Doctors are sounding the alarm about potentially deadly consequences of the Trump administration’s decision to slash $500 million in funding for mRNA vaccine development, saying the “deeply troubling” move could leave Americans defenseless in the face of a biological attack, or another pandemic.

Leading physicians and vaccine specialists were among the medical and scientific experts who told The Independent that years of progress had been lost, including the lessons learned during Covid.

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The Trump administration is cancelling almost $500 million in contracts to develop mRNA vaccines to protect the nation against future viral threats. The move thrilled critics of the technology but horrified many public health and biosecurity experts.

The federal Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA, which oversees the nation's defenses against biological attacks, is terminating 22 contracts with university researchers and private companies to develop new uses for the mRNA technology, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced Tuesday.

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(TNND) — Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s decision to terminate nearly $500 million in government funding for mRNA vaccine development has alarmed public health experts.

“This is a deeply troubling development,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, the director of Brown University's Pandemic Center. “I mean, it's troubling in the short term, because it means that we will be less prepared for future pandemics. But it's also troubling for the longer term.”

Nuzzo said she’s concerned this move will sow doubt about vaccines and hinder medical innovation.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has canceled nearly $500 million of grants and contracts for developing mRNA vaccines, the Department of Health and Human Services announced on Tuesday.

It is the latest blow to research on this technology. In May, the Department of Health and Human Services revoked a nearly $600 million contract to the drugmaker Moderna to develop a vaccine against bird flu.

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Bird flu, for the moment, appears to be under control. But experts have a warning for federal and state health officials: Fall is coming — so don’t get too comfortable, Sophie and David report.

Over the past few months, avian flu cases among humans, cattle and poultry have slowed — easing fears that the U.S. could be hurdling toward another major pandemic and prompting the CDC to end its emergency response.

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As Covid-19 transmission ramps up in the United States, recent changes to federal vaccine guidance have left many Americans confused about the latest policies and concerned about access to shots this fall.

The US has had a summer surge in Covid-19 cases each year since the pandemic began. This year, however, experts say that the seasonal wave is starting later than anticipated and is relatively subdued. Surveillance data from WastewaterSCAN shows that median Covid-19 concentrations ticked up from June to July, with high levels in some parts of the country, but overall, it’s far below this time last year.

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HHS leaders plan to purge members of a committee that would advise the new CDC director.

HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon told POLITICO Thursday that the Department of Health and Human Services would fire all members of the committee, noting that the “CDC Director has full discretion to restructure this committee to align with the agency’s priorities and ensure a fresh perspective.”

Dr. Susan Monarez will be sworn in as director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday, and she’s taking the reins at a perilous time for the agency.

The CDC has lost nearly a quarter of its staff since January, thanks to massive workforce cuts at federal health agencies. The Trump administration’s proposed budget for the fiscal year 2026 would slash the agency’s funding by more than half. And under a proposed reorganization, the agency stands to lose more of its programs: Some are set to be moved to a new Administration for a Healthy America while others, such as the National Center for Chronic Disease and Health Promotion, would be eliminated altogether.

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The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is adopting a recommendation from independent advisers to drop thimerosal, a preservative found in about 4% of flu vaccines, despite evidence that it poses no risks and helps prevent bacterial and fungal infections.

But Robert F Kennedy Jr, the HHS secretary, has not adopted two other votes from the advisory meeting: recommending annual flu vaccines for everyone over the age of six months and RSV shots for infants.

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After months weathering staffing cuts and disease outbreaks without an official leader, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finally has a new director.

The Senate confirmed Susan Monarez, a health scientist and longtime civil servant, to run the public health agency. She is the first CDC director to be confirmed by the Senate under a law passed in 2023, and the first to serve in the role without a medical degree in more than 70 years. The vote was 51-47, along party lines.

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Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been making big changes to federal vaccine policies. Many medical experts are concerned the administration will further limit vaccine access.

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U.S. Government funding for scientific research has led to innovations and breakthroughs for decades. But, with funding freezes, slashed budgets, and the cancellation of grants, the health of America’s scientific enterprise is in jeopardy. What’s at stake – for research, innovation, and the economy? How did we get here, and what will it take to chart a more sustainable path forward? David Leonhardt, director of the Editorial Board of The New York Times, leads a discussion with Holden Thorp, editor in chief of the Science family of journals, Jennifer Nuzzo, epidemiology professor at Brown University, and Karel Mertens, senior vice president at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Their conversation was held in late June, 2025.

