A lot of digital ink has been spilled regarding Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision earlier this month to put the kibosh on $500 million dedicated to research intended to develop the next generation of mRNA vaccines. This decision was, of course, not unexpected given RFK Jr.’s history of unrelenting hostility to vaccines in general and mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines in particular. That is why so many doctors and scientists whom I consider allies (e.g., Dr. Paul Offit, who sarcastically referred to RFK Jr.’s “scientific explanation” for the decision as “Scienze“) were quick to emphasize the outright lies about the science supporting COVID-19 vaccines used by RFK Jr. to justify his decision. Examples included false claims that the vaccines don’t protect against upper respiratory infections, promote more mutations and “antigenic shift,” and cause more harm than good. Personally, I took a particular interest in this part of RFK Jr.’s proclamation:
The move signals a broader shift in federal vaccine development priorities. Going forward, BARDA will focus on platforms with stronger safety records and transparent clinical and manufacturing data practices. Technologies that were funded during the emergency phase but failed to meet current scientific standards will be phased out in favor of evidence-based, ethically grounded solutions – like whole-virus vaccines and novel platforms.
Note the emphasis on “whole-virus” vaccines, which are basically vaccines produced by growing up huge batches of virus and then inactivating them with heat or chemicals, thus using the whole virus as the antigens that provoke an immune response. The same can be done for bacteria causing disease. Dr. Offit and others did, of course, point out quite correctly and obviously that there is absolutely nothing new about whole-virus killed vaccines. Dr. Offit even emphasized that whole-virus vaccines have been around since the rabies vaccine was developed in the late 1800s. On another occasion in May, I myself pointed out that the “updated” aspect of this technology recently by RFK Jr. dates back 80 years when I characterized this puzzling shift away from cutting edge mRNA vaccine technology to last century’s vaccine technology. Specifically, I was referring to chemically inactivated whole-organism vaccines, which were being promoted a few months ago under the “Generation Gold Standard” moniker, which I lumped under a more general phenomenon in public health since RFK Jr. was named HHS Secretary, namely Lysenkoism 2.0.
The idea is that single antigens, like what mRNA vaccines induce cells in our body to produce, are bad, while the whole organism, with its dozens or even hundreds of antigens, is good. Why does RFK Jr., who has long been rabidly (if you’ll excuse the term) antivax think that whole-organism vaccines are the way to “safer” vaccines? I was looking for a good way to explain how It has nothing to do with science, immunology, or infectious disease and everything to do with the overall ethos behind his “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) movement. Then I came across an article by a friend and ally of RFK Jr. Sayer Ji posted to his Substack over the weekend and entitled The FDA’s War on Natural Thyroid: A Medical Tyranny That Threatens Millions, in which he rants about how the FDA favors Synthroid (a synthetic form of thyroxine, or T4, taken by millions of people with hypothyroidism as thyroid hormone replacement) over desiccated thyroid extract, which he characterizes as a “safe” and “natural” treatment that “patients overwhelmingly prefer.” Moreover, I discovered Ji’s post via Dr. Robert “inventor of mRNA vaccines” Malone, a COVID-era antivaxxer who, thanks to RFK Jr., is now on the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).
You can likely see where I’m going with this. If you remember that RFK Jr.’s MAHA is basically an extension of “alternative medicine” and its “integration” into medicine in the form of “integrative medicine,” the reason why RFK Jr. fetishizes “whole organism” vaccines over those nasty mRNA vaccines will become obvious (that is, if you ignore his 20+ year history of demonizing the MMR vaccine, which consists of three whole attenuated live viruses in one package, as The One True Cause of Autism). See if you can see the parallels between Ji’s attack on T4 and RFK Jr.’s attack on mRNA technology.
The appeal to “natural” and “holistic” in…thyroid hormone!
The first thing one notices reading Sayer Ji’s post is how much he channels universal and common alternative medicine tropes, even going so far as to incorporate the deceptive “food is medicine” trope into his railing against the FDA for supposedly “suppressing” natural treatments. I’m going to include a link to Ji’s post on X about this, because the art and images included from the post are…something:
their chains to grasp for the glowing giant thyroid gland being held
just out of their reach by the evil FDA. Never mind that dessicated
thyroid is freeze-dried and powdered.
