Vaccines and immunisation

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    Gunman in CDC attack fired over 180 shots at building and broke 150 windows

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    The man who attacked the CDC headquarters in Atlanta on Friday fired more than 180 shots into the campus and broke about 150 windows, with bullets piercing “blast-resistant” windows and spattering glass shards into numerous rooms, according to information circulated internally at the agency.It may take weeks or even months to replace windows and clean up the damage, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention personnel said.A Georgia man who had blamed the Covid-19 vaccine for making him depressed and suicidal opened fire late on Friday, killing a police officer. No one at CDC was injured.The shooter was stopped by CDC security guards before driving to a nearby pharmacy and opening fire late Friday afternoon, a law enforcement official has told the AP. The official wasn’t authorized to publicly discuss the investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity. The 30-year-old man, Patrick Joseph White, later died, but authorities haven’t said whether he was killed by police or killed himself.The US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, traveled to Atlanta and on Monday met with the agency’s director, Susan Monarez.Monarez posted a statement on social media on Friday night that said at least four CDC buildings were hit in the attack.The extent of the damage became more clear during a weekend CDC leadership meeting. Two CDC employees who were told about what was discussed at the meeting described details to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to reveal the information. Details also were also in an agency memo seen by an AP reporter.Building 21, which houses Monarez’s office, was hit by the largest number of bullets. CDC officials did not say if her office was hit.CDC employees were advised to work from home this week.Kennedy issued a statement on Saturday that said “no one should face violence while working to protect the health of others,” and that top federal health officials were “actively supporting CDC staff”.He did not speak to the media during his visit on Monday.A retired CDC official, Stephan Monroe, said he worried about the long-term impact the attack would have on young scientists’ willingness to go to work for the government.“I’m concerned that this is going to be a generational hit,” said Monroe, speaking to a reporter near the corner where a poster had been set up in honor of David Rose, the officer who was killed.Kennedy was a leader in a national anti-vaccine movement before Donald Trump selected him to oversee federal health agencies, and has made false and misleading statements about the safety and effectiveness of about Covid-19 shots and other vaccines.Years of false rhetoric about vaccines and public health was bound to “take a toll on people’s mental health”, and “leads to violence”, said Tim Young, a CDC employee who retired in April.Dr Jerome Adams, the US surgeon general during President Trump’s first administration, said on Sunday that health leaders should appreciate the weight of their words.“We have to understand people are listening,” Adams told Face the Nation on CBS. “When you make claims that have been proven false time and time again about safety and efficacy of vaccines, that can cause unintended consequences.” More

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      Vinay Prasad returns to FDA days after leaving under pressure from Laura Loomer

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      Vinay Prasad is returning to his role overseeing vaccine, gene therapy and blood product regulation at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) a little more than a week after he left the agency.“At the FDA’s request, Dr Vinay Prasad is resuming leadership of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research,” Department Health and Human Services spokesperson Andrew Nixon said in a statement to Reuters.Prasad left the agency on 30 July after just a few months as director of the center.Endpoints News, which covers the biotech industry, first reported the return of Prasad.Prasad, an oncologist who was a fierce critic of US Covid-19 vaccine and mask mandates, was named the center’s director by the FDA’s commissioner, Marty Makary, in May.Criticism of Prasad’s tenure intensified around the agency’s handling of a gene therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) from Sarepta Therapeutics.The FDA-approved therapy played a role in the death of two teens who had advanced DMD. After a third death in a separate experimental gene therapy from the company, the FDA asked Sarepta on 18 July to stop all shipments of the approved DMD therapy, saying it had safety concerns.The FDA changed course on Sarepta on 28 July and said shipments to the main group of patients for the drug could restart.Laura Loomer, a far-right influencer and conspiracy theorist with outsized sway over Donald Trump, had called Prasad a “progressive leftist saboteur” who was undermining the agency’s work.Two days before Prasad stepped down last month, Loomer had released misleadingly edited audio to suggest that that Prasad had admitted sticking pins in a Trump voodoo doll, when the full audio made it clear that he was talking about the kind of thing an imagined liberal Trump-hater would do.Loomer reacted to the news of Prasad’s return on Saturday by renewing her attacks on him in a social media post in which she promised to produce “exposes of officials within HHS and FDA” in the weeks ahead. “There are several Senate Confirmation hearings coming up and I have multiple oppo books ready for distribution!” she wrote.Prasad was a physician who joined the agency from the University of California, San Francisco. He has had stints at the National Cancer Institute and the National Institutes of Health.The FDA and other health agencies have seen multiple shake-ups in recent months under the leadership of health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr. More

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      Friday briefing: What will US funding cuts on mRNA vaccines mean for the health of the world?

