing the likelihood that the virus will mutate into different variants. 

Once a person is infected by a virus, there may be certain variants that mutate and evade vaccine-induced antigen recognition, but these mutations occur naturally, not in response to the vaccine. Additionally, the vast majority of virus particles will be recognized and fought off.7 This claim might be based on a mistaken conflation of viral mechanisms with antibiotic resistance, where bacteria learn to recognize and fight novel drugs used to kill them off, until the repository of such drugs runs dry. The critical difference lies in the fact that viruses are not traditional living organisms; they are merely bundles of DNA or RNA that cannot reproduce independently and must hijack hosts to do so. Unlike bacteria, they have no immune systems of their own to adapt to and actively fight off treatment or, in this case, the human immune system. Instead, what RFK should encourage is widespread immunity via vaccination, so that even if these viral mutations that evade the vaccine exist, they will be less likely to spread to others.

RFK also makes the categorically false statement that the protein products of mRNA vaccines remain in circulation in the body for indefinite but long periods of time. This claim is especially concerning not only because it is wrong but also because he seems to be intentionally obscuring data to suit his own agenda. The following excerpt—from a 181-page document of strung together citations released to justify the funding cuts—spells out the assertion. It reads: 

“Over 40 peer-reviewed studies confirm that ‘vaccine’ mRNA and the resulting spike protein antigen persist in the tissues of human vaccine recipients and animal test subjects far longer than claimed by public health officials; viral spike proteins, resulting from natural infection, have been shown to persist even longer, bolstering concerns that the identical ‘vaccine’ spike may also last longer than anticipated.”8 

A critical detail is left out here that RFK would appear to prefer remains unknown: this data does not pertain to mRNA vaccines. At least not in the way he wants you to think it does. The “[o]ver 40 peer-reviewed studies” referenced are indeed referring to the COVID-19 spike protein antigen, which mRNA vaccines teach host cells how to produce. But the researchers are referring to it in the context of COVID-19’s natural viral infection and production. 

When the COVID-19 virus is active and functioning in a host, it is constantly replicating and producing new spike proteins on its membranes. Thus, the protein will appear to persist for many months in an infected individual. But, as has been made evident, that is not what is happening in the case of mRNA vaccination. In such cases, the spike protein itself is synthesized by host cellular machinery, entirely lacking the presence of any other viral structures to enable replication and protein perpetuation in tissue. In these cases, the protein is identified, the immune system learns to recognize it, and it is cleared from the body within two weeks.9 RFK’s claims worryingly manipulate real data that allow actual science to be twisted to incite fear and distrust towards vaccines and the broader scientific community.

RFK outlines his alternative solution to this issue by saying, “To replace the troubled mRNA programs, we’re prioritizing the development of safer, broader vaccine strategies, like whole-virus vaccines and novel platforms that don’t collapse when viruses mutate.”10 As should be evident by now, this is another non-issue. The “whole-virus vaccines” touted as a panacea are in fact another name for the live attenuated and inactivated pathogenic vaccines described earlier. 

While they do in fact provide broader recognition of invading viruses—making them more effective against mutated strains—the recognition breadth of this vaccine category comes with a major caveat: the significant disparity in time and resources that goes into their development. Conversely, mRNA vaccines are cheap, quick to develop, and mass produced, as is evidenced by the historic turnaround time in which they were designed and administered during the COVID-19 pandemic (less than a year).10 Therefore, if viral strains do mutate beyond the recognition of a given mRNA immunization, new editions of the vaccine can easily be developed against different structures on the virus, keeping them useful and relevant.

Ultimately, RFK’s actions and justifications for defunding research and his attacks on mRNA vaccines are those of a leader who is not only misinformed on a topic he should be an expert on, but also appears to be knowingly deceiving the people who depend on him to protect their health and well-being. This is grossly unacceptable from an individual in his position of power. 

The right to health is fundamentally and inalienably owed to every human being, and it is currently being consciously obstructed. Advances in mRNA vaccines stand to pioneer a new age in preventative medicine, improving and saving countless lives. The current administration is actively ripping that opportunity away from vulnerable people. Given the context, these are not unknowing mistakes but exceedingly dangerous actions. As such, it is RFK’s moral obligation to resign from office to allow better-prepared individuals to take his place to fulfill the American people’s human right to health.

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References

  1. Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs (ASPA). About HHS. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services https://www.hhs.gov/about/index.html (2015).
  2. McPhillips, D. Florida’s surgeon general said he didn’t calculate the costs of ending vaccine mandates in the state. But scientists have. CNN https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/09/health/floridas-surgeon-general-calculate-costs-vaccine-mandates (2025).
  3. CBS News. Trump, RFK Jr. distort facts on autism, Tylenol and vaccines, scientists say: ‘Sick to my stomach’. CBS News https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-rfk-jr-distort-facts-autism-tylenol-vaccines/ (2025).
  4. CIDRAP. Fired CDC director describes pressure from Kennedy over vaccines. Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/public-health/fired-cdc-director-describes-pressure-kennedy-over-vaccines (2025).
  5. CDC. COVID-19 Vaccine Basics. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention https://www.cdc.gov/covid/vaccines/how-they-work.html (2025).
  6. Penn Medicine. World-changing mRNA vaccines. Penn Medicine https://www.pennmedicine.org/about/pioneering-the-future-of-medicine/mrna (2025).
  7. BBC News. RFK Jr cancels $500m in mRNA vaccine development in the US. BBC News https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c74dzdddvmjo (2025).
  8. Sass, E. COVID-19 mRNA ‘vaccine’ harms research collection. Zenodo https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15787612 (2025).
  9. Scott, J. Kennedy’s case against mRNA vaccines collapses under his own evidence. STAT https://www.statnews.com/2025/08/13/rfk-jr-mrna-vaccine-research-science-papers-justification-misreading/ (2025).
  10. The Associated Press. RFK Jr. pulls $500 million in funding for mRNA vaccine contracts. NPR https://www.npr.org/2025/08/05/nx-s1-5493550/rfk-jr-funding-mrna-vaccine-development (2025).
  11. Andey, T., Soni, S. & Modi, S. Conventional vaccination methods: Inactivated and live attenuated vaccines. Advanced Vaccination Technologies for Infectious and Chronic Diseases 37–50 (2024).

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