It is notable, predictable, even, that Sayer Ji doesn’t actually link to the FDA letter or press release announcing the letter. As an aside, given that much of the letter emphasizes that these products are considered “biological” products, I have to wonder if boy wonder and Director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CEBR) Dr. Vinay Prasad had anything to do with this letter before he was forced to resign, even though he hadn’t yet been reinstated. These letters generally take a fair amount of time and investigation. Be that as it may, one notes that the only direct answer Ji has to the FDA besides ranting about “overreach” and the “naturalness” of desiccated thyroid extract comes from an anonymous antivax source, OpenVAERS, claiming that there are way more reports of adverse events related to T4 than to desicated thyroid extract to the FDA Adverse Events Reporting System (FAERS), which is very much like the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) in that it is a database to which anyone can contribute a report. Both have similar shortcomings.
In any event, Ji combines common tropes in alternative medicine (and therefore in MAHA) that “natural” is better and “food is medicine”:
This is the systematic dismantling of a treatment that has worked successfully for 130 years—since 1891 when Dr. George Redmayne Murray first used desiccated thyroid extract to save a woman dying from myxedema, an extreme form of hypothyroidism.[2] The FDA’s August 6, 2025 enforcement letters threatening to ban all natural desiccated thyroid (DTE) products—including Armour Thyroid, NP Thyroid, and Nature-Throid—represent medical tyranny designed to funnel billions into synthetic drug manufacturers while condemning millions to unnecessary suffering.
But here’s what makes this particularly egregious: natural thyroid is essentially ancestral food—organ meat that humans have consumed for millennia. The FDA is attempting to ban what is fundamentally a concentrated form of dietary thyroid gland, the same substance our ancestors prized as sacred medicine and nutrient-dense food.
In case you don’t get the point, this is an image included in Ji’s post:
Does all of this sound familiar? It should. This is the same argument often made for herbal medicines. To make this argument, Ji includes some images that take the fallacy of an appeal to nature to incredible levels, for example:
Note the difference between this image and the one included in Ji’s X posting. The one in the X posting doesn’t have religious connotations, whereas this one portrays thyroglobulin as a “cathedral,” with T4 being mere “pebbles,” presumably only making up part of the “cathedral.”
Later in the post, Ji asserts:
The image above exposes the breathtaking gulf between natural and synthetic thyroid hormone. Natural desiccated thyroid contains T4, T3, T2, T1, and calcitonin bound to the massive thyroglobulin protein—a 660,000 dalton molecular complex representing millions of years of evolutionary optimization. Each hormone exists in specific conformational states, held in precise spatial relationships, creating an information-rich matrix the body recognizes holistically.
In contrast, synthetic hormone consists of isolated T4 molecules floating in pharmaceutical void, stripped of biological context, devoid of the intricate molecular choreography that defines natural thyroid function.
In fairness, he’s referring to the image not mentioning a “cathedral,” but it’s all still nonsense. Remember, you have to swallow the desiccated thyroid, just as one swallows Synthroid. That “cathedral” of a massive thyroglobulin protein is therefore digested in the gastrointestinal tract before any T4 or T3 can be released. One also notes that calcitonin is a 32 amino acid peptide that will also be digested. None of that stops Ji from waxing poetic about the wonders of thyroglobulin and “information” in a truly woo-tastic manner:
To understand the true magnitude of this difference, we must invoke Levinthal’s Paradox. For thyroglobulin to fold from a linear chain into its precise three-dimensional structure requires navigation through near-infinite conformational possibilities—a journey that would take longer than the universe’s age if done randomly. Yet it folds perfectly in milliseconds.
What Levinthal’s Paradox teaches us is that biological specificity contains inconceivable amounts of information—but not information as mere data. This is information as that which in-forms—that which puts form into biological matter, guiding the transformation of potential into actuality.
When thyroglobulin folds into its native state, it demonstrates information as a formative force. Each T4 molecule bound to thyroglobulin is literally in-formed by this protein matrix. The scaffold puts form into:
This formative information—accumulated over millions of years of evolution—cannot be replicated in a reaction flask.