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      Good morning. You may have heard a saying along the lines that “when the US sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold”. So when the US health department announced plans to cut half a billion dollars in vaccine research funding on Wednesday, the world took notice.The US is the world’s largest funder of biomedical research, but this position has become more precarious with the appointment of Robert F Kennedy Jr, a longtime vaccine sceptic, as US health secretary.This week, Kennedy has announced plans to terminate 22 federal contracts for mRNA-based vaccines, casting doubt on the safety of a technology widely credited with helping end the Covid-19 pandemic and saving millions of lives.In total the affected projects are worth nearly $500m (£376m), according to the health agency. As for Kennedy, he said: “We reviewed the science, listened to the experts, and acted.”The only problem? The scientific community in the US and around the world has overwhelmingly condemned the decision. To understand why, for today’s newsletter I spoke to Michael Head, a global health researcher at the University of Southampton. That’s after the headlines.Five big stories

      Israel-Gaza war | Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said his security cabinet had approved a plan to take over Gaza City after the prime minister earlier said Israel planned to take full control of the Palestinian territory. The decision early on Friday marks another escalation of Israel’s offensive in Gaza. Follow developments live

      Ukraine | Volodymyr Zelenskyy said ahead of an expected meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin that Europe must participate in the peace process between Ukraine and Russia. As the Kremlin refused a three-way meeting with Zelenskyy and Trump, the Ukrainian president said: “Ukraine is not afraid of meetings and expects the same brave approach from the Russian side.”

      Economy | The chancellor and prime minister will begin to foreshadow tax rises and reforms from September to prepare the country for a difficult budget that could be held in November, the Guardian has been told. A rise in gambling levies – advocated by Gordon Brown – is thought to be near-guaranteed as part of the package of tax rises.

      UK news | Amnesty International has warned the Met police against arresting participants protesting this Saturday in London in support of Palestine Action.

      Labour | The UK homelessness minister, Rushanara Ali, resigned after it emerged she evicted tenants from her east London property before increasing the rent by almost £700 a month.
      In depth: ‘The mRNA vaccines saved about 20 million lives’View image in fullscreenThe first thing to understand is that mRNA vaccines work differently from traditional ones. The latter generally introduce a weakened or inactivated part of a virus to train the immune system to recognise and fight it in the future; whereas mRNA vaccines use a molecule that tells our cells how to make a viral protein, which triggers the body’s immune responses.This technology is a scientific gamechanger, to the extent the researchers behind it won the Nobel prize in 2023. But since rising to prominence during the Covid pandemic, mRNA vaccines have been dogged by misinformation (this analysis by my colleague Nicola Davis is well worth a read.)Michael Head tells me that mRNA technology offers a very effective and adaptable approach to developing vaccines. “It’s often described as plug-and-play because you can adapt constituents of the vaccine with, for example, the latest Covid variant.”For something like a flu vaccine, researchers need to incubate the virus and grow it, which takes weeks, Head explains. “That’s fine to an extent when it comes to producing an annual vaccine like we do for seasonal influenza, but the advantage to mRNA technology is that it can be updated so quickly that it allows us to produce new vaccines or update existing vaccines quicker, which can hopefully then reduce the threat of whatever infectious disease is present.”This is crucial during a pandemic such as Covid. “The mRNA vaccines saved about 20 million lives globally in the first year of their rollout,” Head says.Why is Kennedy doing this?Kennedy once described mRNA Covid vaccines as “the deadliest vaccine ever made”. On Wednesday, he justified the health agency’s decision to terminate research by claiming that data shows mRNA vaccines “fail to protect effectively against upper respiratory infections like Covid and flu”.Kennedy offered no scientific evidence to support this – and Head said Kennedy has been spreading vaccine misinformation for years. “He has on at least one or two occasions compared vaccines to being like the Holocaust, a common anti-vaccine trope.”He has also recently falsely claimed vaccines such as the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) jab contain “aborted foetus debris”; ordered a sweeping new study on the long-debunked link between vaccines and autism; and dismissed a panel of government vaccine experts, replacing them with his own appointees – who then voted to ban a longstanding vaccine preservative that has been a frequent target of the anti-vaccine movement despite its strong safety record.Kennedy claims he is shutting down research on mRNA vaccines and instead shifting funding to “safer, broader vaccine platforms that remain effective even as viruses mutate”, and that mRNA vaccines “encourage new mutations and can actually prolong pandemics”.It’s just not true, though. Head says variants actually tend to emerge in the absence of vaccinations, and in people with long-term infections – often those who are immunocompromised and can’t get over the virus quickly. That gives the virus more chances to multiply and mutate.“Vaccines reduce the risk of transmission and infection,” Head says, which means fewer opportunities for the virus to mutate. “So vaccines will have a protective effect against new variants emerging, rather than as Kennedy suggests.”What impact will this have?The question of the next pandemic is not if, but when. History shows pandemics happen, Head says, pointing to the 1918 flu pandemic, swine flu, Sars, and of course Covid.Head says this is especially true in our era of globalisation and human encroachment into new environments. “If you create enough opportunities, a new virus will enter human beings. There might be a scenario where it runs out of control like we saw with Covid. Or, it might be a bit more like Sars, where we were able to get it under control within a couple of months.“But again, globalisation and the mixing of people and animals makes things more challenging. And so a pandemic will happen at some point. We just don’t know when.”Technologies like mRNA vaccines, then, are vital. Head added that the potential applications go far beyond infectious disease.“There’s quite promising research on skin cancer and the potential for this technology to be applied across different areas of health,” Head says. That is another reason Kennedy’s decision is so damaging, he adds.One of Head’s research areas focuses on how funding decisions impact science such as cancer research. “It’s very early days, but we are starting to see a slightly alarming picture. It’ll be very hard for the rest of the world to fill the cancer research gaps that the US is likely to leave.”Is this a worrying time for the scientific community?There is no way to sugarcoat it; this is a particularly alarming moment for scientists. The World Health Organization coined the term “infodemic” during the pandemic to describe the overwhelming amount of misinformation that spreads during a public health crisis, Head says. Even before Covid, in 2019 the WHO listed vaccine hesitancy as one of the top 10 global health threats.“I have huge concerns that if a pandemic happened again tomorrow, whether populations in the UK, US, and around the world would trust public health decision making that would be vital to mitigate the impacts of any new pandemic. So the role of misinformation is significant and it can be very severe,” Head warned.“It does not help that some of the most powerful people, like US president Donald Trump and Robert F Kennedy Jr, are making poor quality comments on vaccination because that does have an impact on population level decision making.”Some of Head’s research has looked into vaccine uptake in Ghana during the pandemic. The study found that political views played a big role in whether someone agreed to receive a Covid vaccine.“​​The government was saying, go and get vaccinated, please, but there was a fair amount of anti-government sentiment at the time. And hesitancy was greater if you voted for the opposition and therefore trusted the government messaging less. So there are lessons to be learned on who delivers the messaging to get your vaccine, and how to address that lack of trust in governance,” Head said.For now, the world holds its breath … and hopes no one sneezes.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionWhat else we’ve been readingView image in fullscreen

