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HHS Winds Down mRNA Vaccine Development Under BARDA
- verdverm 1y agomRNA... 2021 - saved millions of lives 2023 - won a Nobel Prize 2025 - cancelled by an anti-vaxxer
- latchkey 1y agoMay have gotten some of this wrong and probably missing a bunch, but... 1960's - discovered 1970's - delivered into cells 1987 - protein development 1990's - more development 2013 - potential vaccine for rabies
- verdverm 1y agoYea, there is a much longer history. What's really crazy is that this is the same (?, 2.0) administration that championed the Project Warpspeed that led to this sequence of events. You'd think they'd be talking up how great they did and all the potential mRNA has to MAHA, yet here we are...
- latchkey 1y agoGood point! He gave the reigns to a nutter and fired the folks that actually did the project. Bonkers!
- Phil_Latio 1y ago[flagged]
- OCASMv2 1y ago> 2021 - saved millions of lives Not really, the virus mutating into less aggressive strains did. Reducing counter-productive treatments (like ventilators) helped greatly too.
- worik 1y ago> Not really, Yes, really
- OCASMv2 1y ago[flagged]
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- yahoozoo 1y ago[flagged]
- verdverm 1y agoThe problem is that this is so ideological for some people, damn the science and facts, lies and positioning are all that matter in the post-truth world Imagine believing that in a world of billions, that the vaccine didn't save at least 2M lives through reductions in symptoms and spread. The same is true for virus mutations
- OCASMv2 1y agoIt's perfectly reasonable to believe that when the vaccine in question is crap that doesn't prevent transmission, whatever limited positive effects it has last very little time and has severe side effects like heart inflammation.
- lamontcg 1y agoThe virus didn't mutate into less aggressive strains, everyone got T-cells through vaccination or infection, which made subsequent infection less severe. Which is borne out through the higher death rate in Republicans who didn't get vaccinated, compared to Democrats who did. And we had situations like Hong Kong which got absolutely hammered by Omicron, even though that strain was supposedly "less severe", because of the low levels of prior infection and vaccination when Omicron hit there.
- infamouscow 1y ago> BARDA is terminating 22 mRNA vaccine development investments because the data show these vaccines fail to protect effectively against upper respiratory infections like COVID and flu.
- 650REDHAIR 1y agoThe problem is that I don’t believe RFK jr and therefore I don’t believe HHS. How accurate is their data? Was it manipulated?
- j3th9n 1y agoGood questions to always ask. But better late than never. Welcome to the matrix.
- yakz 1y agoThey didn’t trust the government and wanted you to stop trusting the government too. They know that their own public statements are not trustworthy (they are peddling weird bullshit for profit in their private lives, after all). They got themselves elected and so now you don’t trust the government. Mission accomplished.
- genter 1y agoIt's a good thing Shockley gave up on the transistor, it never would've been able to switch as much current as a relay, or switch as quickly as a vacuum tube. It's a good thing Benjamin Franklin gave up on electricity, we would've never been able to contain it safely. It's a good thing Watts gave up the steam engine, it never would've put out as much power as a horse.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- wk_end 1y agoWith the caveats that 1) I suspect that this isn't actually data-driven as RFK Jr. is an anti-vax nut and 2) personally I think the government should fund vaccine development: Were Shockley, Franklin, or Watts funded by the US government? To the tune of half a billion dollars? That's not a rhetorical question - I don't know to what extent their work received grants. But I think you need to connect those particular dots to effectively make the kind of comparison you're making. The implication of your post (sort of) is that work on mRNA vaccination development either needs to be funded by the government or it'll be given up on. If it's the kind of breakthrough that it likely is (and already has been, really) I doubt that's really the case. It's just unfortunate for Americans and the world that the work will likely be done elsewhere, perhaps more slowly, and perhaps (?) with less public (rather than for-profit) interest.
- WarOnPrivacy 1y agoReducing public health by damaging and degrading systems that advance and preserve health - this might not be the best way to reverse a population decline.
- mindslight 1y agoWait until you hear how they've criminalized maternal healthcare. There's really no other way to view this clown car of malcontent grifters besides societal suicide.
