National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Jay Bhattacharya claims the federal government recently canceled millions of dollars’ worth of mRNA research contracts because the general public does not trust the technology.
Bhattacharya explained the reason behind the abrupt contract cancellations during an episode of Republican political strategist Steve Bannon’s podcast “War Room” last week and again in an op-ed recently published in The Washington Post.
In the article, Bhattacharya called the mRNA platform a “promising technology” and acknowledged that it may lead to breakthroughs in treatment for diseases like cancer.
“But as a vaccine intended for broad public use, especially during a public health emergency, the platform has failed a crucial test: earning public trust,” he wrote.
“No matter how elegant the science, a platform that lacks credibility among the people it seeks to protect cannot fulfill its public health mission.”
Bhattacharya’s explanation for the administration’s pivot away from mRNA technology differs from that of his boss, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Kennedy announced last week the agency would wind down its mRNA vaccine development activities under the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) and cancel $500 million worth of contracts related to the technology.
He said mRNA technologies funded during the pandemic failed to meet current scientific standards and that the federal government would shift its focus to whole-virus vaccines and novel platforms.
Bhattacharya expressed concern in the article about mRNA vaccines’ ability to direct human cells to produce spike proteins to trigger an immune response. He argues the scientific community does not have a clear understanding of where mRNA product stays in the body, for how long, and whether other proteins are created in the process.
Scott Hensley, a microbiology professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, told Stat news that these are also issues with vaccines that use live but weakened viruses like the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, which federal health agencies have deemed safe and effective.
“This is why we complete human clinical studies before vaccines are widely used in humans,” he told the outlet. “The mRNA and live attenuated vaccine platforms have both proven to be safe and effective in clinical trials.”
He blamed public distrust in mRNA on the Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandates during the pandemic.
“Science isn’t propaganda,” Bhattacharya wrote in the op-ed. “It’s humility. And when public health officials stopped communicating with humility, we lost much of the public, an absolute necessity for any vaccine platform.”
A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Hill.