      Patrick Barkham’s piece about the recent hopeful surge of some wildlife is both a joyous celebration of animals’ resilience and a call for us to give them a helping hand. Lucinda Everett, newsletters

      I love this ranking of Daniel Day-Lewis films, and to learn that the triple Oscar winner has retired from acting, and returned twice. Aamna

      We asked our readers to share the strangest things they’ve found in a new home, and they didn’t disappoint. Forgotten placenta, anyone? Lucinda

      This story by my colleague Mark Townsend is extraordinary: it pieces together, using intelligence reports and witness testimony, how the RSF paramilitary began a massacre described as “genocidal” in Zamzam refugee camp. Aamna

      Daniel Boffey examines how David Lammy is wooing JD Vance, from inviting the US vice-president to pray with him, to shedding tears over his memoir. Lucinda
      SportView image in fullscreenTennis | Ahead of the Cincinnati Open, Emma Raducanu told Tumaini Carayol in an exclusive interview that she believes her new coaching partnership with Francisco Roig can help to take her game to the next level.Football | Liverpool have agreed a fee of £46.3m plus add-ons with Al-Hilal for Darwin Núñez. The Uruguay international is expected to complete a move to the Saudi Pro League once personal terms have been finalised.Cricket | The leader of the Tech Titans consortium that has bought 49% of London Spirit believes the Hundred will become a multibillion-dollar competition to rival the Indian Premier League.The front pagesView image in fullscreenThe Guardian print edition reports “Netanyahu defies warnings over taking military control of all Gaza”. “Minister resigns over rental ‘hypocrisy” – that’s the Telegraph while the i paper expands on that: “UK’s minister for homelessness quits after she’s caught ejecting tenants and hiking rent”. “Minister for hypocrisy is forced to quit” the Mail delights. “Single-sex spaces ‘off limits to trans women’” says the Times. “Weight loss pill ‘on NHS’” and “Pill for weight loss on NHS” – the Mirror and Express both says it’s a possibility. Deep breath needed before reading the FT’s headline aloud: “BoE lowers rates but tight vote forces investors to rein in bets on more cuts”. “He’s our brave little miracle” reports the Metro, about a lifesaving “world-first operation” on a little boy.Something for the weekendOur critics’ roundup of the best things to watch, read, play and listen to right nowView image in fullscreenMusicAmaarae: Black Star | ★★★★☆Weaving elements of house, trance and EDM into Afrobeats rhythms and spiky rap cadences, the Ghanaian-American singer’s slick take on a club record is deliriously in love with wealth, celebrity and all the power it affords. But there is a difference between Amaarae and the other stars fixated on such topics: for her, glamour is a side quest and love is the motive. Shaad D’SouzaTVLucy Letby: Beyond Reasonable Doubt? | ★★★★★
      Neonatal nurse Lucy Letby became, in tabloid parlance, “Britain’s worst child serial killer” when she was convicted in 2023 of seven murders and seven attempted murders of infants in her care. This brilliantly cogent documentary, which forces sentiment aside and unpacks the science and statistics around the most contested pieces of evidence, covers more ground more meticulously in an hour than any documentary I’ve seen in recent years, and perhaps ever. Lucy ManganFilmThe Kingdom | ★★★★☆
      Lesia, a moody 15-year-old, is sent to her mob boss father’s luxurious and fortified family compound , and she is thrilled when she quickly becomes lieutenant. There are fierce and overwhelmingly authentic performances from first-time actors in Julien Colonna’s intensely atmospheric, absorbing and exciting drama. Peter BradshawGamesTime Flies | ★★★★☆
      This perception-warping bug puzzler reimagines the inevitably short lifespan of a housefly as an absurd tragedy – by providing the soon-to-perish pest with a bucket list. Over the course of roughly a minute, players buzz around minimalist 2D environments trying to make those last wishes come true. By blending this thinky thesis with playful mechanics, it supplies a lighthearted canvas for players to engage with existentialism for an hour or two. Sarah ThwaitesToday in FocusView image in fullscreenInside China’s fast-fashion factories as a US trade war loomsThe Guardian’s senior China correspondent, Amy Hawkins, visits factories threatened by US tariffs in Guangzhou, south China, as the deadline for a US-China trade agreement approaches with no deal yet in sight.Cartoon of the day | Martin RowsonView image in fullscreenThe UpsideA bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all badView image in fullscreenLynx – shy wild cats no bigger than a Labrador – became extinct in Britain 1,300 years ago thanks to hunting and habitat loss. But a paper published in the Journal of Environmental Management says the animals could thrive in Northumberland’s Kielder Forest area. The paper found that releasing 20 lynx over several years would eventually create a healthy population of about 50 animals, bringing benefits like helping to curb the overpopulation of deer in woodlands. According to the researchers, Kielder Forest is the only area of England and Wales with enough woodland for lynx to thrive. But thankfully locals are keen on the plan, with 72% of people in the project area supporting reintroduction.Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every SundayBored at work?And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow.

