The Guardian view on RFK Jr’s vaccine cuts: an assault on science from a politician unfit for his office | Editorial

SCience is not in black and white. It is more complicated and more exciting. It is a constant exploration process. An adventure in the unknown. Scientists offer theories about what could happen, then test them. They don’t always get things. Far from it. But thumb by thumb, test, failure and re -getting, they progress.

Robert F Kennedy Jr, during the Senate confirmation hearings for the role of secretary to the Ministry of Health and Social Services (HHS), seemed to obtain it. Those who feared what a skeptic vacci could do in this role breathed again. “I will give HHS scientists to do their job and make sure we have a good science based on evidence … I will not replace my judgment to science,” he said.

However, now, without good explanation or solid science, it cuts $ 500 million in research funding for mRNA vaccines, claiming that they “do not protect themselves effectively against higher respiratory infections such as cocvid and flu”. In fact, no coded vaccine fully protects against infections, but it has been shown to prevent deaths from billions of people. The 22 contracts that will be canceled include Moderna for a bird flu vaccine, which many fear to trigger the next human pandemic (and there will be one). Instead, federal funds will go to vaccines developed more traditionally.

Either Mr. Kennedy lied to Congress, or he has a different understanding of science and evidence of most scientists, discouraging what they thought to be indisputable. The childhood vaccine calendar is being reviewed and the mandate of the measles vaccine is questioned despite deadly epidemics in the United States. He dismissed the consultative panel of Centers for Disease vaccines and replaced it with many people known to have skeptical opinions.

Mr. Kennedy is particularly hostile to mRNA vaccines against COVID-19, by comparing them in 2021 as the “deadliest vaccines in history”, wrongly affirming that half of those who suffered from the rare side effect of myocarditis would die or need cardiac transplants within five years. The vast majority quickly recovered. Until 2023, he presided over an anti-vaccine organization called Children’s Health Defense, where he asked for the Food and Drug Administration to cancel the license for all COVID-19 vaccines and compared compulsory vaccines to Nazi oppression during the Second World War.

It is the fairs of fears on the Internet; Disinformation tangles labyrinstiny dotted with odd inaccurate nuggets from quasi-science. It does not compare itself to the basis of evidence of mrnm vaccines, which have undergone clinical trials over hundreds of thousands of people and have since been used to vaccinate billions.

Experts agree that mRNA vaccines were an amazing breakthrough that allowed people to be protected in record time from COVID-19. They contain messenger RNA, a little bit of genetic code that teaches the immune system to fight the virus. No need to cultivate the virus in chicken eggs, which takes months. “Plug and play” technology can be adapted to other viruses, such as flu, including some that devastate populations in poor countries. The inventors won the Nobel Prize in 2023.

The cancellation of funding by Mr. Kennedy not only excites a lot of research, but also nourishes doubt in the world in mRNA vaccines. We are all the losers. Humanity needs these vaccines. Other countries must intensify money and reassurance to try to cure this last violation between science and nonsense. And Mr. Kennedy is clearly unfit for the post he occupies.

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