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Thursday, August 07, 2025

The Department of Health and Human Services will cancel contracts and pull funding for some vaccines that are being developed to fight respiratory viruses like COVID-19 and the flu.

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The Trump administration's decision to terminate hundreds of millions of dollars to develop mRNA vaccines imperils the country's ability to fight future pandemics and is built on false or misleading claims about the technology, public health experts said.

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-- The Washington Post (@washingtonpost.com) Aug 6, 2025 at 4:55 PM

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This man is a mass murderer.

#1 | Posted by Zed at 2025-08-06 09:36 AM | Reply

Federal mRNA funding cut is most dangerous public health decision' ever, expert says

www.pbs.org

#2 | Posted by reinheitsgebot at 2025-08-07 01:42 AM | Reply

Honestly, unless there has been additional developments in this field I'm unaware of, I'm OK with tempering the mRNA "revolution."

Boost responses with COVID vaccines were starting to bleed into detrimental territory with effects like induction of IgG4 and even primary doses were in a breadth of adverse events that was problematic.

For vaccines against non-pandemic infectious diseases, the only real benefit is cost. More can be produced for less, or less for less.. It becomes a cost-benefit analysis for markets that are important regionally.

Where mRNA can really shine, however, was in the speed and flexibility of it's design and production. Areas like pandemic diseases or personalized vaccines for things like cancer are where it really shines.

#3 | Posted by jpw at 2025-08-07 01:59 AM | Reply

#2 | Posted by reinheitsgebot

Ok, so a few of my quibbles with that article...

and can be developed more quickly than traditional vaccines.

Well...sort of. mRNA vaccines remove the step of protein production from the manufacturing pipeline. You're no longer having to make the protein for purification, you simply purify the mRNA and let the body do that (multiple layers of nuance, not going in to them all).

However, for something like influenza, the current vaccine platform is plug and play. New yearly vaccines simply have the current HA gene inserted while the rest remains the same. Development is the same while manufacturing is quite different.

Here's the problem; mRNA only codes for a small part of the viral proteins, usually a single antigen. One mutation and the vaccine becomes ineffective.

This very basic statement of ignorance or misinformation wasn't addressed. The "expert" gave a canned answer that didn't explain why this is wrong.

It's wrong because an antigen is not the entirety of a protein. S protein that was included in the COVID vaccines contains multiple antigens. An antigen is simply the very specific portion of a protein an antibody or T cell targets.

The portion of his answer about driving a virus to change and creating doubt? Not at all relevant and simply canned responses.

Not going further now as that's a lot of BS for a short portion of an interview.

#4 | Posted by jpw at 2025-08-07 02:20 AM | Reply

"imperils the country's ability to fight future pandemics"

That's the kind of decision you make when you're the leader of a Death Cult.

#5 | Posted by snoofy at 2025-08-08 07:50 AM | Reply

Trump was asked about this cut and clearly had no clue it was happening. He did the normal thing he does when he has no idea what he's talking about and said we are going to be looking into mrna vaccines.
Kennedy's decision and Trump's disinterest is resulting in what is one of the worst public health decisions in the history of the country.

#6 | Posted by johnny_hotsauce at 2025-08-08 09:56 AM | Reply

vaccines were starting to bleed into detrimental territory with effects like induction of IgG4 and even primary doses were in a breadth of adverse events that was problematic>

More evidence-free bull-sheet from our resident moron.

#7 | Posted by zarnon at 2025-08-08 10:11 AM | Reply

Please tell the class how the protein produced by mRNA from a vaccine, the same spike protein with the same transmembrane domain as COVID. In fact, the big difference between the two is that the vaccine induced spike protein does virtually nothing beyond producing a specific immune response, because it has no escape accomplices (the other components of the viral structure) to latch onto, because the cell isn't making them.

#8 | Posted by zarnon at 2025-08-08 10:58 AM | Reply

More evidence-free bull-sheet from our resident moron.

#7 | POSTED BY ZARNON

lol both of those were extensively documented.

#9 | Posted by jpw at 2025-08-08 12:47 PM | Reply

I didn't say anything remotely related to any of the rest of your attempt to sound sciency.

Everything I mentioned was due to inflammatory processes induced by the vaccine. Its pro-inflammatory characteristics were a positive for initial vaccinations because it gave a more "natural"-like response. Turned out to be problematic for long term usage in boosters.

And it also caused more adverse events, hindering uptake.

#10 | Posted by jpw at 2025-08-08 01:06 PM | Reply

sound sciency.

You say the spike protein from the mRNA vaccine is responsible for a dubious chronic inflammatory condition, somehow different from the spike protein on COVID. Yet you can't produce any evidence for your wild assertions other than 'look it up!'.

"Do your research!" the rallying cry of the uninformed.

extensively documented.