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      RFK Jr’s health department to halt $500m in mRNA vaccine research

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      The US Department of Health and Human Services said on Tuesday it would terminate 22 federal contracts for mRNA-based vaccines, questioning the safety of a technology credited with helping end the Covid pandemic and saving millions of lives.The unit, Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, helps companies develop medical supplies to address public health threats, and had provided billions of dollars for development of vaccines during the Covid-19 pandemic.HHS said the wind-down includes cancellation of a contract awarded to Moderna for the late-stage development of its bird flu vaccine for humans and the right to purchase the shots, as previously reported in May.The US health agency said it was also rejecting or canceling multiple pre-award solicitations, including proposals from Pfizer, Sanofi Pasteur, CSL Seqirus, Gritstone and others.In total, the affected projects are worth “nearly $500 million”, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said. Certain late-stage projects were excluded from the move “to preserve prior taxpayer investment”.This is the latest development under US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, a longtime vaccine skeptic who has been making sweeping changes to reshape vaccines, food and medicine policies.“We reviewed the science, listened to the experts, and acted,” Kennedy said in a statement.Kennedy said the HHS is terminating these programs because data show these vaccines “fail to protect effectively against upper respiratory infections like COVID and flu”, but did not offer scientific evidence.“We’re shifting that funding toward safer, broader vaccine platforms that remain effective even as viruses mutate,” Kennedy said.HHS said the decision follows a comprehensive review of mRNA-related investments initiated during the Covid-19 public health emergency.Since taking office, Kennedy, who spent two decades sowing misinformation around immunization, has overseen a major overhaul of US health policy – firing, for example, a panel of vaccine experts that advise the government and replacing them with his own appointees.In its first meeting, the new panel promptly voted to ban a longstanding vaccine preservative targeted by the anti-vaccine movement, despite its strong safety record.He has also ordered a sweeping new study on the long-debunked link between vaccines and autism.Unlike traditional vaccines, which often use weakened or inactivated forms of the target virus or bacteria, mRNA shots deliver genetic instructions into the host’s cells, prompting them to produce a harmless decoy of the pathogen and train the immune system to fight the real thing.Though in development for decades, mRNA vaccines were propelled from lab benches to widespread use through Donald Trump’s Operation Warp Speed – a public-private partnership led by Barda that poured billions into companies to accelerate development.The technology’s pioneers, Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman, were awarded the 2023 Nobel prize in medicine for their work contributing “to the unprecedented rate of vaccine development during one of the greatest threats to human health in modern times”. More

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      Health experts raise alarm over RFK Jr’s ‘war on science’ amid mass firings and budget cuts

