Why RFK Jr’s Cancellation of Moderna’s Pandemic Flu Vaccine is Nonsensical
A version of this article has been published by The Ottawa Citizen on June 2, 2025, under the title, “Cancelling funding for mRNA vaccine is both risky and foolish“
With Donald Trump’s second administration, disruptive news seems to arise on a daily basis. Most concerning for clinicians and health scientists around the world was Trump’s appointment of anti-vaccination zealot Robert Kennedy Jr to the enormously influential position of Secretary of Health and Human Services. Kennedy’s ideological dismantling of the US’s vaunted health research apparatus has been at speeds surprising even to his most ardent critics. But his recent decision to cancel a nearly $600 million contract with vaccine manufacturer Moderna might be among his most shortsighted and destructive moves.
The contract with the mRNA pioneer, signed under the Biden administration, was meant to fund the development, testing, and licensing of vaccines targeting particular flu strains, including the strain responsible for the dreaded avian flu, H5N1. Many scientists fear that H5N1 poses a serious threat to becoming the next world-stopping infectious disease pandemic.
The main reason cited for the cancellation was a concern for the safety and testing of mRNA vaccine technology. But the company’s mRNA COVID vaccines are among the most tested and scrutinized medical products in human history! Over 13 billion doses have been given globally, with 650 million given in the USA alone, demonstrating a remarkably safe profile. Despite constant surveillance and endless accusations from antivaxxers, no US deaths have ever been shown to have been causally linked to an mRNA vaccine.
The withdrawal of the USA from the efforts to produce an mRNA vaccine against H5N1 is indeed troubling. When it infects humans, H5N1 kills about 50% of the time. The current outbreak among dairy herds in the USA has spread to 17 states and over 1000 herds. The increasing number of domestic and wild animals found to be infected is worrying, suggesting that the dreaded mutation allowing easy human-to-human transmission is becoming more likely by the day. When that happens, many people will die, and many more will clamour for a vaccine.
Luckily, we already have more than one licensed H5N1 vaccines based on older, non-mRNA technology. But their efficacy is largely unknown, and many of them are manufactured via incubating the virus inside live eggs. However, in the event of an avian flu pandemic, finding enough uninfected eggs to produce doses at scale might be problematic.
More challenging is the lead time for manufacturing these traditional vaccines. At the very least, many months are needed, which is why the seasonal flu vaccine is often a poor match to circulating strains, often resulting in middling efficacy. If an H5N1 pandemic is in our near future, it will not be possible to manufacture sufficient doses of the currently licensed vaccines quickly enough to protect everyone.
The only proven vaccine technology capable of the kind of rapid production needed to quell a sudden pandemic is the mRNA platform. Five years of refinement over the course of the COVID pandemic have afforded Moderna and Pfizer a kind of confident fluency in their development and deployment acumen. Other companies, like Arcturus Therapeutics, CureVac, and Sanofi have since adopted the technology, as well.
Another consideration is viral mutation. If H5N1 makes the mutational leap to sustained human-to-human transmission, it will be because its genetic makeup will have changed slightly enough to make that happen. In other words, the virus will be measurably different from that used to create the currently licensed formulations, some of which are limitedly stockpiled by governments.
The mRNA platform will be needed to quickly pivot to targeting the new viral formulation. It can do so with much more adeptness and fluidity than the lumbering egg- and cell-incubated vaccines currently stockpiled. Remember that the first COVID mRNA vaccine was finalized just 48 hours after scientists sequenced the genetic code of the virus that causes COVID.
RFK Jr’s decision to cancel this funding is shortsighted and seemingly driven by skewed and nonsensical antivax perceptions. It comes at a time when Moderna’s investigational pandemic influenza vaccine, called “mRNA-1018” had already demonstrated safety through early clinical trials. Perhaps this is an opportunity for other countries to fill the funding void and to claim the financial and societal benefits of this transformational technology.
