\n<\/p>\n
The U.K. and China will be the biggest beneficiaries of the U.S. health secretary\u2019s \u201cown goal\u201d of pulling funding for mRNA vaccines, according to experts.<\/p>\n
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,\u00a0a controversial member of Donald Trump\u2019s cabinet who claims he wants to \u201cmake America healthy again,\u201d is scrapping $500\u00a0million in funding for the technology\u2014which was used to combat COVID-19.<\/p>\n
Paul Hunter, professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia, said other countries with active biotechnology industries will benefit, but the decision will still delay the development of new vaccines worldwide.<\/p>\n
\u201cProgress will continue but not as quickly as otherwise. Lives will be lost that could have been saved had there been a vaccine,\u201d he told Times Higher Education<\/em>.<\/p>\n The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said 22 projects by major pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer and Moderna, will be affected. The projects were working on vaccines against bird flu and other viruses.<\/p>\n \u201cIt will certainly make the U.S. poorer for not having a biotechnology industry that is not as competitive as it could be,\u201d added Hunter. \u201cThe U.S. will certainly lose out to China and Europe, and when its researchers move overseas, it may not be easy to get them to return later.\u201d<\/p>\n He said the migration of talent to the U.K. is already under way\u2014with his department recently shortlisting a research assistant who had been working in the U.S.<\/p>\n Kennedy said mRNA technology \u201cposes more risks than benefits\u201d for respiratory viruses and announced a shift toward \u201csafer, broader vaccine platforms that remain effective even as viruses mutate.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI would certainly say it\u2019s an own goal for the U.S. and something they are likely to regret,\u201d said Robin Shattock, professor of mucosal infection and immunity at Imperial College London.<\/p>\n Shattock said innovation would continue at pace in the U.K., mainland Europe and Asia. While China pushes ahead with RNA technologies, the U.S. appears to be looking to shift to older technology used by Chinese companies.<\/p>\n \u201cThis current retrograde step by the U.S. will allow others to catch up and likely pull ahead in the context of vaccines,\u201d he added. \u201cIt will only take another pandemic for them to rapidly see their mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n Charles Bangham, professor emeritus of immunology also at Imperial, said the cuts to U.S. aid and higher education funding have already been seriously damaging for research, but this latest \u201cantiscience\u201d decision will be harmful to both manufacturing and health.<\/p>\n \u201cThe disinvestment in mRNA vaccine development and production is, in my view, a serious error.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt is a blow to the U.S.\u2019 own interests\u2014they\u2019re shooting themselves in the foot.\u201d<\/p>\n In the absence of any strong evidence that COVID-19 vaccines caused adverse reactions, Bangham said it was hard to rationalize why the U.S. was acting so decisively on \u201cthe basis of a few anecdotes.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s more than a lack of competency. I think it\u2019s active and explicit, and often voiced, opposition and denigration and disavowal of the value of scientific evidence, which I think is extremely damaging.\u201d<\/p>\n Along with the U.K., Europe and China, there are now \u201chuge opportunities\u201d for research development in Southeast Asia, he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The U.K. and China will be the biggest beneficiaries of the U.S. health secretary\u2019s \u201cown goal\u201d of pulling funding for mRNA vaccines, according to experts. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,\u00a0a controversial member of Donald Trump\u2019s cabinet who claims he wants to \u201cmake America healthy again,\u201d is scrapping $500\u00a0million in funding for the technology\u2014which was used to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19605,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[12019,2153,562,3786,573,397,811],"class_list":{"0":"post-19604","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-biotech","9":"tag-china","10":"tag-cuts","11":"tag-mrna","12":"tag-shift","13":"tag-u-k","14":"tag-u-s"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19604\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}