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Beth Cameron, Senior Advisor and Professor of the Practice at the Brown University Pandemic Center and a Senior Adviser and non-resident fellow at CSIS, hosts this inspiring July 14 conversation with Richard Hatchett, the CEO of CEPI, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations. Richard first came to Washington DC in the aftermath of 9/11 to create the U.S. Medical Reserve Corps. There was no looking back. He served in several administrations as a leading expert in bio preparedness and left government to lead CEPI at its creation in 2017, its mission to support the accelerated development of vaccines and other countermeasures against future biothreats. With the Covid-19 pandemic, health security has become an enduring global concern, with now a fierce focus on access to new technology, and regional manufacturing capabilities. “You have to design your programs with your access goal in mind from the very beginning.” Preparedness is “not a static achievement.” It is “a dynamic state of readiness” that evolves through practice – “train, train, train.” CEPI’s signature big idea is the 100 Day Mission, in which vaccine designs and delivery platforms are ready to spring into action when new biothreats appear. Cuts in finances and programs by the Trump administration and others will compromise disease surveillance, detection and containment measures, increasing the risks to Americans and beyond. Cuts are also forcing reflection, the setting of priorities, and finding ways to finance and achieve better and more efficient outcomes. The remarkable speed in which a vaccine was introduced during the Marburg outbreak in Rwanda in September 2024 rested not on luck. It built on CEPI’s pre-existing partnerships with the Rwanda government and several other institutions, including WHO and key US agencies. CEPI has invested since 2017 in over $1 billion in the US biotech sector and has just concluded an agreement to work with DOD.
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Originally launched to track major pandemic outbreaks in the US and around the world, Brown University School of Public Health’s Pandemic Tracker now helps with a wide range of public health efforts.

Led by Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center and professor of epidemiology at SPH, the tracker helps public and policy makers stay on top of disease outbreaks during a time of economic strain and political polarization.

While the tracker provides an “evidence base” to inform decision-makers how to address pandemics, Nuzzo said the tracker’s primary purpose was to help Brown researchers share real-time pandemic information with the public.

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As authorities brace for a potential resurgence in bird flu cases this fall, infectious disease specialists warn that the Trump administration’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants could hamper efforts to stop the spread of disease.

Dairy and poultry workers have been disproportionately infected with the H5N1 bird flu since it was first detected in U.S. dairy cows in March 2024, accounting for 65 of the 70 confirmed infections, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and its convergence with the life sciences offer incredible potential societal benefits, including advancing public health through the development of new vaccines and treatments, and by strengthening capabilities to rapidly detect new infectious disease outbreaks. These advances have the potential to reduce the burden of disease across the globe and to drive economic development. At the same time, rapid advances in AI capabilities that enable engineering of living systems—referred to here as AIxBio capabilities—also increase the risk of deliberate or accidental release of harmful biological agents, including those that could cause a global biological catastrophe that affects populations around the world.

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Wildfire smoke serves as a clear, visible reminder to take action for cleaner indoor air

We are thrilled to announce that Dr. Georgia Lagoudas, a distinguished Senior Fellow at the Pandemic Center within Brown University, USA, has agreed to lead the crucial Policy Working Group of the Global Open Air Quality Standards initiative.

In this pivotal role, Dr. Lagoudas will spearhead the development of a preliminary policy framework that will serve as the foundation for this ambitious global effort. This framework will be instrumental in outlining the key principles that will guide the establishment of universal air quality standards, defining the overarching objectives the initiative aims to achieve in improving air quality worldwide, and exploring the potential mechanisms through which these standards can be effectively implemented and monitored across diverse global contexts.

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For months, bird flu was seemingly everywhere in the U.S.: news headlines reported the highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza virus was rapidly sweeping through hundreds of herds of dairy cattle and leading to massive culls of poultry flocks, concerning infections in humans and grocery store aisles where nary an egg could be found.

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The CSIS Bipartisan Alliance for Global Health Security has evaluated the policy changes unfolding in the past several months as a new era in national, economic, and health security begins. This call to action is an appeal to the administration and Congress to protect and strengthen investments in health security programs, which make Americans safer, stronger, and more prosperous. The first order of business is to restore confidence and trust in health security policies and their execution. To that end, the alliance calls on the administration and Congress to (1) stabilize and modernize core health security capabilities; (2) secure and sustain U.S. leadership in science and biomedical research; and (3) accelerate innovations in financing that enable efficient, effective, and accountable health security investments. Together, these actions will ensure Americans remain protected, U.S. innovation remains competitive, and U.S. government programming is more efficient and sustainable going forward, assured of strong support among Americans.

