On August 12, NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya wrote an op-ed defending Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s Department of Health and Human Services' decision to withdraw $500 million in federal support for mRNA vaccine development as "a necessary pivot in how we steward public health innovations in vaccines."
His arguments are cynical, self-serving, without merit — and exceedingly dangerous.
Bhattacharya asserts that the mRNA "platform has failed a crucial test: earning public trust. No matter how elegant the science, a platform that lacks credibility among the people it seeks to protect cannot fulfill its public health mission."
mRNA vaccines did fulfill their public health mission. In fact, in the face of an unprecedented threat to public health – the worst infectious disease pandemic in more than a century — mRNA delivered an unprecedented combination of speed, scale, safety, and effectiveness. Within less than a year of the virus's genome being sequenced, the platforms produced safe, rigorously tested vaccines that dramatically reduced the frequency of infection, severe illness, hospitalizations, and deaths. Their adaptability allowed for rapid updates to address emerging variants, while global distribution reached billions, preventing countless cases.
Thanks largely to President Trump's Operation Warp Speed, the crash program to develop and distribute COVID vaccines, a variety of safe and effective vaccines were created, distributed, and widely administered in a matter of months — years more rapidly than any vaccine in history. By bridging cutting-edge molecular science with urgent real-world needs, the mRNA vaccines not only curbed the pandemic's deadliest impacts but also proved the viability of a fast, flexible vaccine platform for future public health crises.
Why is Bhattacharya lying to the American public and peddling disinformation? It is noteworthy that in October 2020, the then-professor of medical economics at Stanford was one of the three authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, an ill-conceived and widely condemned proposal that urged a "focused protection" approach — letting the virus spread while attempting to shield only the most vulnerable. — to COVID rather than vaccine mandates, lockdowns and restrictions.
Most medical practitioners and public health officials argued that his plan — thankfully never adopted — was logistically impossible to implement, underestimated COVID's risks to younger people, overestimated the feasibility of shielding vulnerable groups, had already failed in practice, and would have led to unnecessary illness and death.
mRNA vaccines by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, the backbone of the world's COVID-19 defense, widely exceeded their public-health mission: 3.2 million American deaths, 18.5 million hospitalizations, and 120 million infections in the first two years alone after their rollout. Globally, first-year rollout of COVID-19 vaccines—mRNA being the primary platform in countries with the largest death-prevention gains—saved an estimated 14–20 million lives.
Bhattacharya claims in his article:
In 2021, the Biden administration's HHS spent nearly a billion dollars on a campaign supporting the coronavirus vaccine, the most expensive pharmaceutical advertising campaign in history. The government spent the money on a vast number of TV, radio and internet spots, which misinformed the American public that the vaccine would protect them from contracting and spreading Covid.
There are two things notable —and deceptive — about that statement.
First, and most important, the public information campaign did not misinform the public that the vaccine would protect them from infection. The FDA's summary (p. 13) of the clinical trials of the Moderna mRNA vaccine to its vaccines advisory committee for its December 2020 meeting, the criteria for "efficacy" were very stringent and laid out transparently. For the primary efficacy endpoint, the case definition for a confirmed COVID-19 case was defined as:
- At least TWO of the following systemic symptoms: Fever (≥38ºC), chills, myalgia, headache, sore throat, new olfactory and taste disorder(s), or
- At least ONE of the following respiratory signs/ symptoms: cough, shortness of breath, or difficulty breathing, OR clinical or radiographical evidence of pneumonia; and
- NP swab, nasal swab, or saliva sample (or respiratory sample, if hospitalized) positive for SARS-CoV-2 by RT-PCR.
Those criteria for efficacy define the criteria for prevention of infection, and the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines easily met them. (It was only later, after the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID, mutated and evolved, that it gradually no longer effectively prevented infection, although it did, and does, continue to prevent severe illness, hospitalization, and death.)
Second, when Bhattacharya and others were widely criticized for their dangerous advocacy against vaccination of the broader population, they protested bitterly that they were "censored" and "suppressed." Bhattacharya has been a particularly vocal, and pathetic, whiner; he refers to "suppression of speech" in his op-ed.
There is, without question, Covid vaccine hesitancy in much of the U.S. population today — but until the rise of the anti-vaccine and MAHA movements, it had little to do with the science. Evolving public health guidance did create confusion, and mandates for work, school, and travel felt coercive to some. Social media moderation of misinformation sometimes gave the impression that dissenting views were being suppressed and may have eroded trust — although in retrospect, some confusion was hardly unexpected given the unprecedented uncertainty about the virus's impacts and the fear it could spiral out of control and kill tens of millions if governments hedged on strong preventive measures.
Today's significant vaccine hesitancy and resistance are due largely to the relentless propaganda from Bhattacharya and others, especially his boss, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a longtime anti-vaxxer and the most malevolent, mendacious, and dangerous federal public health official in U.S. history. Bhattacharya should be trying to correct Kennedy's missteps, misstatements, and excesses, instead of defending them. Instead, he chooses to act like the Governor singing and dancing "The Sidestep" in "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" — a shifty, smooth-talking deceiver.
He is effectively working to kill one of the most promising infectious disease innovations in history. mRNA vaccines, proven in COVID-19, have also shown effectiveness against RSV, certain cancers, and animal diseases such as avian influenza and African swine fever. Bhattacharya is no public health reformer — he's an arsonist who lights the match, fans the flames, and then lectures the fire brigade on how to do its job.
Henry I. Miller, a physician and molecular biologist, is the Glenn Swogger Distinguished Fellow at the Science Literacy Project. A veteran of the NIH and FDA, he was the founding director of the Office of Biotechnology at the FDA. He was the co-discoverer of the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase in the influenza virus. Find Henry on X @henryimiller