- How the hormone is held in three-dimensional space
- What microenvironmental conditions it experiences
- How it relates to neighboring hormone molecules
- When and how it will be released
- What conformational memory it carries forward
“Conformational memory”? Sounds like homeopathy, doesn’t it? You know what I’m referring to, namely how homeopaths claim that water retains the “memory” of the substances that were in it but diluted to nothingness in the production of the homeopathic remedy. Apparently, even if the thyroglobulin protein is actually digested in the GI tract, the T3 and T4 retain the “memory” of being in the thyroglobulin protein, you know, all that “information.” Nowhere does Ji explain how that mystical “information” is transmitted to the receptors to which T4 and T3 bind.
If that’s not enough:
Consider a dimension rarely discussed: every biological molecule exists within a hydration shell—a structured water envelope. Research into water’s fourth phase reveals it as an exquisite carrier of information and memory, capable of structuring itself in ways that drive molecular actions and cellular communication. The water surrounding naturally-produced hormones has been structured by living processes, carrying biophysical information that influences hormone behavior.
But, wait! Desiccated thyroid extract is…dessicated thyroid gland. It’s basically freeze-dried, ground up, and packaged in pills or capsules. So how can hydration even be an issue? Fear not, SBM readers, Ji has an explanation, because of course he does:
Remarkably, even when natural thyroid is desiccated, this information is not entirely lost. The freeze-drying process preserves molecular architecture, and upon rehydration in the body, water restructures itself according to the biological template, partially restoring the information field. It’s like a compressed file expanding back to its original form—not perfectly, but with far more fidelity than starting from scratch.
The synthetic hormone’s hydration shell, formed in industrial conditions, lacks this biological structuring entirely. The qualitative difference between natural and synthetic forms is ontologically vast—an insurmountable chasm that the false equivalence model cannot bridge.
I love the reference to lossy compression of computer files. Ji even illustrates it with these bonkers images:
If that’s not enough, there’s this:
None of this, of course, is science-based. It’s all very much homeopathy-adjacent, with ill-defined appeals to “biological information” and influences of water on the “natural” hormones that are never demonstrated that might be better boiled down to being magic. This is then compared to the cold “industrial” production of T4 through chemistry, concluding with this howler:
The critical epistemological issue is this: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Just because current assays cannot detect functional differences between synthetic and natural T4 doesn’t mean such differences don’t exist. Biological systems are nonlinear and exquisitely sensitive to subtle variations that cascade into significant physiological effects.
That’s right. Just because no scientist has demonstrated a difference in physiological and biological effects due to synthetic T4 compared to the effects of “natural T4” doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Just trust Sayer Ji. My retort would be: Even if they exist, if differences in such effects haven’t been detected, they are certainly too tiny to be significant.
In fairness, Ji does make one point made that might mean something other than woo:
The dirty secret of synthetic thyroid treatment: up to 15% of patients cannot efficiently convert T4 to T3 due to genetic polymorphisms affecting deiodinase enzymes.[8] For these millions, synthetic levothyroxine is metabolic poison. Their bodies flood with inactive storage hormone while being starved of active T3.
Yes, it’s true. T4 is a precursor to the active hormone, T3. Unsurprisingly, that bit about T4 “poisoning” the body is utter bullshit. Moreover, it is not true, as Ji claims, that T4 is completely inactive, as this article describes:
Thyroid receptors are transcription factors that can bind to both T3 and T4. However, they have a much higher affinity for T3. As a result, T4 is relatively inactive. Deiodinases convert T4 to active T3 or inactive reverse T3 (rT3).
See what I mean? Knowing this, however, you might ask: Why is T4 the preferred form of thyroid hormone for thyroid replacement therapy? It’s nothing nefarious, contrary to what Ji implies. The main advantage is that T4 has a longer half-life, which allows for once-daily dosing. Given that the enzymes that convert T4 to T3 are present in a number of tissues in the body, that advantage alone is very important, as the American Thyroid Association explains:
The thyroid gland makes T4 predominantly, along with a small amount of T3. T3 is the active form of thyroid hormone, and is mainly formed when T4 is converted to T3 on an as-needed basis in the cells of the body. This conversion of T4 to T3 occurs normally even if your thyroid gland is sick or absent. T3 has a very short life span in the body, while the life span of T4 is much longer, ensuring a steady supply. A preparation of synthetic T3 (Cytomel®) is available. After taking a tablet of Cytomel® there are very high levels of T3 for a short time, and then the levels decrease very rapidly in the bloodstream. This means that T3 has to be taken several times each day, but even this does not smooth out the T3 levels entirely. In addition, it is impossible to avoid having too much thyroid hormone in the system soon after each dose of T3 is taken. High T3 levels can lead to unpleasant symptoms such as rapid heartbeat, insomnia and anxiety. High T3 levels also can possibly harm the heart and the bones. Another concern with using T3 treatment is that the body is deprived of the ability to adjust the conversion of T4 to T3 to regulate the supply of T3 according to the body’s own needs. Thus, there is no indication for the use of T3 alone for the treatment of hypothyroidism.