There have now been more measles cases in 2025 than in any other year since the contagious virus was declared eliminated in the United States in 2000, according to new data released Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The grim milestone represents an alarming setback for the country’s public health and heightens concerns that if childhood vaccination rates do not improve, deadly outbreaks of measles — once considered a disease of the past — will become the new normal.

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(TNND) — The U.S. has managed to keep a lid on measles for a quarter of a century.

That’s now at risk.

Johns Hopkins’ Center for Outbreak Response Innovation reports 1,277 confirmed cases of measles so far this year, which eclipsed 2019 to become the highest annual total since measles was declared eliminated in 2000.

And we have half the year left.

“We're deeply worried about it,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, the director of Brown University's Pandemic Center.

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I don’t know exactly when I was infected with Ebola. As a doctor in a treatment center in Guinea in 2014, I faced hundreds of potential exposures during the outbreak there.

If I had to guess, the virus probably breached my protective gear while my colleagues and I cared for a young woman in the final moments of her battle with the disease. Each time she vomited or soiled herself, we changed her linens, gently laying her listless body back onto clean, burgundy floral sheets. I knew this ritual wouldn’t save her life. I also knew it carried substantial personal risk. But I refused to let her die without dignity. I know there are many who would do the same.

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Key takeaways:
The U.S. is pulling funding from Gavi, claiming the alliance neglected vaccine safety data.
Experts said the decision is not actually about safety but about casting doubt on vaccines.

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As secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has made it his mission to “make America healthy again.” Yet so far—and you may want to sit down for this—it appears that Worm Guy’s actions, and those of the Trump administration, are at odds with that goal. And by “at odds” we mean they’ve done a whole bunch of stuff that may actually make the people of this country very sick. Sure, Kennedy is pushing to phase out artificial food dyes, but he‘s also undermining life-saving vaccines and spreading misinformation about medications that some people require to get out of bed in the morning—to say nothing of the fake studies in his big report on children’s health. Meanwhile, the Trump administration also wants to keep some forever chemicals linked to cancer in the drinking water, has refused to allow coal plants to close, and obliterated scientific research—the kind that makes breakthroughs and finds cures for diseases.

A running list of the not-so-healthy moves by Kennedy and Trump include:

Rachel Feltman: For Scientific American’s Science Quickly, I’m Rachel Feltman. This is the final episode of our three-part series on bird flu.

(You can listen to episode one here and episode two here.)

On Wednesday we met scientists who are getting their hands dirty with dairy cows and poultry to better understand how H5N1 bird flu is spreading. Today we’ll take a look at efforts to create vaccines for H5N1—and learn why eggs are so critical to the vaccine-making process.

Our host today is Naeem Amarsy, a multimedia journalist based in New York City. Here’s Naeem now.

Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr. says the U.S. will stop funding GAVI due to safety concerns. GAVI is a public-private partnership that vaccinates children in some of the poorest countries. The group has pushed back on the criticism.

Here & Now’s Asma Khalid learns more about the implications with Seth Berkley, the former CEO of GAVI, who is now a senior advisor to the Brown University School of Public Health Pandemic Center.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory committee is set to meet this week for the first time since Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. removed all of its sitting members and appointed new ones.

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) is expected to vote on vaccine recommendations for the fall as well as discuss other vaccines, including those given to children. The group wields enormous influence setting vaccine policy in the United States, including which vaccines will be covered by insurance.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's vaccine advisory committee is set to meet for the first time since Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dismissed the entire panel and appointed his own hand-selected members.

Earlier this month, Kennedy removed all 17 sitting members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) and appointed eight new members, some of whom have been critics of shots -- especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The ACIP will meet on Wednesday, June 25, and Thursday, June 26, to review scientific data on some vaccines and vote on some fall recommendations.

Jen Nuzzo joins 12 News Anchor Kayla Fish to talk about the school's new Tracking Report for Measles, COVID-19 and other outbreaks affecting the globe

Amid controversial dismissals for independent advisers and staff at health agencies, alongside lackluster responses to the bird flu and measles outbreaks, experts fear the US is now in worse shape to respond to a pandemic than before 2020.

H5N1, which has received less attention under the Trump administration than from Biden’s team, is not the only influenza virus or even the only variant of bird flu with the potential to spark a pandemic. But a subpar response to the ongoing US outbreak signals a larger issue: America is not ready for whatever pathogen will sweep through next.