- worik 1y ago> criminalized maternal healthcare. The rotters! It is out and out misogyny. But it is abortion and birth control they target, is it not? They could argue that they are acting to increase population? Do not mistake me for in any way supporting these evil people. But being pedantic I wish to criticise them accurately Are they criminalising some other aspect of maternity care?
- mindslight 1y agoYou're certainly not going to increase the population when eager would-be mothers die of complications from trying to carry a nonviable fetus to term/miscarriage. This is the reality of "late term abortion" the cultists love to harp on. Their great bogeyman is actually a straw man. You're also not going to increase the population by discouraging IVF while the economic treadmill keeps on pushing people to put off kids. As far as what they might argue? They will certainly argue anything, but it's never in good faith. Any lofty values they invoke to defend one policy will immediately vanish when they're asked to apply them to a contradictory policy. And like the import taxes, or the spectacle deportations, or the cries about the debt, we certainly could have a group of well reasoned national policies that would encourage having kids. But one or two policies seemingly picked for their mechanics of hurting people is most certainly not that kind of constructive approach.
- EverydayBalloon 1y ago[dead]
- jmclnx 1y agoWell why should the US lead in medical advancements. Glad we have an administration that has no problem handing medical advancements to China. I am sure China will thank us some day. How stupid can Trump and his people be, every day they do something even more stupid than the day before.
- thenerdhead 1y agoIt’s tough to get a clear picture, but if you’ve been following the research closely, it’s obvious that there are better long-term candidates in the pipeline. Project Next-Gen is highly data-driven, and the most promising candidates are rising to the top as some are already near Phase 3. Redirecting funding toward these options isn’t as drastic as it may seem. In fact, it makes sense if we want the best outcomes. https://medicalcountermeasures.gov/nextgen https://medicalcountermeasures.gov/nextgen https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/79/1/115/7607231 https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/79/1/115/7607231
- IgorPartola 1y agoI don’t really see where and how this is more promising than mRNA. My (very cursory) understanding was also that mRNA based vaccines can go far beyond just COVID and into all manner of promising options such as curing some of the viruses that cause the common cold entirely.
- thenerdhead 1y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=thenerdhead#44805721 https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=thenerdhead#44805721
- WillPostForFood 1y agocuring some of the viruses that cause the common cold entirely. This was this kind of crazy hype from back in 2021/2022 that has helped fuel the backlash against MRNA vaccines. There has been nothing happening on the common cold virus with MRNA vaccines. In retrospect, it seems like CEOs pumping the stock price with wild promises.
- thenerdhead 1y ago> There has been nothing happening on the common cold virus with MRNA vaccines. In retrospect, it seems like CEOs pumping the stock price with wild promises. So not true. There are numerous candidates for pan-flu and pan-coronavirus vaccines. mRNA and other vehicles. https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/clinical-trial-mrna-universal-influenza-vaccine-candidate-begins https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/clinical-trial...
- tw04 1y agoTo be clear, he’s saying the wildly successful mRNA covid vaccines, given to hundreds of millions of people, “don’t work”. Based on “science” without any actual citation* of a study to be seen. It’s absurd this administration can now just say “we used science” and not be held accountable for the bald faced lies.
- mzajc 1y agoAbsurd, but unsurprising. I've seen their voters, in bad faith, compare science to religion, either because the distinction between pure faith and a scientific process is too alien to them or because they pretend that it is. This is yet another manifestation of this "misunderstanding".
- o11c 1y agoTo be fair, there often isn't as much a distinction as we'd like. Even ignoring soft sciences ... how often is there an HN post linking to a paper about some great new battery technology? When the in-group fails to police itself sufficiently, it is inevitable that the out-group will do so coarsely.
- Teever 1y agoPeople posting astroturfed links on HN about new battery tech is not directly comparable to people refusing to vaccine their children against measles because of religious reasons.
- eggnet 1y agoThis comment is too indirect to be useful. Can you be more explicit?
