On Sept. 4, 2025, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is scheduled to testify before the Senate Finance Committee, where he is expected to face questions about his vaccine policies.
A few days prior, on Sept. 1, 2025, President Donald Trump demanded pharmaceutical companies to prove that COVID-19 mRNA vaccines work, saying that the CDC was “being ripped apart over this question.” It was his first public acknowledgment of the chaos roiling the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention amid the firing of CDC Director Susan Monarez and subsequent resignations of four high-level agency officials.
Meanwhile, public health experts and HHS staffers are calling for Kennedy to be fired.
The turmoil comes about a month after HHS announced US$500 million in funding cuts for 22 research contracts on mRNA vaccine technology. The agency said it will instead pour these funds into research on a traditional approach to designing vaccines that was first used more than 200 years ago. With such vaccines, called whole-virus vaccines, a person’s immune system is presented with the whole virus, often in weakened or inactivated form. This switcheroo has puzzled many scientists.
As a vaccinologist who has studied and developed vaccines for over 35 years, I see that the science behind mRNA vaccine technology is being widely misstated. This incorrect information is shaping long-term health policy in the U.S. – which makes it urgent to correct the record.
A representative for Aaron Phypers has accused Denise Richards of making “false accusations” leading to his arrest and insisted he “will be acquitted”. Aaron Phypers has accused Denise Richards of ...