The American Thyroid Association also explains why desiccated thyroid is no longer recommended:
Desiccated (dried and powdered) thyroid extract obtained from pigs or cows, was a common and inexpensive form of thyroid therapy before the individual active thyroid hormones were discovered. It is currently available for purchase as a supplement, or by prescription as a medication (Armour®, NatureThyroid®, NP Thyroid®). Since pills made from animal thyroid are not purified, they contain hormones and proteins that do not exist in the body outside of the thyroid gland. Desiccated thyroid contains both T4 and T3, however the balance of T4 and T3 in animals is different from the human thyroid. The amounts of both T4 and T3 can vary in every batch of desiccated thyroid, making it harder to keep blood levels stable throughout the day. Desiccated thyroid pills contain chemicals (binders) to hold the pill together, so they are not completely “natural”. Animal thyroid extract should not be used in pregnancy, as the T3 portion does not reach the developing baby. For these reasons, desiccated thyroid extract is less frequently prescribed today.
In other words, there is nothing nefarious about why synthetic T4 is the preferred form of thyroid hormone replacement for patients who have hypothyroidism, either as a result of thyroid disease of having had their thyroid glands removed. This is the way medicine advances. Just as effective herbal medicines led scientists to search for the specific chemicals in the herbs that produced the desired therapeutic effect in order to isolate and purify the specific active chemicals, thus producing pharmaceutical drugs in which the amount of active ingredient is constant from lot to lot, the discovery 130 years ago that thyroid extract could reverse the symptoms of hypothyroidism led scientists to look for and isolate the hormone(s) responsible in order to be able to manufacture them in a form that provides reliable and predictable amounts of active hormone to the body.
The worship of the “natural form” of thyroid hormone is very much the same as the worship of herbal medicine, in which old methods that found biological activity in crude biological preparations, be they thyroid glands taken from animals or from plants or plant extracts, by alternative medicine practitioners is held up against the supposed evil (or at least inferiority) of highly purified active ingredients from natural sources either isolated from plant or animal sources or purified in the lab. It’s not a coincidence that Ji peppers his post with references to “bioidentical” hormones for women, nor is it a coincidence that Robert Malone wonders on Twitter, “You might think that the FDA wanted older women to be disabled with brittle bones, cognitive decline, metabolic disease, obesity, and poor health.” It’s the very same mindset that elevates “natural” estrogen for estrogen replacement therapy over the various synthetic estrogens that have been used for decades, claiming without good evidence superior efficacy and safety.
Indeed, the FDA in its letter mentions concerns about desiccated thyroid extract products, noting that tablets “made from the same manufacturing batches may not always provide the same thyroid hormone levels,” that inconsistent doses “can have serious consequences for patients,” and that too much “medication can cause unwanted effects, and too little could not be effective.” The letter also notes that “medications derived from animal thyroid glands have an increased risk of certain impurities due to the source – animal thyroid tissue – or the way it is manufactured” and that these “issues can lead to infections and other health concerns.” And, yes, the FDA states that it has received adverse event reports related to desiccated thyroid products.
Before I move on to vaccines, remember how I noted that I was surprised that the FDA had issued such letters and wondered whether Dr. Prasad had anything to do with it? It turns out that FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary is feeling the heat, as he posted to X:
Dr. Makary’s capitulation was entirely predictable. Although I don’t have a source to tell me this, I can’t help but strongly suspect that RFK Jr. probably read Makary the riot act after having felt the heat from a number of influential owners of compounding pharmacies who manufacture desiccated thyroid products and wellness influencers who sell and recommend them. Many of these people are aligned with RFK Jr. and MAHA, and some of them RFK Jr.’s friends. My only question is: Who will run these clinical trials, and will they bother to compare the efficacy and safety of desiccated thyroid to that of T4? Inquiring minds want to know.
