Trump previously called mRNA vaccines a 'medical miracle.' Now, RFK Jr. cut $500M in funding
Health officials during the first term said mRNA shots are safe and effective.
When the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine was authorized for emergency use by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in December 2020, President Donald Trump referred to it as a "medical miracle."
"This is one of the greatest scientific accomplishments in history. It will save millions of lives and soon end the pandemic once and for all," Trump said at the time in a speech delivered from the Oval Office.
COVID-19 vaccines, made with mRNA technology, were quickly rolled out with then-Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar referring to the vaccine as "safe and extraordinarily effective."
However, last week, current Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that the government was canceling at least $500 million of federally funded mRNA vaccine development, potentially affecting U.S. preparedness for future pandemics and squashing enthusiasm for technology that has been hailed as a potential promise for cancer and HIV vaccines.
Public health experts told ABC News the position Kennedy and those in his circle have taken on mRNA vaccines is very different from how the technology was viewed in the Trump administration during the president's first term.
"The president was absolutely right when he called mRNA vaccines a miracle," Dr. Richard Besser, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and former acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during the Obama administration, told ABC News.
"It was absolutely miraculous that in under a year after a new infectious agent hit the world stage, we had multiple safe and highly effective vaccines to protect people. … What we have now is a situation where the Trump administration is backing away from mRNA technology," Besser said. "It is totally out of line with what the president was saying during his first term, and it flies in the face of what science and evidence have demonstrated."
Praise for mRNA vaccines
In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the majority of Americans were masking and following stay-at-home orders, the Trump administration launched Operation Warp Speed in May 2020.
The goal of the public-private partnership, initiated by the U.S. government, was to help accelerate the development, testing, manufacturing and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics.
From more than 100 vaccine candidates, the government narrowed it down to fewer than 10 to receive funding for development and testing
Although mRNA was discovered in 1961, breakthroughs in developing mRNA vaccines began in the early 2000s, eventually leading to the development of COVID-19 vaccines in 2020. During the COVID-19 pandemic, mRNA technology demonstrated its ability to scale up vaccine production quickly, as seen with the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.
Public health officials in the Trump administration expressed enthusiasm for the vaccines.
Just before the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine received emergency use authorization from the FDA, Azar referred to the shot as "exceptionally safe" and "shockingly effective."
Meanwhile, then-Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams encouraged Americans to get vaccinated, saying, "By golly, the finish line is in sight. So, we just got to keep on running. American people, we need you to keep on running."
Additionally, in December 2020, during a virtual conversation hosted by the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, then-CDC director Dr. Robert Redfield said the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines were "extremely safe" and were a "light at the end of the tunnel."
"It is no longer a scientific problem, but whether we can get the population vaccinated," he said at the time. "We're in a fight and what we need now is unity of spirit and to let data and science drive our actions."
In a further show of support, several of the nation's top public health officials received a COVID-19 vaccine publicly to demonstrate its safety and effectiveness including Azar; Dr. Francis Collins, then-director of the National Institutes of Heath; Dr. Anthony Fauci, then-director of NIH's National Institute on Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID); and Colleen McGowan, director of NIH's Office of Research Services.
Trump's public health officials continued to express support for Operation Warp Speed and mRNA technology even after leaving office.
In December 2022, during a seminar at the University of Pennsylvania, Azar referred to Operation Warp Speed as "my biggest achievement at HHS and in my life."
He explained how scientists in China posted a genetic sequence online of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, on Jan. 10, 2020, and, three days later, NIAID scientists had developed a seed vaccine, a sample used as the starting material for vaccine production.
"Then they partnered that with Moderna, with whom we had already been working with on mRNA technology for about a decade," Azar said. "We partnered with them and eight weeks later were in human trials. It was the fastest time in human history that a [pharmaceutical] product has moved from discovery to actual phase one human trials."
Retreat from mRNA vaccines
In Trump's second term, the nation's top public health officials seem to have a different opinion of mRNA vaccines.
Kennedy had already been expressing vaccine-skeptic views before becoming health secretary. In May 2021, he filed a citizen petition asking for the federal government to revoke its authorization of all COVID-19 vaccines.
In December 2021, during a Louisiana House of Representatives meeting discussing a proposal to require schoolchildren to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, Kennedy falsely called the vaccine the "deadliest vaccine ever made."
Since becoming health secretary, Kennedy made a series of moves, including announcing earlier this year that the COVID-19 vaccine will no longer be recommended for healthy children and healthy pregnant women.
In a press release announcing the cancellation of mRNA vaccine funding, Kennedy said that funding was going towards "safer, broader vaccine platforms that remain effective even as viruses mutate," despite infectious disease experts and vaccinologists saying the mRNA platform is safe. Kennedy also falsely claimed mRNA vaccines can prolong pandemics.
When asked about the cancellation of funding by reporters, Trump praised Operation Warp Speed but said it was "a long time ago, and we're onto other things" and that the administration is "looking for other answers to other problems, to other sicknesses and diseases."
Additionally, over the weekend, during an appearance on Steve Bannon's podcast "War Room," NIH director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya said Kennedy decided to cancel mRNA vaccine contracts because "the mRNA platform is no longer viable." He also claimed a large fraction of the public doesn't trust the platform for vaccines.
Dr. Craig Spencer, an associate professor of the practice of health services, policy and practice at Brown University School of Public Health, said it seems strange that Operation Warp Speed no longer gets the praise it once received during Trump's first term.
"I find it so remarkable that really the biggest accomplishment of the end of Trump's first term in office … namely the creation of Operation Warp Speed in the mRNA vaccines is something that this administration truly never talks about," Spencer told ABC News. "The second Trump administration never talks about. In fact, he somehow went from leaving office as the person that helped create Operation Warp Speed, saving millions of lives in the U.S. and tens of millions of lives, if not more, around the world, to putting in place someone who is an ardent vaccine cynic."
Some public health officials from Trump's first term have since flipped their stance on vaccines. Redfield, the former CDC director, said in a POLITICO event earlier this year that in his practice, he's seen patients with "very serious long-term consequences from the mRNA vaccines."
Others condemned Kennedy's decision to cut mRNA funding. Former U.S. Surgeon General Adams calling it "dangerous" and saying that risks "far outweigh rare side effects."
Spencer said there is a difference in the way that Adams speaks about vaccines compared to Trump's current nominee for U.S. surgeon general, Dr. Casey Means, a prominent voice in Kennedy's "Make America Healthy Again" movement.
Means has not made a public statement on Kennedy's recent decision, but she has expressed skepticism about the safety of childhood vaccines and has called for more research on the "safety of the cumulative effects" of vaccines.
"Jerome Adams probably knows the difference between what [COVID] looks like at the clinical level because he is someone that has practiced as an anesthesiologist, has seen the sickest patients and continues to practice," he told ABC News. "He knows, as a practicing physician, what this will mean, as opposed to sharing viewpoints from a book about wellness and anti-vaccine views."
"I have not seen the new Surgeon General take a perspective on what has been taking place around vaccination," Besser added. "I would hope that she would do what's right by the American people and encourage people to be vaccinated fully and on time."
