[music]

Brian Lehrer: Now part 2 of the Health and Climate Tuesday section of the show as we do every week. Last week the Trump administration announced it will cut funding to mRNA vaccine developments totaling $500 million that researchers get from the federal government. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has said this would end 22 contracts to develop vaccines to fight COVID-19 and the bird flu, among other respiratory viruses. Many healthcare professionals and scientists have denounced this move.

Our next guest joins that criticism. He calls this move, "The most dangerous public health decision he's ever seen, ever made by a government body." Joining us now is Dr. Michael Osterholm, Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, known as CIDRAP, at the University of Minnesota, and the director of the Vaccine Integrity Project. He's also the co-author of the forthcoming book, The Big One: How We Must Prepare for Future Deadly Pandemics. Dr. Osterholm, welcome to WNYC.

Dr. Michael Osterholm: Thank you. It's great to be with you.

Brian Lehrer: I appreciate you coming on and walking through this major announcement that just came out days ago. I'd love an explanation to start, mRNA vaccines have been studied for years, but it wasn't until the rapid development of the COVID-19 vaccine that the broader public really became familiar with the technology. Can you refresh our memories here? What makes an mRNA vaccine different from the others and why was it used to quickly develop the COVID-19 vaccine?

Dr. Michael Osterholm: First of all, as you noted, the mRNA technology has actually been in the research phase for a better part of 15 years. There's been a sense that this could in fact be the emerging technology for future vaccines that would help us a great deal for two reasons. One is you can actually produce these vaccines relatively quickly and you can produce them in very large volumes. For those conditions, such as potential pandemic or epidemic, having a vaccine like this would be very helpful.

The second thing is it has a very unique way that it actually provides the body with an opportunity to respond to an antigen, a piece of material from the virus that then results in immunity once you've been exposed to that. The way it does it is it actually sets up a very short lived temporary factory inside your body, meaning that in fact, once this mRNA vaccine is introduced, it basically has cells that then are captured and they then start putting out parts of the virus that then stimulates the rest of the immune system.

In many ways, it's not that different in principle to what we call live attenuated vaccines today. If you look at mumps, measles and rubella, that's actually a vaccine that has live virus in it, but it's attenuated, meaning it doesn't cause illness, but it causes your body to develop an immune response.

This really is a technology that has many, many potential opportunities for the future, including such things as HIV vaccines, a number of other diseases, we have a number of cancer conditions that are now being researched as to how this mRNA technology could help with that. It really is the bright future for this vaccine if in fact we can get people to support the research.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we can take your questions, your comments on the Trump administration's plan to end mRNA vaccine funding. Our number is 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Maybe we have some healthcare providers tuning in. What's it been like to administer these types of vaccines to the public? Have you seen skepticism when it comes to the vaccine or any general uptick in vaccine skepticism?

Maybe someone you know chose not to get the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine or boosters because of the the messaging from the Trump administration. Anything else you want to share, give us a call, send us a text, 212-433-9692. We'll get into what was behind Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s decision to cancel a half billion dollars into this type of vaccine research. As I said in the introduction, 22 projects will see their contracts ended by this move to pull the federal funding. Dr. Osterholm, are you familiar with what that research was in terms of what was currently being researched as it related to mRNA vaccines?

Dr. Michael Osterholm: Yes, I am. I'm actually very familiar with it. Let me just say that, to me, the major opportunity that we have with this mRNA technology applies directly to pandemic response. We saw what this vaccine could do during COVID. While obviously there was a lot of mis and disinformation that came forward, that in a sense made the public discouraged or even in some cases just outright Brian Lehrerile to the vaccine, in fact, much of that is wrong information.

Right now in our world, if we were to see another influenza pandemic emerge, and one that could be much, much worse than even we saw with COVID, we have the potential to make enough vaccine for the world using our current methods of what's called an embryo chicken egg, meaning you have to grow it inside a chicken egg and then harvest the virus to make the vaccine. We could only vaccinate about a quarter of the world in the first 15 to 18 months of the influenza pandemic.

With our mRNA technology, it's very likely if not highly possible, that we could in fact vaccinate a large part of the world within the first year of the pandemic. This becomes a really important tool for pandemic preparedness. These vaccines are good vaccines. They're not great. What I might mean by that is, is that you can still infected, you can still get ill, but the data are clear and compelling with the mRNA technology as it was used in COVID is that it prevented serious illness, hospitalizations and deaths, and it did that in a big way.

I'll take that any day of the week for a dose of vaccine to not die or to be seriously ill. I think that's what we have to get at. Now you asked the question earlier in a sense of why did Secretary Kennedy do this? This has been one of our challenges from the duration of the administration so far is all these discussions about what they do and how they do it there's no rhyme or reason.