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Rapid detection and response to biological threats are critical to global health security. For decades, the United States has played a leading role in international outbreak response. However, recent U.S. policy shifts, including deep cuts to global health programs, reductions in personnel, and withdrawal from key institutions like the World Health Organization, are weakening disease detection and response systems worldwide. These actions threaten outbreak preparedness, data sharing, research collaboration, and frontline response capabilities, increasing the risk of uncontrolled epidemics with potentially catastrophic consequences.

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Last November, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that, as secretary of health and human services, he would not “take away anybody’s vaccines.” If you believed him, you were duped.

The longtime anti-vaccine crusader remains intent on vilifying lifesaving immunizations and promoting the lie that the shots cause autism and all manner of other conditions. Maybe it’s his long history of profiting off vaccine controversy, his convoluted distrust of germ theory, or a eugenicist ideology. But whatever his motivation, four months into Kennedy’s term leading the federal department that oversees the CDC, NIH, and FDA, he has made several policy changes, proclamations, and decisions that directly imperil Americans’ ability to access and afford routine vaccinations.

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hey’ve thought of each other as enemies. They’re on opposite sides of a culture war. They believe drastically different things about vaccines.

But, earlier this year, they did the rarest of things: They had a civil discussion and found common ground.

Since April, leading public health experts from institutions like Yale and Brown have been meeting with grassroots members of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again movement, or MAHA, to build trust and bridge deep divides over health care.

The conversations are the brainchild of Brinda Adhikari, a journalist and former television producer who grew increasingly concerned about Americans’ mistrust of institutions after Donald Trump’s reelection.

“These are two groups that talk a lot about each other,” said Adhikari, who has worked for ABC News and executive produced the podcast and television show, “The Problem with Jon Stewart.” “I just don’t see a lot of spaces where they talk to each other or with each other.”

The conversations are captured on Adhikari’s weekly podcast, “Why Should I Trust You?”

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This episode was made possible by the support of Yakult and produced independently by Scientific American's board of editors.

Rachel Feltman: Happy Monday, listeners! For Scientific American’s Science Quickly, I’m Rachel Feltman. You’re listening to the weekly science news roundup. Let’s dive right in.

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As top US health officials turn against some mRNA vaccines, experts fear for the country’s preparedness for the next pandemic and worry that other vaccines will be targeted next.

Donald Trump’s administration recently canceled a $766m award to Moderna on the research and development of H5N1 bird flu vaccines, and officials have announced new restrictions and regulations for Covid mRNA vaccines – actions that signal a move away from the breakthrough technology.

These changes add to other vaccine-related shakeups at health agencies, including layoffs and resignations of top vaccine officials and the abrupt termination of HIV vaccine research.

On Monday, Robert F Kennedy Jr, secretary of health and human services, announced he was disbanding the independent advisory committee on vaccines for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

On Monday, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. wrote in the Wall Street Journal that “Vaccines have become a divisive issue in American politics,” and “The U.S. faces a crisis of public trust.”

“Whether toward health agencies, pharmaceutical companies or vaccines themselves, public confidence is waning,” Kennedy warned.

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U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., abruptly removes all 17 sitting members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). An epidemiologist explains how this will affect people’s health and vaccine access.

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(TNND) — Health officials are sounding alarms over Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s decision to overhaul a vaccine advisory board with his appointees.

The Health and Human Services secretary announced Monday in a Wall Street Journal opinion article that he was replacing all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.

The ACIP is an expert scientific panel that develops vaccine recommendations for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The immunization schedule, or list of recommended shots, for kids is based on the panel’s advice to the CDC.

The ACIP recommendations have consequences for which vaccines insurers are willing to cover and which vaccines doctors recommend to their patients.

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For the first time since the COVID vaccines became available in pharmacies in 2021, the average person in the U.S. can’t count on getting a free annual shot against a disease that has been the main or a contributing cause of death for more than 1.2 million people around the country, including nearly 12,000 to date this year.

“COVID’s not done with us,” says Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at Brown University. “We have to keep using the tools that we have. It’s not like we get to forget about COVID.”

In recent weeks, the Department of Health and Human Services, led by prominent antivaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has announced a barrage of measures that are likely to reduce COVID vaccine access, leading to a swirl of confusion about what will be available for the 2025–2026 season. HHS officials did not respond to a request for comment for this article.

In December 2024, a group of scientists did something rare: published a warning against building a technology that some of them had spent years working toward. Even more eye-popping, this came at least a decade before the tech is even possible.