Unsurprisingly, RFK Jr. was quick to praise Dr. Makary for his decision:
As some of us used to say in the 1980s, gag me with a spoon.
The MAHA take on vaccines
Let’s circle back again to the press release in which RFK Jr. announced that the NIH would be winding down its $500 million program to fund the development of new mRNA vaccines, including this video that he posted to X, the hellsite formerly known as Twitter:
One wonders which “experts” RFK Jr. listened to, given that the reaction to this decision among real vaccine experts has been uniformly negative. The reasons are obvious. First, as Dr. Offit discussed, RFK Jr. is very wrong about the science, where he says:
Most of these shots are for flu or COVID, but as the pandemic showed us mRNA vaccines don’t perform well against viruses that infect the upper respiratory tract.
Wrong. The vaccines performed quite creditably against COVID-19. One wonders what he means by “do not perform well.” Remember, the primary function of a vaccine against a disease like COVID is not necessarily to completely prevent infection (although it’s fantastic when a vaccine can accomplish that). It’s to prevent serious infections that land people in the hospital, infections that necessitate mechanical ventilation in an ICU, infections that kill. We know from a number of studies (e.g., a CDC study in 2022) that the vaccines were highly effective in decreasing ICU admissions requiring mechanical ventilation. Even a study by someone whom we might call a COVID contrarian, Dr. John Ioannidis, that was recently published found that the vaccines saved more than 2.5 million lives. I don’t have space to go into detail, but let’s just say that, given Ioannidis’ reputation and pessimism regarding the efficacy of vaccines, I would say that this is a far low end of the number of lives saved.
It’s when we get into the reasons why (according to RFK Jr.) that the similarity in “reasoning” (if you can call it that) between Sayer Ji’s take on synthetic T4 versus desiccated thyroid extract becomes apparent:
Here’s the problem. mRNA only codes for a small part of the viral proteins, usually a single antigen. One mutation, and the vaccine becomes ineffective. This dynamic drives a phenomenon called antigenic shift, meaning that the vaccine paradoxically encourages new mutations and can actually prolong pandemics as the virus constantly mutates to escape the protective effects of the vaccine.
This is just plain bullshit. For one thing, the mRNA vaccines encoded for a whole subunit of the COVID spike protein, specifically the S1 subunit, which is responsible for interacting with ACE2 receptor proteins on the surface of the host cell in the first step of viral entry. The mRNAs used for Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are both over 4,000 nucleotides long. In brief, it takes cumulative mutations, not just a single mutation, to render antibody binding to this protein ineffective.
The SARS-CoV-2 virus strain that first appeared in late 2019 in Wuhan, China was called the Wuhan-1 or ancestral strain. That’s not the strain that left China. The strain that left China was the first variant; called the D614G strain, it was far more contagious, sweeping through Asia and Europe. The D614G variant was replaced by the alpha variant which was replaced by the delta variant. All these changes occurred before the mRNA COVID vaccines were available. Also, we have remained in the omicron variant era since November 2021.
RFK Jr.’s claim that the vaccine “encourages” new mutations is, at its core, the same nonsense that Andrew Wakefield was peddling in 2019 about the measles vaccine in which he claimed that the measles vaccine would drive new mutations that would produce, in essence, a “super-measles” that would endanger humanity and potentially even cause a “mass extinction.” I kid you not. It’s also highly related to the nonsense that Geert Vanden Bossche started peddling in early 2021 about COVID-19 vaccines (and still peddles). You know what encourages new mutations? Very widespread infection with a virus. You know what discourages new mutations? Keeping the overall number of infections as low as possible.
RFK Jr. also gets the term “antigenic shift” completely wrong. Hint: It’s not the same thing as just the accumulation of mutations that produce new strains that allow the virus to evade vaccine-induced immunity and, as much as fans of “natural immunity” like go gloss over it, immunity after infection with a prior strain as well. That is known as “antigenic drift,” not antigenic shift. Let’s listen to a real expert, Dr. Paul Offit, again:
The term “antigenic shift” is typically reserved for influenza virus, which has a segmented genome that allows for entire gene segments to be transferred from one strain to another. SARS-CoV-2 doesn’t have a segmented genome. When antigenic shifts occurred in 1957 (“Asian flu”), 1968 (“Hong Kong flu”) and 2009 (“Swine flu”), influenza pandemics ensued. If SARS-CoV-2 underwent an “antigenic shift”, the entire world would once again be completely susceptible to this virus, and we would be right back to where we were in late 2019. Sounds scary. Complete nonsense.