For example, Mr. Kennedy announced last week that he was pulling funding, as you've noted, because the vaccines were not safe and the benefits did not at all come close to matching up to the risk. There was no data presented to support that at all. It was just his statement saying that. In fact, we know the data don't support that.

Make matters worse, over the weekend, the head of the NIH was on a podcast in which he announced the fact that Mr. Kennedy made the decision to pull funding for these vaccines because the American public just didn't trust the vaccines. They weren't going to use them. Nothing about did they work or not, just the public relation wise, they weren't going to use them, so let's pull the money. Again, also not true.

Ironically, what resistance there is to these vaccines is in many cases attributed directly to people like RFK Jr. and what he was saying about the vaccines with his misinformation. This has been one of the challenges we've had is trying to deal with the facts and not the mis and disinformation.

Brian Lehrer: Then the ramifications from the decision, regardless of how it was made or why it was made, is that 22 contracts to develop vaccines have been canceled. What were these contracts and what are the implications?

Dr. Michael Osterholm: First of all, the contracts really focused on still research and discovery, you might say, about these vaccines, how to make them better. For example, one of the companies actually has done additional work in fine tuning their mRNA vaccine that they had for COVID and they've actually lowered the amount of antigen material that would be produced, meaning that in fact you can make it a much lower dose and reduce the immediate side effects.

One of the things that was surely a challenge with at least one of the brands of COVID vaccine was the next day you felt bad, you felt like you had the flu, you're in bed for a day. That's not a good thing obviously. Again, I would take that any day of the week over dying. Again, that may be a deterrent for the consumer to get that vaccine. Now they've actually improved it substantially so that doesn't happen by being able to get the same, if not better result from the vaccine by actually giving less of the vaccine in a way that might make you sick. That's the kind of research we need.

When we get into influenza, we have every reason to believe that these vaccines will perform very well with the influenza virus, but we need the research to establish that. If we get into a pandemic, we don't want to spend the time to try to discover what these vaccines can do to prove how well they work. We need to have all that up front. You don't go buy the fire truck when the 911 call comes in. You hopefully have purchased that and have the expertise to use that fire truck well before you ever get the 911 call.

Brian Lehrer: All these 22 projects, they all aim to tackle different diseases. Were some multiple related to the influenza, for example?

Dr. Michael Osterholm: Yes, it's a combination. There were ones that basically were more about the very fundamental aspects of mRNA technology research to help move it along. There clearly was a very large one that got canceled that was all about furthering the mRNA technology with influenza virus. It was a combination thereof, and that's how science works.

Oftentimes I hear people trying to define what science is. Science is not truth, trust me. Science is the pursuit of truth. That's what our job is, is to get better and better every day, every week, every month, with better information, learning from what mistakes or what successes we had in the past.

That's what this was all about. It was really all about the true pursuit of science to try to find how do we make better, faster vaccines that the public wants and the public will actually benefit immensely from in the course of another outbreak or a pandemic.

Brian Lehrer: We're going to check in with our callers with some questions and comments. Carolyn in Sleepy Hollow. Good morning. You're on with Dr. Osterholm.

Carolyn: Hello, can you hear me?

Brian Lehrer: Yes, I can.

Dr. Michael Osterholm: Yes, I can. Thank you.

Carolyn: Oh, good. Thank you. I am one of those people who had a reaction to the COVID booster vaccine. I ended up in the hospital for about 10 days altogether with pericarditis. I don't react to any other vaccines. I've been fine with everything but that one. I'm curious whether that reaction would carry over, whether the mRNA might be the culprit that triggered this or not, and whether that would start carrying over to other vaccines.

Dr. Michael Osterholm: First of all, I'm sorry to hear about your experience. I'm not in a position to obviously judge your case here, but pericarditis actually has not been found to be at increased risk for those who have been vaccinated, and particularly who are older, who are female, as opposed to what we call myocarditis, which has been found to be at a higher risk initially in young adolescent boys.

However, that was in the very earliest part of the pandemic. It turns out we've not actually seen any evidence even myocarditis, an actual inflammation of the muscle in the last three years. I would suggest at this time that if you were to get the vaccine again, you could get one of the other versions of it. There's one by Novavax which is not quite the same as the technology that we have for both Pfizer and for Moderna.

I think that that point, that would surely be one you could get. Your own physician will obviously help guide you on-- They believe that the risk benefit is there. Again, I can't comment on your case, but these vaccines have been incredibly safe overall. When you look at the billions, and I use the word B, billions of doses that have been admin administered in the last four years.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you for the call, Carolyn. Let's go to Kenneth, Jackson Heights. Hi, Kenneth, good morning.

Kenneth: Hi. Can you hear me?

Brian Lehrer: Yes, sir.

Dr. Michael Osterholm: Yes, I can, thank you.

