Just two weeks ago, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told Congress that his “opinions about vaccines are irrelevant” and that nobody should “take advice” from him about getting them. How quickly things change. In one decision after another, the Trump administration’s recent actions have shown that Kennedy, with his poor understanding of basic medicine, has deemed himself the final arbiter of vaccine science in the U.S.
Kennedy, with his poor understanding of basic medicine, has deemed himself the final arbiter of vaccine science in the U.S.
On Wednesday, Moderna announced that HHS canceled a $766 million contract with the company to develop potential pandemic influenza strains, including H5N1 bird flu. In the same statement, Moderna also announced that the new vaccine it had been developing against H5 influenza strains, mRNA-1018, had positive results after being tested in 300 adults.
As its name indicates, this developmental vaccine used messenger RNA, the same method that was used to develop the Covid-19 vaccine. Earlier this month, Kennedy announced that all new vaccines would need to be developed without using mRNA technology, despite its proven efficacy and safety. He has also demanded that new Covid boosters undergo more rigorous trials than previously required — including full placebo studies — to gain approval for the market.
The decision follows last week’s announcement from the Food and Drug Administration that annual Covid boosters will be limited moving forward to people 65 and older and/or who have a high risk of severe Covid. According to the FDA, the eligible conditions for the latter range from asthma to pregnancy to diabetes and “physical inactivity.” The FDA estimates that “100 million to 200 million Americans will have access to vaccines in this manner,” which calls into question the need to limit them at all.
In a commentary in the New England Journal of Medicine, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary and vaccine chief Vinay Prasad cited the hesitancy of Americans to get the booster as a reason for pulling back who can access it. In a moment of extreme irony, the pair also blamed the booster program for declining vaccination rates more broadly:
There may even be a ripple effect: public trust in vaccination in general has declined, resulting in a reluctance to vaccinate that is affecting even vital immunization programs such as that for measles–mumps–rubella (MMR) vaccination, which has been clearly established as safe and highly effective. In recent years, reduced MMR vaccination rates have been a growing concern and have contributed to serious illness and deaths from measles. It is duplicitous at best to say more study is needed to reassure the public when the science isn’t what’s in question here. A more apt culprit would most likely be their boss, as Kennedy has been at the forefront of the movement to paint vaccines as unsafe. The anti-vax campaign has helped measles go from a disease of the past to a current concern as outbreaks pop up around the country. Kennedy’s blatant positioning of himself as the ultimate judge of how to keep Americans healthy goes beyond the pale. Kennedy went even further Tuesday with a surprise announcement that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would no longer recommend including the Covid vaccine in its immunization schedule for “healthy children and healthy pregnant women.” According to The Washington Post, the CDC itself was unaware that this change would be coming before Kennedy posted about it on X. Moreover, the video Kennedy posted, the guidance given internally to CDC staffers and the FDA’s commentary last week all contradict one another about exactly who still qualifies for a Covid booster. Kennedy’s influence over what the scientists under him can say could strengthen even further in coming days. Earlier this week, he threatened to stop government researchers at the National Institutes of Health and other agencies from publishing their findings in major medical journals like the NEMJ and The Lancet. “Unless those journals change dramatically, we are going to stop NIH scientists from publishing in them, and we’re going to create our own journals in-house,” Kennedy warned in a podcast appearance. It is the antithesis of science that predetermined outcomes be substituted for observation and analysis. It would likewise be naive to suggest that there has never been any sort of political influence on how science is practiced. But Kennedy’s blatant positioning of himself as the ultimate judge of how to keep Americans healthy goes beyond the pale. He may say nobody should “take advice” from him about vaccination — but he’s not offering advice anymore. He’s telling America how things are going to be from now on.
Hayes Brown is a writer and editor for MS NOW. He focuses on politics and policymaking at the federal level, including Congress and the White House. 