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      The Trump administration’s “war on science” appears to have entered a new phase in the aftermath of a recent supreme court decision that empowered health and human services secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, a prominent vaccine sceptic, and other agency leaders, to implement mass firings – effectively greenlighting the politicization of science.The decision comes as Kennedy abruptly canceled a scheduled meeting of a key health care advisory panel, the US Preventive Services Task Force, earlier this month. That, combined with his recent removal of a panel of more than a dozen vaccine advisers, signals that his dismantling of the science-based policymaking at HHS is likely far from over.“The current administration is waging a war on science,” warned Celine Gounder, a professor of medicine and an infectious disease expert at New York University in a keynote talk in May to graduates of Harvard’s School of Public Health.“Today we see rising threats to the public health institutions that have kept our world safe for generations,” she said, citing “cuts to research that benefits the lives of millions, looming public health emergencies that are not being addressed with the urgency they demand, and a continued coordinated attack on the very idea of the scientific process.”Gounder added: “Over the past few months, we have seen the Trump administration engage not only in medical misinformation, but in active censorship of scientific discourse.”Since he took the helm at HHS, Kennedy’s unscientific views on vaccines and some other medical matters coupled with the agency’s widespread research and staff cuts, have prompted protests from scientists inside and outside HHS plus lawsuits.Medical experts say Kennedy’s policies are helping “sow distrust in vaccines” as measles cases soar to a more than three decade high, hurt vital healthcare research with draconian cuts, and helped foment a Trump administration “war on science” mentality.Kennedy sparked a firestorm in June by ousting 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which recommends vaccines to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and votes to provide updates to its vaccine schedule. He then named a new eight person vaccine panel – half of whom share Kennedy’s distrust of vaccines – who quickly retracted recommendations for flu vaccines containing an ingredient which many anti-vaxxers have falsely connected to autism.That move sparked sharp criticism from veteran doctors with a national pediatric group, which opted to boycott its first meeting.“Among the reasons we decided not to participate was because it clearly appeared to be an orchestrated effort to sow distrust in vaccines,” Sean O’Leary who chairs a committee on infectious diseases with the American Academy of Pediatrics, told the Guardian.Dissent has also spread at the National Institutes of Health, where dozens of science researchers and other staff in June released a detailed document, dubbed the Bethesda Declaration, warning that key missions of the premiere research agency at HHS were being damaged by the Trump administration’s budget cutting.Even before these moves, prominent healthcare scholars were sounding loud alarms about some HHS policies and the administration’s anti-science mentality – including its draconian budget cuts for research and staff cuts totaling over 10,000.Gounder said there has been a “flood of Orwellian doublespeak from public health agencies”, contributing to declining vaccination rates and making Americans more susceptible to diseases like measles, which recently hit a level not seen since 2000 when measles was declared eliminated in the US.Her critique has been amplified by public protests from healthcare experts troubled by its vaccine policies and large cuts to research and staff at the Food and Drug Administration, the NIH and other parts of HHS.On a separate legal front, a Rhode Island federal court in July ruled against HHS and Kennedy and put a temporary stop to the drastic revamping of HHS and some of its staff cuts.The ruling provided a court victory to a group of 19 Democratic state attorneys general, plus the District of Columbia, which in May sued Kennedy – plus other HHS leaders such as the FDA commissioner and the CDC’s acting director – attacking the restructuring as an “unconstitutional and illegal dismantling” of the agency. Kennedy, they alleged, has “systematically deprived HHS of the resources necessary to do its job”.The Rhode Island judge wrote that as members of the executive branch, Kennedy and the HHS do “not have the authority to order, organize, or implement wholesale changes to the structure and function of the agencies created by Congress”.For his part, Kennedy in March issued a statement defending the early HHS move to cut 10,000 full-time jobs: “We aren’t just reducing bureaucratic sprawl. We are realigning the organization with its core mission and our new priorities in reversing the chronic disease epidemic.”Those jobs have since been cut, as of Monday 14 July, after an 8 July order from the supreme court that allowed the restructuring plans to proceed. Many employees who were supposed to be laid off during the agency’s first round of 10,000 layoffs in April have been in limbo as the order made its way through the court system and later paused by federal judges. The reorganization, in addition to cutting staff, was supposed to consolidate the department’s 28 divisions into 15 and cut regional offices from 10 to five.Democrats in Congress too have voiced strong alarms about the thousands of HHS job cuts and their adverse impacts on healthcare and science.Ten congressional Democrats led by congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland, whose district is home to thousands of NIH and FDA workers, wrote to Kennedy in March demanding the rehiring of thousands of illegally fired workers, warning of the “harmful consequences” for patient healthcare and science research.Raskin told the Guardian that Kennedy and the Trump administration’s actions reveal a “complete disregard for the law making powers of Congress. Trump wants to be both the implementer of the laws and the legislative branch, but that is not his job. It’s totally unconstitutional. They’re trying to cut off funds that have been lawfully appropriated by Congress”.O’Leary and many other medical experts warn that the dangerous ideologically driven cuts at HHS will have long-term consequences.“What we’re seeing across HHS is deeply concerning,” said O’Leary “NIH funding has never been politically or ideologically driven, but clearly that’s what we’re seeing now. Those cuts are going to have serious consequences for our country and healthcare.” More

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      DoJ drops charges against Utah doctor accused of destroying Covid vaccines

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      The US Department of Justice dropped charges on Saturday against Michael Kirk Moore, the Utah doctor accused of destroying more than $28,000 worth of government-provided Covid-19 vaccines and administering saline to children instead of the shot.Pam Bondi, the US attorney general, announced the news in a statement on the social media platform X, saying the charges had been dismissed under her direction.“Dr Moore gave his patients a choice when the federal government refused to do so,” Bondi said. “He did not deserve the years in prison he was facing.”According to a 2023 press release from the US attorney’s office in Utah, Moore distributed at least 1,937 fraudulent vaccination record cards in exchange for either direct payment or required donations to a specific charity. The minors he gave saline shots to were under the impression, at the request of their parents, that they were receiving a Covid-19 shot. Moore ran the operations from a plastic surgery center in Midvale, Utah, and was charged, along with three other co-defendants, with conspiracy to defraud the United States.Far-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene thanked Bondi in a statement on X and called Moore a “hero who refused to inject his patients with a government-mandated unsafe vaccine”.The Utah senator Mike Lee also weighed in, saying on X that he was glad Moore could remain a free man and that countless Americans endured lies and lockdowns during the pandemic.Moore was indicted by the justice department in 2023. He pleaded not guilty to the charges, which also included conspiracy to convert, sell, convey and dispose of government property, and the conversion, sale, conveyance and disposal of government property.The fake vaccination records were sold under Moore’s scheme for $50 each, and operations allegedly ran between May 2021 and September 2022. Attorneys for Moore argued that the regulations set at the time by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were unconstitutional.The charges against Moore were brought in when Joe Biden was president, but Covid-19 conspiracists and skeptics have been embraced in the new administration under Trump.Recently, the Trump administration canceled a $766m award to Moderna on the research and development of H5N1 bird flu vaccines, and officials announced new restrictions and regulations for Covid mRNA vaccines.The US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, who has for decades baselessly sowed doubt about vaccine safety, contrary to scientific research, thanked Moore in a statement on X back in April.“Dr Moore deserves a medal for his courage and his commitment to healing,” Kennedy Jr said. More

