CATEGORY / politics

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. (more…)

I submitted this op-ed to the Canadian Science Policy Centre. They may or may not accept it. But because I’m a stickler for archivism, I’m also publishing it here:

For policymakers, journalists, and the public alike, the word “pandemic” conjures images of chaos: overwhelmed hospitals, press conferences, and nightly graphs of surging death tolls. Of the many lessons that COVID-19 taught the general public, among them was the erroneous belief that a pandemic is necessarily a novel, shocking, and newsworthy thing. Makeshift morgues to accommodate the overflow of dead, burly security men positioned in front of grocery stores to limit the number of shoppers, nightly news shows dominated by nerdy epidemiologists expressing their latest analyses –these are the hallmarks of pandemic, as the public has been taught to recognize them.

But, in truth, the next pandemic might not look like that at all. It might unfold slowly, with low mortality but high disruption, gradually eroding health systems, supply chains, and trust in public institutions. It might be “boring”, and that’s precisely what makes it dangerous. Policymakers, health administrators, and journalists must be made aware of this possibility. (more…)