Yeah, where? let me guess, anecdotal evidence that you see on Facebook type of documentation? Maybe VAERS? Or actual peer-reviewed studies in respected medical journals?

You blab on about 'proof' without ever producing any. Where's your link? If it's that easy to find, why can't you produce it?

You're just like every other science-illiterate Conservadunce. You regurgitate half-baked, evidence-free accusations without even understanding how dumb it is. You don't even know the basics about mRNA. It's painfully obvious.

TrumpT are the masters of Projection. You're the uninformed fool trying to appear intelligent. Emphasis on the word 'trying'.

#11 | Posted by zarnon at 2025-08-08 10:21 PM | Reply

For the record, three of the protective antibodies to COVID are anti-SARS-CoV-2 spike IgG (nCoV S-IgG), anti-SARS-CoV-2 spike receptor-binding domain IgG (nCoV RBD-IgG), and anti-SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies (nCoV NAbs).

Two of these are IgG. IgG is the most common major immune system subclass in the body. I'm guessing these morons misinterpreted a positive immune response for something more nefarious.

Or they're relying on sources like VAERS which is a common anti-vaxxer mining ground. It's not a data collection center and they explicitly state as such. But that never stopped the anti-vaxxers.

Or they made the error of attributing causation of a disease from an abnormal lab value. Even if certain lab markers (like IgG4) have been correlated with a disease, it is not like some light-switch that guarantees a diagnosis.

If you knew anything about medicine, you'd know that.

My guess is JPW never dug any deeper than "Yup! Sounds just like what my gut told me!".

#12 | Posted by zarnon at 2025-08-08 10:46 PM | Reply

Curious.

There's plenty of legitimate (peer reviewed) information to warrant the concern JPW expressed.

www.journalofinfection.com(24)00053-7/fulltext
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
academic.oup.com

Increased levels of igG4 from repeated mRNA vaccination appears well correlated.

#13 | Posted by YAV at 2025-08-08 10:51 PM | Reply

Here's the reason RFKjr and JPW spew accusations but never give the goods on how they arrived at them;

Because when they try to do it, they get torn an academic a----e.

Just like the hilariously inept MAHA report. An epic flop of science-illiteracy and made-up AI crap no MAGAMORON fact-checked. It was deservedly ripped to shreds within days of arrival.

#14 | Posted by zarnon at 2025-08-08 11:05 PM | Reply

Yav - the first link throws and error that says 'for health professionals only'. Not sure how you followed that.

Now for the second and third link. Let me ask you. Did you actually read those papers? Or did you pull them up in some PubMed search and post them without any investigation?

If so, what from the papers did you find most telling? Thoughts, please!

Just from 10 minutes of reading, they do not support your 'well-correlated' claim. In fact the study in the third link clearly says this is a proposed hypothesis.

Jesus fkng christ people. Research is more than a Google search and posting the results.

Even if they did show correlation, correlation does not mean causation.

#15 | Posted by zarnon at 2025-08-08 11:12 PM | Reply

4th link - a synopsis (not the actual paper) that has nothing to do with correlation or causation with some generalized chronic inflammatory condition. An elevated lab marker may mean a lot of things or nothing at all. They didn't even mention chronic inflammation. The 4th link has to do with COVID vaccine efficacy and IgG4.

JFC You didn't actually read any of these, did you Yav?

#16 | Posted by zarnon at 2025-08-08 11:21 PM | Reply

The first link, which you have to assemble by adding the part that the parser clipped, addresses your concerns. The others, including the summary build a position for better understanding (study) of igG4 (first paper identifies 4 subclasses of igG4).

You appear to live in a world of assumptions so you can puff out your chest and blow past legitimate observations. I found it enjoyable that you're hiding behind "for health professionals only" and "hypothesis" as if I don't understand what a falsifiable hypothesis means in this context.

It appears you aren't all you think you are, nor am I less than you.

#17 | Posted by YAV at 2025-08-09 08:22 AM | Reply

You say the spike protein from the mRNA vaccine is responsible for a dubious chronic inflammatory condition, somehow different from the spike protein on COVID. Yet you can't produce any evidence for your wild assertions other than 'look it up!'.

"Do your research!" the rallying cry of the uninformed.

I said none of that.

#18 | Posted by jpw at 2025-08-09 12:28 PM | Reply

Even if they did show correlation, correlation does not mean causation.

#15 | POSTED BY ZARNON

lol you're spewing noise without knowing what you're actually saying.

Multiple studies show IgG4 increases following repeat boosting with mRNA COVID vaccines. That's indisputable.

Equally indisputable is the elevated adverse events from the mRNA vaccines. You can agree that they're acceptable given the benefits of the platform, but you can't deny they're there.

#19 | Posted by jpw at 2025-08-09 02:24 PM | Reply

Multiple studies show IgG4 increases following repeat boosting with mRNA COVID vaccines. That's indisputable.