The “tell” here is that RFK Jr. lumped SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in together with the influenza virus. They are two different viruses, and COVID-19 does not have the genomic characteristics that would even allow it to undergo antigenic shifts, although, like many viruses, it can undergo antigenic drift. Also, you know what are good ways to mitigate the possibility of antigenic shift? One is global surveillance, in order to spot such shifts fast and react to them, but the Trump administration has pulled the US out of the World Health Organization beginning in January 2026, which means that we will not sharing surveillance data with the WHO any more. The other is the rapid production of new vaccines, something that, as the pandemic showed us, the mRNA platform allows us to do faster than ever before.
RFK Jr. then goes on to say that the reason so many people were infected with Omicron despite having been vaccinated was “because a single mutation can make mRNA vaccines ineffective.” No, Omicron had accumulated 37 mutations in its spike protein compared to its predecessors. While it is true that some investigators argued that so many mutations in the spike protein did represent an “antigenic shift,” it’s really the classical antigenic shift that comes from a segmented genome like that of influenza. Not that RFK Jr. is interested in such nuances; rather, he’s interested in implying that vaccine-induced immunity against COVID-19 is so fragile that a single mutation can eliminate it. That’s just utter piffle, or, as Dr. Peter Hotez put it, “That’s flat out wrong,” adding that in no case has a single mutation rendered the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines ineffective. Vaccine-induced immunity against Omicron variants declined, but did not disappear, and, contrary to RFK Jr.’s apparent belief, even partial protection is better than no protection.
To show you just how bad RFK Jr.’s arguments are, even Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the useful idiot picked by the administration to be the face of the dismantling of NIH, couldn’t agree. He published an op-ed in the Washington Post last week entitled Why the NIH is Pivoting Away From mRNA Vaccines:
The mRNA platform is promising technology. I do not dispute its potential. In the future, it may yet deliver breakthroughs in treating diseases such as cancer, and HHS is continuing to invest in ongoing research on applications in oncology and other complex diseases. But as a vaccine intended for broad public use, especially during a public health emergency, the 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.
See what I mean? Even Dr. Bhattacharya can’t seem to swallow the codswallop that his boss laid down as the rational for pivoting away from the mRNA technology for vaccines. Instead, he makes quite the amazing argument that the technology can’t work because the public doesn’t trust it. Of course, who were the people who stoked that distrust more than anyone else? Dr. Bhattacharya’s boss RFK Jr., Dr. Bhattacharya himself, and a number of the rogues’ gallery of antivax-adjacent COVID contrarians now holding leadership positions in HHS, including Dr. Makary. There is only one meme for this, and I sometimes feel bad that I keep using it so often:
I’m not going to dwell on the massive exercise in sheer self-delusion that is Dr. Bhattacharya’s editorial given that our very own Dr. Jonathan Howard has already done so capably, as has Dr. Angela Rasmussen. I will, however, mention that RFK Jr. spent two decades before he became HHS Secretary undermining trust and confidence in all vaccines, including whole virus vaccines, and so did the antivaccine movement before him. Bhattacharya is delusional if he thinks that using old vaccine technology while claiming it’s new will result in vaccines that the people who have been sucked into the MAHA movement will trust any more than they trust mRNA vaccines. Doubt is the product. Doubt has always been the point. Is Bhattacharya being naive or cynical? I don’t know. I do know that very likely RFK Jr. is just speaking MAHA language to justify canceling mRNA vaccine grants and will, when the time comes, find a reason to falsely claim that his shiny new-old vaccine technology is inadequate, ineffective, and unsafe, because, of course, he is antivax to the core—and has been at least since 2005, if not longer.
