There is a legitimate scientific question about which vaccine technology is used for which disease.
What is causing concern among scientists is that pulling mRNA research means we will not have those vaccines at times when we need to do what no other technology can.
Prof Pollard says: “I don’t think there’s the evidence they are hugely better for protection, but where RNA tech is streets ahead of everything else is responding to outbreaks.”
The world is highly drilled at making new flu vaccines each year. But even then, there is a six-month process of deciding on the new flu strains to be targeted, growing the vaccine at scale in chicken eggs and then distributing it. Brand new vaccines take even longer.
But with mRNA, you can have the new vaccine in six to eight weeks, and then tens or hundreds of millions of doses a few months later.
Some of the projects that have had their funding pulled in the US were preparing for a bird flu pandemic. That virus, H5N1, has been devastating bird populations and jumping into a wide range of other animals including American cattle.
“That doesn’t make sense and if we do get a human pandemic of bird flu it could be seen as a catastrophic error,” says Prof Finn.
But the ramifications of the US turning away from mRNA research could be felt more widely.
What impact does this move have on confidence in the current vaccines, mRNA or otherwise? How does it affect the world when the US is one of the most influential countries in medical research? And will it have a knock-on impact on other types of mRNA technology, such as cancer vaccines – or using the approach to treat rare genetic diseases?
Prof Pollard poses another question after RFK Jr’s move: “Does it put us all at risk if a huge market is turning its back on RNA?
“It is one of the most important technologies we’ll see this century in infectious disease, biotherapeutic agents for rare disease and critically for cancer. It’s a message I’m troubled about.”