Exactly.

"Increased levels of igG4 from repeated mRNA vaccination appears well correlated."

#20 | Posted by YAV at 2025-08-09 07:01 PM | Reply

@#15 ... Research is more than a Google search and posting the results. ...

Yes, it is.

Projecting again?

#21 | Posted by LampLighter at 2025-08-09 07:19 PM | Reply

RFK Jr. defends $500M cut for mRNA vaccines with pseudoscience gobbledygook
arstechnica.com

... He clearly has no idea what antigenic shift means.

If anyone needed a reminder that US health secretary and fervent anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has no background in science or medicine, look no further than the video he posted on social media Tuesday evening.

In the two-and-a-half-minute clip, Kennedy announced that he is cancelling nearly $500 million in funding for the development of mRNA-based vaccines against diseases that pose pandemic threats. The funding will be clawed back from 22 now-defunct contracts awarded through the federal agency tasked with developing medical countermeasures to public health threats. The agency is the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA).

Kennedy is generally opposed to vaccines, but he is particularly hostile to mRNA-based vaccines. Since the remarkably successful debut of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic"which were developed and mass-produced with unprecedented speed"Kennedy has continually disparaged and spread misinformation about them.

In the video on Tuesday, Kennedy continued that trend, erroneously saying that, "as the pandemic showed us, mRNA vaccines don't perform well against viruses that infect the upper respiratory tract." In reality, COVID-19 vaccines are estimated to have saved more than 3 million lives in the US in just the first two years of the pandemic and additionally prevented more than 18 million hospitalizations in the US in that time. Nearly all COVID-19 vaccines used in the US are mRNA-based.

However, Kennedy's video only went more off the rails from there. He continued on with this nonsensical explanation:

Here's the problem: mRNA only codes for a small part of viral proteins usually a single antigen. One mutation, and the vaccine becomes ineffective. This dynamic drives a phenomenon called antigenic shift meaning that the vaccine paradoxically encourages new mutations and can actually prolong pandemics as the virus constantly mutates to escape the protective effects of the vaccine.

Fact-check

To unpack this nonsense, let's start with how mRNA-based vaccines work. These vaccines deliver a snippet of genetic code"in the form of messenger RNA (mRNA)"to cells. Our cells then translate that mRNA code into a protein that the immune system can, essentially, use for target practice, producing antibodies and cell-based responses against it. After that, if the immune system ever encounters that snippet on an actual invading virus or other germ, it will then recognize it and mount a protective response. Such snippets of germs or other harmful things that can prompt an immune response are generally called antigens.

In the case of COVID-19 vaccines, the mRNA snippet codes for a portion of the SARS-CoV-2 virus's spike protein, which is a critical external protein that the virus uses to attach to and infect cells. That portion of the spike protein is considered an antigen.

...



#22 | Posted by LampLighter at 2025-08-09 07:23 PM | Reply

@#22

More from the article in #22...

... SARS-CoV-2, including its spike protein, is continually evolving, regardless of whether people are vaccinated or not, let alone what type of vaccine they've received. The virus racks up mutations as it continuously replicates. Some of these mutations help a virus evade immune responses, whether they're from vaccination or previous infection. These immune-evading mutations can accumulate and give rise to new variants or strains, making it part of a process called antigenic drift (not shift). Antigenic drift does reduce the efficacy of vaccines over time. It's why, for example, people can get influenza repeatedly in their lifetimes, and why flu shots are updated annually. However, it does not mean that vaccines are immediately rendered ineffective upon single mutations, as Kennedy says.

For example, the current leading SARS-CoV-2 variant in the US is NB.1.8.1, which has six notable mutations in its spike protein compared to the previous leading variant, LP.8.1. Further, NB.1.8.1 has seven notable spike mutations compared to the JN.1 variant, an ancestor for this line of variants. Yet, studies suggest that current mRNA COVID-19 vaccines targeting JN.1 are still effective against NB.1.8.1. In fact, the Food and Drug Administration, in line with its expert advisors, left open the possibility that vaccine makers could carry over the same JN.1-targeting seasonal COVID-19 vaccine formula from last season for use in this season.
Drift vs. shift

While antigenic drift is an accumulation of small, immune-evading mutations over time, Kennedy mentioned antigenic shift, which is something different. Antigenic shift is much more dramatic, infrequent, and is typically discussed in the context of influenza viruses, which have segmented genomes. Antigenic shift is often defined as "the reassortment of viral gene segments between various influenza viruses of human or zoological origin, which leads to the emergence of new strains." The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gives an example of such a shift in 2009. That's when a new influenza virus with a collection of genome segments from influenza viruses found in North American swine, Eurasian swine, humans, and birds emerged to cause the H1N1 pandemic.