Instead, let’s move on. Why, you might ask, is the preferred method of developing new vaccines based on using single proteins, or even fragments of proteins containing the most relevant antigens for an immune reaction? As I pointed out, inactivated whole-virus vaccines have a long and storied history going back over a century, but they also have a number of problems. In this context, I like to think of this in terms similar to what I just discussed regarding herbal medicines versus active ingredients from natural products purified to make pharmaceutical drugs and desiccated thyroid extract versus T4, or even “bioidentical” estrogen compared to synthetic estrogen. It’s yet another example of MAHA’s misguided belief that more “natural” must be better, and, I guess, to MAHA stans growing up viruses in eggs (influenza) or in cell cultures to produce large quantities of them and then inactivating them with chemicals like formaldehyde is more “natural” than producing single proteins (or fragments) of proteins using genetic engineering or inducing the body to produce them with mRNA vaccines.
One can look at the development of vaccines from using whole-organism to the cutting edge mRNA platform this way. Beginning in the 1980s recombinant DNA technology allowed scientists to produce individual proteins or peptides. Given that for some diseases only a single antigen (e.g. surface glycoprotein like influenza hemagglutinin or hepatitis B surface antigen) is required for protective immunity, it makes sense to use the minimum antigen that can elicit a protective immune response. Also remember that, as mentioned above, whole virus vaccines require large-scale propagation of the virus, which then must be completely inactivated. Need I remind you what can happen if inactivation is not complete. Yes, I’m talking about the Cutter incident in 1955, when lots of Salk polio vaccine manufactured by Cutter Laboratories contained some live virus; in other words, the virus was not completely inactivated. The error resulted in 120,000 doses of polio vaccine containing live polio virus and produced one of the worst public health catastrophes in history. Of the children who received the vaccine, 40,000 developed abortive poliomyelitis (a form of the disease that does not involve the central nervous system), 56 developed paralytic poliomyelitis, and of these, five children died from polio. These cases were transmitted to the families and communities of the affected children, resulting in a further 113 people paralyzed and 5 deaths.
Something like this can’t happen with single-antigen vaccines or, for that matter, mRNA vaccines. Indeed, one of the drawbacks of attenuated live virus vaccines (vaccines in which the virus is weakened so that it can’t cause disease but is still functional) is reversion to its wild-type, disease-causing strain. This, also, can’t happen with single-antigen vaccines or mRNA vaccines. Add to that the observation over the decades that whole virus vaccines contain lots of proteins that include non-protective or even potentially harmful antigens, and, as was the case with desiccated thyroid extract and herbal medicines, there was an impetus to isolate the minimum active ingredient—or, in the case of a vaccine, antigen—that causes the desired effect. Then there’s the issue of manufacturing again. In propagation of large amounts of virus is slow, making vaccine development using these “traditional techniques” much slower than with the new technique of mRNA vaccines.
Hostility towards “reductionist science” now dominates our federal health infrastructure
Just like the case of desiccated thyroid extract, herbal medicines, and bioidentical hormones, RFK Jr. and MAHA fetishize what they perceive as more “natural,” which in the case of vaccines is basically 20th century technology that uses whole organisms as the source of antigens in much the same way that MAHA stans like Sayer Ji demand “whole” organ in the form of desiccated powdered thyroid in favor of proven safe and effective single hormone T4 and naturopaths and “alternative medicine” practitioners demand herbal medicines in favor of pharmaceutical products containing highly purified active ingredients coming from the same plants. This view is not based on science, but rather an ideology in which the “natural” form of whatever remedy or preventative being considered is deemed superior regardless of whether it actually is and ignoring the reasons that science moved from the “natural” form to the more purified, targeted, or—dare I say?—reductionistic form. It also completely ignores the history of science and medicine that provide the obvious reasons why science has moved on from natural products to pharmaceuticals, from desiccated animal organs like thyroid to purified hormones, and from whole organisms in vaccines to just the proteins in the organism necessary to provoke an effective protective immune response. Everything in MAHA flows from the idea that messy and crude “natural” extracts are always superior to purified active components or antigens.
When science is based more on ideology than actual experimentation and data, I call it Lysenkoism 2.0. That’s exactly what’s driving RFK Jr. Once you see the similarities between the MAHA view on thyroid replacement hormones and on vaccines, you will see why I invoke Trofim Lysenko so often these days, as I conclude that MAHA is Lysenkoism 2.0 and that the dismantling of the NIH is motivated largely by Lysenko-like ideological “science.” Worse, why damage is being done to US federal medicine, public health, and biomedical research that will take a generation, if not more, to repair. In the meantime, I hope we all enjoy falling further an further behind China and the rest of the world in science, because that is the trajectory that President Trump and RFK Jr. has put our country on.