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      ‘Tremendous uncertainty’ for cancer research as US officials target mRNA vaccines

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      As US regulators restrict Covid mRNA vaccines and as independent vaccine advisers re-examine the shots, scientists fear that an unlikely target could be next: cancer research.Messenger RNA, or mRNA, vaccines have shown promise in treating and preventing cancers that have often been difficult to address, such as pancreatic cancer, brain tumors and others.But groundbreaking research could stall as federal and state officials target mRNA shots, including ending federal funding for bird flu mRNA vaccines, restricting who may receive existing mRNA vaccines and, in some places, proposing laws against the vaccines.The Trump administration has also implemented unprecedented cuts to cancer research, among other research cuts and widespread layoffs at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).At least 16 grants involving the word “mRNA” have been terminated or frozen, according to the crowdsourced project Grant Watch, and scientists have been told to remove mentions of mRNA vaccines from their research applications, KFF Health News reported in March.Researchers fear that therapeutic cancer vaccines will get “swept up in that tidal wave” against mRNA vaccines, Aaron Sasson, chief of surgical oncology at Stony Brook University, said in April.When it comes to mRNA breakthroughs, “the next couple of years are the most critical”, Elias Sayour, a professor for pediatric oncology research at the University of Florida, said.“If the progress we’ve made to date – which has been prodigious – if that is just stopped or stymied, it can absolutely affect the trajectory and the arc,” he said.The uncertainty around mRNA specifically, and research broadly, could also discourage researchers and institutions from beginning new projects, he said.“If we continue to seize on these gains in the next 10, 20 years, I do see a scenario where we’ve completely transformed how we take care of a large swath of human disease,” he said.Research on mRNA cancer vaccines has been under way for more than a decade, with more than 120 clinical trials on treating and preventing cancers. mRNA shots have shown promise for preventing the return of head and neck cancer; lymphoma; breast cancer, which accounts for 11.6% of all cancer deaths in the US; colorectal cancer; lung cancer; and kidney cancer, among others.Pancreatic cancer has a 10% survival rate and is the second leading cause of cancer deaths in the US, but in a small study, about half of the patients who received an mRNA vaccine did not see their cancer return, and they still had strong immune responses three years later.Early mRNA vaccine trials also indicated the recurrence of melanoma could be cut in half. And a small study co-authored by Sayour on glioblastoma showed the vaccines started affecting the tumors within 48 hours.Like any vaccine, mRNA cancer vaccines train the body to recognize and destroy harmful cells.Unlike foreign pathogens, such as infectious diseases, cancer is caused by the growth of the patient’s own cells.Some cancer vaccines are highly personalized, using a patient’s own cancer cells to treat their tumors or train their immune system to kill off those dangerous cells if they recur.“The ability to create specific vaccines for patients has tremendous, tremendous promise, but that was technology not possible five or 10 years ago,” said Sasson. “It really is a shift in the paradigm of how we treat cancers.”Researchers are also investigating vaccines that would target cancer cells more broadly by identifying “fingerprints” of certain cancers, said Sayour.Additionally, the vaccines could be created for other conditions, such as type 1 diabetes and multiple sclerosis, he said.“It has potential to get rid of a lot of the chronic morbidity we see from disease, to cure diseases that are degenerative, to overcome cancer evolution and cure patients,” Sayour said. “mRNA could be the healthcare that the movable-type printing press was for human knowledge.”Yet federal and state decision-makers have targeted mRNA vaccines in recent months.Vinay Prasad, director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), reportedly overrode scientists at the agency to limit some Covid vaccines, including a new mRNA shot from Moderna, to children older than 12. Prasad also introduced similar limitations on the Covid shot from Novavax, which does not use mRNA.On Thursday, the FDA approved the original Covid mRNA vaccine from Moderna for children between the ages of six months and 11 years – but they narrowed its use to children with at least one underlying condition. (The vaccine for people older than 12 was approved in 2022.)Prasad argued, in two memos recently released by the FDA, that the risks of Covid had dropped, while “known and unknown” side-effects could outweigh the benefits of getting vaccinated.Covid remains a leading cause of death in the US, with 178 deaths in the week ending 7 June, the last week for which the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) offers complete data.At the meeting of the CDC’s advisory committee on immunization practices (ACIP) in June, two of the new vaccine advisers – appointed by the health and human services (HHS) secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, after he fired the previous 17 advisers – broached the safety of Covid mRNA vaccines, indicating future scrutiny of these shots.Vicky Pebsworth, a registered nurse who has volunteered for years with the National Vaccine Information Center, said she was “very concerned” about side-effects from the Covid mRNA shots and asked for more data on safety, including “reproductive toxicity”.Shortly before being appointed to the ACIP, Pebsworth and the founder of the National Vaccine Information Center argued that the FDA should not recommend mRNA Covid-19 shots for anyone “until adequate scientific evidence demonstrates safety and effectiveness for both the healthy and those who are elderly or chronically ill”.At the June ACIP meeting, Retsef Levi, a professor of operations management at the MIT Sloan School of Management, said he believed mRNA side-effects were “being reported at rates that are far exceeding other vaccines even when you normalize to the number of doses, which does suggest something, I think”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionPreviously, Levi argued: “The evidence is mounting and indisputable that mRNA vaccines cause serious harm including death, especially among young people. We have to stop giving them immediately!”Another new ACIP adviser, Robert Malone, has also repeatedly argued against mRNA vaccines.In 2021, Kennedy, then chair of the anti-vaccine organization Children’s Health Defense, petitioned the FDA to revoke all approvals, and ban future approvals, of all Covid vaccines. He has called Covid shots the “deadliest vaccine ever made”.In May, Kennedy changed Covid vaccine recommendations from “should” to “may” for children, and eliminated the recommendation for pregnant women entirely.Also in May, the US canceled $766m in contracts for research on mRNA vaccines against H5N1 bird flu. Investment in the mRNA vaccine was not “scientifically or ethically justifiable”, Andrew Nixon, the HHS communications director, said in statements to the media, adding that the “mRNA technology remains under-tested”.Millions of mRNA vaccines have been given around the world, and the vaccines have been shown to be safe and effective in multiple studies.Bans or limitations on mRNA vaccinations have been introduced in seven states. One such bill in Idaho sought to pause “gene therapy immunizations” for 10 years – a category in which they incorrectly place Covid vaccines, and which could affect other therapeutics.Similarly, in Washington state, commissioners in Franklin county passed a resolution urging the local health facility to stop providing and promoting gene-therapy vaccines; they also incorrectly included Covid mRNA shots in this category.“There’s this scorched-earth mentality now, but I’m hopeful that once the dust settles, we’ll be able to reinstate or allow vaccine work for cancer purposes to proceed,” Sasson said.Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the US, and two in five people will be diagnosed with some form of cancer in their lifetime.There are currently only two FDA-approved vaccines that prevent cancer – hepatitis B and human papillomavirus (HPV) – and both have been targeted by anti-vaccine activists.In January, Trump hosted the launch of Stargate AI at the White House. The project could eventually identify cancers and develop mRNA vaccines in days, Larry Ellison, the chair of the tech company Oracle who is involved with the project, said at the launch.The project will be funded by private, not federal, dollars, but the work on cancer would draw upon research on cancer and mRNA, among other fields.Yet the Trump administration has slashed other critical funding for cancer research, prevention and treatment.The administration canceled more than $180m in grants through the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in the first three months of its term, and proposed cutting $2.7bn from the cancer center in the next NIH budget.The administration has cut back funding for some family planning providers, which frequently offer screenings for HPV and other cancer markers.Lawmakers have also made enormous cuts to Medicaid and insurance through the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which could mean uninsured and underinsured people wait longer for cancer treatment – or forgo it entirely.“There’s the potential for great harm, for massive public health issues to be set aside during this really broad approach of canceling research,” said Sasson. “There’s significant harm that’s going to happen by these sweeping changes.”For scientists who still have funding or those who are entering the field, “there’s tremendous uncertainty as to what the future will look like”, Sasson said.But he is optimistic that mRNA vaccines for cancer and other illnesses will be able to move forward.Scientists are often portrayed as “just trying to survive” funding cuts, but that’s not entirely accurate, said Sayour, before adding: “I don’t think many people in my field do this because they’re just trying to survive. I would want nothing more, honest to God, than to put myself out of business. We do this because we want to make a difference.”Sayour echoed concerns about both indirect and direct forces shaping progress on mRNA vaccines.“But I also want to be optimistic that our best days are ahead of us,” he said. More