In the video, Kennedy went on to muddle these concepts of drifts and shifts

Millions of people maybe even you or someone you know caught the omicron variant despite being vaccinated, that's because a single mutation can make mRNA vaccines ineffective.

Among the COVID-19 variants that have risen to dominance only to be quickly usurped, there's usually a small handful of mutations -- like the examples above with six or seven mutations in the spike protein. But omicron was a different story. Omicron emerged carrying an extremely large suite of mutations -- there were 37 mutations in its spike protein compared to its predecessors. Kennedy's suggestion that it rose to prominence because of a single mutation is egregiously false.

However, due to the extreme number of mutations, some researchers have suggested that omicron does represent an antigenic shift for SARS-CoV-2. Although the pandemic virus"which is a coronavirus"does not have a segmented genome, the "magnitude of Omicron-mediated immune evasion" fits with an antigenic shift, the researchers said. ...


#23 | Posted by LampLighter at 2025-08-09 07:26 PM | Reply

@#22, 23

So it seems Sec Kennedy has not a clue of which he spouts.

Indeed, he seems to be working more towards MASA (Mae America Sick Again).

#24 | Posted by LampLighter at 2025-08-09 07:29 PM | Reply

Multiple studies show IgG4 increases following repeat boosting with mRNA COVID vaccines. That's indisputable.

You still don't get it do you?

Whether or not it raises IgG4 doesn't prove causation of an autoimmune disease. There are many markers of inflammation (such as ESR) that have a high sensitivity and low specificity. You can have an elevated Rheumatoid factor and not have rheumatoid arthritis. The IgG4 is elevated for other reasons.

What you dum-dums keep forgetting is the COVID virus has the same spike protein that produces the same immune response. That is why the vaccine is so effective. Yes there may be chronic disease, but it's been overwhelmingly been linked to the actual infection. Have you ever heard of the long-term effects of actually having COVID?

JFC.

The third article posted by Yav was that the elevated levels of IgG4 were indicative of vaccine efficacy. They did not say anything about autoimmune disease . It's right in the fcking synopsis, you dim-wits. You can gaslight each other all you want.

You think it's intellectual sophistry when you're idiots engaging in it.

You know nothing of the basics of immunology and your links do not show what you say they do. Otherwise you'd actually quote from the articles.

The cause of IgG4-RD remains unknown and many people have it outside of being vaccinated.

The intellectual contortions are all on your end. But what else would you expect from anti-vaxxer science illiterates?

#25 | Posted by zarnon at 2025-08-09 09:27 PM | Reply

These are the same people who confidently state vaccines cause Autism. Keep that in mind when you're ascertaining the level of Willful Ignorance.

#26 | Posted by zarnon at 2025-08-09 09:38 PM | Reply

Its pro-inflammatory characteristics were a positive for initial vaccinations because it gave a more "natural"-like response.

Inflammation is part and parcel of any immune response. From local to systemic infections that's the way it works.

What a discovery you've made!

But you are making a huge leap from that to chronic disease. You've provided zero proof and the links Yav posted were speculative at best or did not have anything to do with IgG4-RD disease at all.

#27 | Posted by zarnon at 2025-08-09 09:45 PM | Reply

If all you're saying is it raises IgG4 then fine. If you're not alleging it's related to anything beyond temporary increase in inflammatory markers then why are you bringing it up in the first place?

The Anti-Vaxxer two-step. Raise dubious, vague concerns then backtrack when confronted with specifics.

#28 | Posted by zarnon at 2025-08-09 09:59 PM | Reply

Whether or not it raises IgG4 doesn't prove causation of an autoimmune disease.

Show me where I said anything about autoimmune disease.

You've been shadow boxing this entire thread.

#29 | Posted by jpw at 2025-08-09 10:19 PM | Reply

The Anti-Vaxxer two-step. Raise dubious, vague concerns then backtrack when confronted with specifics.

#28 | POSTED BY ZARNON

lol you have no idea of my background, do you?

You've been around here a long time. Long enough that calling me an anti-vaxxer is hilarious.

#30 | Posted by jpw at 2025-08-09 10:20 PM | Reply

@#28 ... The Anti-Vaxxer two-step. Raise dubious, vague concerns then backtrack when confronted with specifics. ...

Huh?

Do try harder.

#31 | Posted by LampLighter at 2025-08-09 10:28 PM | Reply

7nbsp

@#30 ... You've been around here a long time. Long enough that calling me an anti-vaxxer is hilarious. ...

Yeah.

So, I'm not the only one who noticed that TACO.

#32 | Posted by LampLighter at 2025-08-09 10:29 PM | Reply

And getting back to the subject of this thread ...

So it seems Sec Kennedy has not a clue of which he spouts.


Yeah, that seems to be the case.


#33 | Posted by LampLighter at 2025-08-09 11:00 PM | Reply

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