The warning concerned mirror bacteria: hypothetical synthetic organisms built from mirror-image forms of the proteins, amino acids, DNA, and other biomolecules used by life on earth.

In an analysis published in Science, we and 36 colleagues—including two Nobel Laureates and 16 members of national academies from around the world—argued that such organisms could be built within the next 10 to 30 years and could pose an extraordinary threat if they were.
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s plans to consolidate data on diseases like measles and polio are raising concerns about patient privacy, delays in spotting long-term trends and ways the Trump administration may use the information.

The agency told state officials earlier this week that it would shift disease information to a new system managed by Palantir, the data analysis and technology firm co-founded by Peter Thiel.

The Trump administration’s cancellation of $766 million in contracts to develop mRNA vaccines against potential pandemic flu viruses is the latest blow to national defense, former health security officials said. They warned that the U.S. could be at the mercy of other countries in the next pandemic.

“The administration’s actions are gutting our deterrence from biological threats,” said Beth Cameron, a senior adviser to the Brown University Pandemic Center and a former director at the White House National Security Council. “Canceling this investment is a signal that we are changing our posture on pandemic preparedness,” she added, “and that is not good for the American people.”

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Prior to becoming Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had espoused the idea of "medical freedom," the ability of people to make personal health decisions for themselves and their families without corporate or government coercion.

It's an idea supported under Kennedy's Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement to reduce the prevalence of chronic disease in the U.S. by making healthier lifestyle choices.

On topics, such as vaccines, Kennedy has said he wouldn't prevent children from being able to receive vaccines but would leave the choice up to parents.

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Season 3, Episode 11: In this episode, Marla Dalton, PE, CAE, and William Schaffner, MD, talk with Craig Spencer, MD, MPH, emergency physician and global health expert, about what it takes to lead in times of crisis. From treating Ebola patients in Guinea to navigating COVID-19 in New York, he reflects on the power of empathy, the importance of cultural understanding, and the pursuit of health equity. He also shares the personal sacrifices behind public service—and why the lessons of past pandemics must not be forgotten.

Associate professor at Brown University School of Public Health, Spencer has nearly 2 decades of experience in global health and humanitarian response, having worked on critical public health issues across Africa, Southeast Asia, and beyond, including leading epidemiological responses during the West African Ebola outbreak. His work focuses on the historical foundations of public health, humanitarian response, and pandemic preparedness. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The New England Journal of Medicine, The Washington Post and more. He is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations and serves on the Board of Advisors for Doctors Without Borders USA.

While the immediate effects of the US cuts in health aid are being felt primarily by the Global South, the associated risks extend worldwide.
Last week, global leaders gathered for the World Health Assembly in Geneva to address the reality that the global health landscape is being reshaped by dramatic shifts in funding, priorities, and leadership.

Chief among these is the United States’ decision to slash foreign aid and withdraw from the World Health Organization (WHO). Despite spending only 0.24% of its gross national income on foreign aid, the United States has been the largest donor to global health programmes, providing one-third of the international assistance in global health. This is not just a US issue – other countries have also signalled reductions in foreign health aid, and Argentina also recently announced it will withdraw from the WHO.

These dramatic shifts have forced the WHO to plan a reduction in staff by nearly 50%, triggering massive restructuring. Non-government organisations (NGOs) are laying off large numbers of staff worldwide. While other donors and philanthropies are stepping in, they cannot fill the void alone.

Meanwhile, the shock to the system is already resulting in lives lost. According to the WHO, countries such as Haiti, Kenya, Lesotho, South Sudan, Burkina Faso and Nigeria may run out of HIV antiretroviral medications within months.

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NTI’s “Young Voices” series highlights early-career professionals making their mark as part of the community of experts tackling today’s existential threats. This series reflects NTI’s commitment to uplift a range of voices and ideas, help break down stereotypes that contribute to generational divides on security and give a platform to young people to share creative ideas that address the evolving threats imperiling humanity.

Sara Kaufman, Executive Assistant and Events Coordinator for NTI’s Global Biological Policy and Programs team (NTI | bio) had the chance to speak with Thokozani Nyasulu-Liwewe, a medical doctor and global health professional with a remarkable career path dedicated to improving health outcomes and strengthening health systems. Currently, Thokozani serves as the Clinical Lead for the District Health Office under the Ministry of Health in Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi. She is also a 2024 Game Changers Fellow with the Brown University Pandemic Center and Pandemic Action Network. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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