The director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has said the federal government’s discontinuation of mRNA vaccine development is because the platform is “no longer viable” due to public distrust.
The explanation differs from the justification given by Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) head Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who said Aug. 5 that “the data show these vaccines fail to protect effectively against upper respiratory infections like COVID and flu.”
The HHS announced last week that it would be ending 22 mRNA vaccine projects valued at $500 million collectively. The work was funded by the HHS’ Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, which said it will not be starting any new mRNA projects.
Now, NIH leader Jay Bhattacharya, M.D., Ph.D., a Stanford economist and professor known for his opposition to COVID-19 mandates, has provided a separate reason for the rollback.
On an Aug. 9 episode of Steve Bannon’s "WarRoom" podcast called “The Mainstream’s Destruction of Public Health,” Bhattacharya said fewer than 25% of Americans have received COVID-19 vaccines “despite the fact that there’s been relentless propaganda and pressure to take the COVID vaccines—the mRNA COVID vaccines—forever, for a very long time during the Biden administration.”
As of May 1, 23% of American adults had received the COVID-19 booster for the ongoing season, according to federal data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The federal agency still recommends an updated COVID-19 vaccine for most adults and says that vaccination is the safest way to avoid hospitalizations, long-term health outcomes and death.
Overall, at least 81% of the entire U.S. population has received at least one COVID-19 dose, according to the nonprofit, nonpartisan civic initiative USAFacts.
“You can't have a platform where such a large fraction of the population distrusts the platform,” Bhattacharya said on Bannon’s podcast. Bannon is a right-wing pundit who served as President Donald Trump’s chief strategist for seven months during his first term before being dismissed.
“The technology is promising, but not yet ready for prime time for vaccines,” Bhattacharya added.
Multiple peer-reviewed studies have found that mRNA vaccines are safe and effective, with the underlying research going back to the discovery of mRNA in the early 1960s.
Cases of myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart muscle, have been observed after mRNA COVID vaccination in a few rare cases. Getting COVID-19 increases the risk of myocarditis at a higher rate than vaccination does.
Instead, Bhattacharya highlighted the Trump administration’s $500 million investment for developing a “universal” vaccine—a shot designed to protect against multiple strains of a pandemic-prone virus at once.
Scientists have chased the concept for decades to no avail. The specific type of vaccines the administration is focused on can prompt a strong immune response from the body but are tied to more frequent mild side effects, especially in children, persuading the industry to largely drop the approach years ago.
Bhattacharya’s comments come one day after a 30-year-old man opened fire at the CDC’s Atlanta headquarters. The shooter’s father contacted police to identify his son, telling officials his son was in mental distress and had blamed COVID-19 vaccines for his and others’ illnesses.
After the shooting, in which police officer David Rose, 33, was killed, CDC staffers and other public health figures are calling on leadership to take a stronger stance on vaccine misinformation and inflammatory rhetoric that fuel such attacks.
Bhattacharya’s podcast commentary comes amid his tumultuous four-month tenure as director of the nation’s biomedical research agency.
The leader has been listed as a defendant in several lawsuits against the NIH related to sudden research grant terminations. In June, a federal judge ruled that hundreds of grants were cut illegally and must be restored immediately.
This summer, hundreds of NIH staffers signed an open letter, called the Bethesda Declaration, urging Bhattacharya to reverse the drastic changes made to the agency within the last five months, including mass layoffs.