Dr. Elias Sayour is working on groundbreaking research toward a universal cancer vaccine, and he’s concerned that a recent decision from the Department of Health and Human Services could impede his team's work and the research of others hoping to develop new vaccines for diseases.
Sayour, a pediatric oncologist and professor at the University of Florida,is leading a team that’s using mRNA technology to help create a vaccine that fights cancer.
On Thursday, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced his department would wind down nearly $500 million in mRNA vaccine development for respiratory infections like COVID-19 and the flu.
In an exclusive interview with Scripps News on Monday, Kennedy said those funding cuts won’t impact other areas of research.
“We're still doing the research on oncology, on cancers, where it may be very, very effective,” Kennedy said.
Vaccine experts push back
Sayour, and several other vaccine experts who Scripps News spoke with, say the HHS cuts could hinder other vaccine research and development.
“It creates concern about, well, are these other areas potentially going to be affected? And even if they're not affected, the concern also is all of these areas learn from each other,” Sayour said.
“You cannot disconnect these fields from one another. They help each other. We learn from each other, and that actually enables us to make bigger breakthroughs faster, better, for not just the area we're focused on, but across human malady and human disease.”
Hua Wang, who is working on an mRNA cancer vaccine at the University of Illinois, where he’s an associate professor of materials science and engineering, called the decision from HHS disappointing, saying it will affect “many, many researchers.”
Other experts echoed the sentiments of Sayour and Wang.
The funding cut from HHS has a “dampening effect” on the advancement of mRNA technology used in vaccines, according to Dr. Paul Offit, a professor of vaccinology at the University of Pennsylvania.
There are worries it could impede general medical advancement, too, including efforts to stop another potential pandemic.
“The biggest worries are about what it's going to do to U.S. innovation,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, a professor of epidemiology and the director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University. “If we don't invest now and do the research necessary to know what it would take to makevaccines against the next pandemic, we won't have them when it hits.”
Kennedy questions mRNA vaccines, despite data on effectiveness
In explaining the reasoning for winding down hundreds of millions of dollars in mRNA vaccine development funding, Kennedy said mRNA vaccines fail to effectively protect against upper respiratory infections like COVID and the flu.
He also cited potential risks from the COVID vaccine.
In June the FDA began requiring an updated warning for COVID shots about a rare heart side effect.
The FDA lists the risk of myocarditis or pericarditis as 8 cases per 1 million doses of mRNA COVID vaccines for people 6 months through 64 years of age. It notes the condition has been most common in males 12 to 24 years old.
Health experts say there are risks from any vaccine, but stress the COVID vaccine was particularly effective.
“Vaccines have risks, and I think we need to be very honest about what those risks are,” Sayour said. “Certainly, the benefits of these vaccines to individuals and to society have certainly outweighed their risks.”
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Trump health officials cite loss in public trust for mRNA vaccines
In addition to questioning the effectiveness of mRNA vaccines for respiratory infections, Trump administration officials have recently started to cite what they say is a decline in public trust for mRNA vaccines as a means of supporting their cuts for vaccine development involving the technology.
“If the public doesn't trust in a vaccine, then you've got a problem, and they no longer trust in this platform,” Kennedy told Scripps News.
In an opinion piece in The Washington Post on Tuesday, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya wrote mRNA technology was “promising” and could "deliver breakthroughs in treating diseases such as cancer,” but he said that wasn’t a reason enough to continue to endorse it.
“No matter how elegant the science, a platform that lacks credibility among the people it seeks to protect cannot fulfill its public health mission,” he wrote.
Both Kennedy and Bhattacharya cited a 2024 Pew Research Center survey that found 60% of American adults would probably not get an updated COVID vaccine, and CDC data showing just 13% of children between the ages of six months and 17 years old have gotten an updated COVID vaccine this year.
But those figures may be the result of overall increased vaccine skepticism, driven by officials like Kennedy, as opposed to a lack of trust in specifically mRNA vaccines.
A recent survey from KFF found views on vaccines were incredibly divided by partisanship.
In total, just 20% of adults said changes Kennedy has made to vaccine policy will make people safer.
But Republicans were far more likely to believe that, with 41% saying his changes will make people safer compared to just 4% of Democrats.
The survey was taken before Kennedy’s announcement on mRNA vaccine research funding.
Fears of “an assault on vaccines”
Many health experts and doctors are growing louder in their questioning of Kennedy’s decisions and the ramifications of them.
Dr. Jerome Adams, who served as the U.S. Surgeon General during President Trump’s first term, said in an interview with CBS News that Kennedy’s claims that mRNA vaccines don’t work against upper respiratory infections were “simply not true.”
“People are going to die because we're cutting short funding for this technology,” Adams said.
Nuzzo worries that as Kennedy continues to question vaccine science, more people will become skeptical.
“I do worry that this is part of an overall assault on vaccines in general,” Nuzzo said. “And the more the secretary goes out and impugns without any evidence, vaccines and particular vaccine technologies, it just overall sows doubts about vaccines.”