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      Pregnant doctor denied Covid-19 vaccine sues Trump administration

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      A pregnant physician who was denied a Covid-19 vaccine is suing the Trump administration alongside a group of leading doctors associations, charging that the administration sought to “desensitize the public to anti-vaccine and anti-science rhetoric”, according to their attorney.The lawsuit specifically takes aim at health secretary Robert F Kennedy’s unilateral decision to recommend against Covid-19 vaccines for pregnant women and healthy children.Kennedy’s announcement circumvented expert scientific review panels and flouted studies showing pregnant women are at heightened risk from the virus, and made it more difficult for some to get the vaccine.“This administration is an existential threat to vaccination in America, and those in charge are only just getting started,” said Richard H Hughes IV, partner at Epstein Becker Green and lead counsel for the plaintiffs in a statement.The American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Physicians and American Public Health Association are among a list of leading physicians associations named as plaintiffs in the lawsuit.“If left unchecked, secretary Kennedy will accomplish his goal of ridding the United States of vaccines, which would unleash a wave of preventable harm on our nation’s children,” said Hughes. “The professional associations for pediatricians, internal medicine physicians, infectious disease physicians, high-risk pregnancy physicians, and public health professionals will not stand idly by as our system of prevention is dismantled. This ends now.”In late May, Kennedy announced that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) would no longer recommend Covid-19 vaccines for healthy children or pregnant women. The announcement, made on social media, contradicted a raft of evidence showing pregnant women and infants are at especially high-risk from the disease, including from the administration’s own scientific leaders.In June, Kennedy went further by firing all 17 sitting members of a key vaccine advisory panel to the CDC. The advisory panel is a key link in the vaccine distribution pipeline, helping to develop recommendations insurers use when determining which vaccines to cover.That panel met for the first time in late June. Members announced they would review both the childhood vaccine schedule and any vaccines that had not been formally reviewed in seven years. They also recommended against a long-vilified vaccine preservative, in spite of a lack of evidence of harm.The news comes amid the largest annual measles case count in 33 years, and amid reports of more parents seeking early vaccination for their children, fearing vaccines will go into shortage or no longer be covered by insurance. More