- o11c 1y agoTo the people at large, a lot of "science" consists entirely of "hey look, a blessed paper says so; anyone who disagrees is a heretic", which is exactly what the atheists (and other-religion-ists) see for insert-religion-here.
- maximilianburke 1y agoThere are two ways to make a population healthy. You can either eliminate sick people through treatment, or eliminate sick people through death. I think this administration is picking the latter.
- HarryHirsch 1y agoYou can also provide clean air and mandate such and such a turnover of fresh air, and you can have paid sick days, so that employees don't drag themselves in with respiratory illness and infect the rest of the staff. But it's America, can't have such.
- maximilianburke 1y ago(I kinda was hoping that would fall under the former, heh)
- pabs3 1y agoThat is less about treatement and more about prevention, which the UK NHS is planning on shifting focus to. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jun/29/nhs-health-policy-labour-ten-year-plan-change https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jun/29/nhs-health-p...
- lvspiff 1y agoThey are picking the “un-rich” latter. The rich can still have all the vaccines they want they just gotta pay for it. Same goes for healthcare. If you don’t have a job and arent independently wealthy well screw you dont care about you anyways. So its not just a purge of the sick people its a purge of the poor as well. I dont think they have an endgame other than at the end they’ve accumulated all the wealth and power possible…nothing about making population healthy
- conception 1y agoThe rich aren’t funding their own vaccine research.
- bartman 1y agoThese cuts have been in progress for months, and it’s a sad state of the world when scientific research and its products are called unscientific and not evidence based without any substantiation. I’m reminded of this quote from Carl Sagan’s Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, as we creep closer and closer to future he describes. > We've arranged a global civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.
- OCASMv2 1y agoOr maybe they do have evidence that proves ineffectiveness/harm of a technology that was rushed to the market during a global panic.
- lawlessone 1y ago[flagged]
- OCASMv2 1y agoNo, what I said about masking policy during COVID was this: > Reasonable at first. Once it was known that the virus is transmitted via aerosols then forcing masks was the wrong thing to do, specially on children. Useless and damaging.
- mindslight 1y agoI don't know why you wouldn't wear a mask to stop aerosols. Masks were a correct answer. The problem was pushing those pieces of crap made out of cut up t-shirts and other hopium, to help cope with the presidential dereliction of duty failing to address the shortage of real PPE P95/P100s.
- 1y ago
- getlawgdon 1y agoWinder when we'll all be sick enough of the lunacy to permanently boot these right wing extremists. ...
- moogly 1y agoRFK Jr. should be called the Angel of Death of the 21st century.
- pixxel 1y ago[dead]
- bawana 1y ago[flagged]
- worik 1y agoI agree I think the pharmaceutical companies should be nationalised so that the mRNA vaccines can be developed as a community good We can in entices novel research with prizes, grants and bounties, rather than using markets Markets are good for some things, but not good at allocating resources for drug research https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neglected_tropical_diseases#Economic_incentives https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neglected_tropical_diseases#... for example
- bawana 1y agoLOL! Downvoted and flagged by big pharma bots
- HocusLocus 1y ago[flagged]
- jleyank 1y agoHell, they're not going to collect much in elevated pharmaceutical tariffs if they things the stuff is voodoo and won't import it. European and Asian companies don't have to worry about losing a market that's moving away from them.
- bediger4000 1y agoAt the very least, RFKJ either perjured himself during his confirmation hearing, or he's going back on his testimony. He claimed he wasn't going to do any of this. I think this is impeachable conduct.
- mcphage 1y agoHey, welcome to 2025. Always nice having time travelers visit. Not sure why you picked this year to travel to from the past, but it was not a great decision.
- FireBeyond 1y agoYeah, even beyond the complete lack of accountability, nothing will happen. "I meant it at that time. But on further reflection, I've updated my opinion."
- burnt-resistor 1y agoWhen the next pandemic comes and there's no plan or preparation, it will be dismissed as a "complete surprise" "no one could've predicted" and "hatched in a North Korean lab".
- pixxel 1y ago[dead]
- coreyh14444 1y agoWho is downvoting these en masse?
- JojoFatsani 1y agoWelcome to the Chinese Century.