WASHINGTON, DC – This week, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., an anti-vaccine crusader, cancelled almost $500 million in federal contracts to develop mRNA vaccines to protect the U.S. against future viral threats.

U.S. Senator Jack Reed noted that this baseless move by Secretary Kennedy will weaken America’s defense against future infectious disease outbreaks.

“Secretary Kennedy has said before that Americans shouldn’t be taking medical advice from him. He was right. Scientists, researchers, doctors, and vaccine experts agree that mRNA developments can usher in a new era of treatments and cures. Secretary Kennedy is putting his partisan views ahead of science and undermining America’s preparedness to fight against the spread of diseases. The Trump Administration is making America vulnerable again,” said Senator Reed, who strongly opposed RFK Jr.’s nomination to be HHS Secretary.

According to the World Health Organization, global immunization efforts have saved the lives of at least 154 million people around the world in the last five decades.

In 2020, mRNA developments during the pandemic were hailed by President Donald Trump as a “modern-day miracle.” Whereas in 2021, Secretary Kennedy called the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine the “deadliest vaccine ever made,” without providing any evidence behind his dubious claim.

Secretary Kennedy’s move to stranglehold federal biomedical research funding for mRNA development builds on other actions he has taken in line with anti-vaccine activists.

In June, the Trump Administration removed all 17 members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP), which is made up of medical and public health experts — including pediatricians, epidemiologists and geriatricians — who make recommendations about who should get certain vaccines, including the schedule for childhood vaccinations. Secretary Kennedy then installed several new members with records of criticizing mRNA vaccines.

Scientists widely credit mRNA for slowing the progression of the 2020 pandemic and helping to save lives because of the technology’s ability to efficiently and effectively create immunization to diseases. And many experts are warning that hampering progress on new breakthroughs will hinder U.S. response to future outbreaks and pandemics.

Last year, Senator Reed convened a panel of top experts for a congressional briefing featuring Rhode Island researchers from Brown University’s Warren Alpert Medical School and other leading institutions nationwide to explore the new frontier offered by RNA research and how the federal government can help fuel lifesaving advancements.

Senator Reed has been a champion of RNA research, the larger project behind mRNA vaccine development that is allowing scientists to deepen understanding of different diseases and advance therapeutics to better serve patients. In 2024, Reed delivered virtual remarks at Brown’s Warren Alpert Medical School’s first international working group to launch the Human RNome Project.

Like the massive and instrumental Human Genome Project, researchers at Brown and other research institutions are racing to fully sequence RNA through the RNome project which, similar to its predecessor, stands to unlock a myriad of scientific discoveries.