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      US posts highest annual measles case tally in 33 years amid Texas outbreak

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      The annual tally of measles cases in the US is the highest in 33 years, as an ongoing outbreak in west Texas continues to drive cases.The latest figures mean Americans will have to look back to 1992 to find a worse year with the vaccine preventable disease. The official tally very likely undercounts the scope of the outbreak, experts told the Guardian.“When you talk to people on the ground, you get the sense that this outbreak has been severely underestimated,” said Dr Paul Offit, director of the vaccine education center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Confirmed cases appear to be the “tip of a much bigger iceberg”, he said.Measles was declared eliminated in the US in 2000. However, as the pandemic disrupted routine childhood visits to the doctors and anti-vaccine organizations saw their coffers swell during the pandemic, measles vaccination rates have fallen below a critical threshold to prevent outbreaks in some communities.As of 4 July, Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Outbreak Response Innovation counted 1,277 measles cases. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports 1,267 cases, but has not updated its data since 2 July.“The number of new cases has slowed down, but I don’t think there’s any reason to suggest this will be our last,” said Dr Peter Hotez, a vaccine expert and dean for the national school of tropical medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas.He later added: “It’s a very dark epidemic that never had to happen.”The latest national tally will eclipse 2019, when unvaccinated members of New York City’s isolated orthodox Jewish community drove a large outbreak, and the nation ended the year with 1,274 confirmed measles cases.Americans will need to look back to 1992 to find a higher annual measles tally. In 1992, the CDC confirmed 2,126 cases, with the largest outbreaks in Kentucky and Texas. Texas has confirmed 753 cases in 2025, according to the state health department, opening up the possibility that Texas could exceed the 1992 annual total as well.The enormous outbreak comes as Donald Trump’s health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, who once ran an influential anti-vaccine group, has injected upheaval into US vaccine policy and spread misinformation about treatments for the disease.Measles is a viral disease characterized by a top-down rash, high fever, runny nose and red, watery eyes. The virus is one of the most infectious diseases known to medicine. There is no cure for measles. The best way to prevent measles is by getting vaccinated with the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine (MMR), which is 97% effective with two doses.Although most people recover, as many as one in five infected children require hospitalization; one in 20 get pneumonia and one in 1,000 can develop encephalitis, which can lead to lifelong disability, according to the CDC. The disease can also weaken the host’s immune system and lead to more future infections. In rare cases, measles can cause an incurable degenerative brain disorder. The US has already seen three deaths from measles this year, both in otherwise healthy children.Before a measles vaccine was licensed in 1963, an estimated 3-4 million Americans were sickened each year, 48,000 were hospitalized and an estimated 400-500 died, according to the CDC. From 1994 to 2023 in the US alone, the CDC estimates the measles vaccine saved 85,000 lives and prevented 104m illnesses.Although the vaccine has been wildly successful, it has also been the target of sustained misinformation by people who have a financial stake in reduced vaccine uptake.In 1998, a British doctor hypothesized a link between the MMR and increasing autism rates. The doctor, Andrew Wakefield, was later found to have committed fraud, failed to report conflicts of interest and lost his license. The article was retracted.Reams of science has since examined and re-examined the evidence, and found no link between the MMR vaccine and autism. Still, the debunked connection has found an afterlife as a talking point for anti-vaccine groups who have attracted a vocal minority of parents. The overwhelming majority of Americans still vaccinate children against measles.Now, alongside longtime anti-vaccine talking points about autism and “medical freedom”, Hotez said a new threat was the, “very pernicious health and wellness and influencer movement that’s got a big profit motive”.Outbreaks appear to be “occurring in the same [parts] of the US that had some of the lowest Covid vaccination rates”, said Hotez, introducing the possibility that anti-vaccine sentiment is “spilling over to childhood immunizations”.In June, Kennedy unilaterally fired all 17 expert members of a CDC advisory panel on vaccines and stacked the committee with seven ideological allies. The advisory committee is a key link in the vaccine distribution pipeline.Among those allies now serving on the committee are medical professionals with fringe beliefs and known anti-vaccines advocates. In June, the group met for the first time, and said it would form a new committee to re-evaluate the childhood vaccine schedule.“We’ve not only eliminated measles, we’ve eliminated the memory of measles,” said Offit. “People don’t remember how sick this virus can make you – or how dead it can make you.” More