Kenneth: When regular folks go to the drugstore, they tell you to wait for the new shot. I went yesterday to a couple different major drugstores, but what I was concerned about is I think there's a lot of confusion. Is a new shot going to be RNA-based or they're going to be something else different, which would make me weary of taking something different that's 100 year old technology. To clarify that for me, they told me not to take the shot because they're getting a new shot. Go ahead.

Dr. Michael Osterholm: Good luck. I tell you what, if you're confused, welcome to the club because we're all confused. Number one, the new doses of vaccine that are supposed to be forthcoming are basically an updated model in the sense that it has a more recent antigen or part of the virus.

The COVID virus has continued to evolve over time. While they're all currently basically a derivation of the Omicron virus, which we saw emerge several years ago, there have been some changes that have occurred. We like to get those best changes. Let me just be clear and say that right now, given how this administration is handling COVID and the vaccines, we have no idea if in fact the new ones are actually going to get approved anytime soon.

The previous vaccines still have very, very good protection against serious illness, hospitalizations and deaths. Just to give you an idea I'm over 65. It's been six months since my last dose of vaccine. I went into my pharmacy a week and a half ago and got a new dose of the current vaccine, not the new one. Now, I'm not giving you that as medical advice. You surely you need to talk to your own health care provider to determine how you want to do that.

I'm not waiting for the new vaccine because I'm not sure it's coming. Right now we are starting to see COVID pick up. The good news is, is that there are many fewer serious illnesses and hospitalizations deaths associated with it, but it definitely is picking up. I elected to go in and get it. The one good thing also is if you are an individual at increased risk for serious illness, over 65, immune compromised, et cetera, if you do get the current one, you're still eligible two months from now to get the new one if it were to come out in that time period.

It's two month delay between vaccinations, three months delay between having previously had COVID and a new vaccine. I don't know if this is helpful or not. I wish I could give you more information, but I can tell you right now there is a great deal of confusion about how this administration is going to handle any COVID vaccine coming forward and how they support it.

Brian Lehrer: Dr. Osterholm, I want to play a clip from what Secretary Kennedy said on August 5 when he made this announcement and then get your take on the other side.

Robert Kennedy Jr: To replace the troubled mRNA programs, we're prioritizing the development of safer, broader vaccine strategies, like a whole virus vaccines and novel platforms that don't collapse when viruses mutate.

Brian Lehrer: There's a lot to unpack there, but let's just take it slowly here. Do you have an understanding as to why the Secretary referred to mRNA vaccines as troubled, or do you want to counter that statement in any way?

Dr. Michael Osterholm: If we had another hour, I'd be happy to start just taking apart the few sentences that he said. Mr. Kennedy is an expert at being an expert, but only in his own mind. Basically, what he said is not valid. It's scientifically not sound. It sounds good though. If you listen to him, you say, "Wow, he knows what he's talking about."

This has been one of the challenges that my colleagues and I have had, is the fact that it is disinformation that he is spreading. For example, the whole cell vaccine he's talking about has been in research for more than 50 years, and we have yet to find it be as good as or anywhere near superior to any other vaccines. The Chinese actually made a whole cell vaccine for COVID during the pandemic, and it turned out to be an utter failure in China.

The idea that somehow this alternative is going to be the answer is just not at all based on reality. This is the problem we have in science. We may surely have differences of understanding of data as time goes on. As I said just a moment ago, science is not truth. It's the pursuit of truth. In this case, though, he comes across with these authoritative statements that bend at will to whatever political leanings he might have at the moment.

This is unfortunate, that's not what the public needs and wants. This is our lives. These are our kids lives. Therefore, we need the best information we can possibly get that is not biased, that is not an agenda other than to try to protect our public's health. That's the last thing that the Secretary does.

Brian Lehrer: We're speaking with Dr. Michael Osterholm, Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. We're talking about the Trump administration's decision to pull funding for mRNA vaccines. Doctor, it was widely reported that Kennedy's critique of mRNA vaccines is because, as he says in that clip we just listened to they, "collapse when viruses mutate." I know you said there's so much to get into about the misinformation in the Secretary's statement, but specifically on that point, does the Vaccine collapse when viruses mutate.

Dr. Michael Osterholm: No, in fact, they don't. They surely can have less protection if, in fact, the virus that the vaccine was made for or from basically changes over time. In looking at, for example, what's happened with COVID, if you look at previous vaccination status that is not exactly matched to what the current virus is, but it's close, but it's evolved since that time.

We still see that same good protection against serious illness, hospitalizations, and deaths. They don't collapse. There's no such thing as that. The flu vaccine every year doesn't collapse, but when we have new flu viruses emerge in each flu season, what do we do? We get an updated vaccine, knowing that there is still some protection, in some cases, good protection from previous doses of vaccine that weren't perfectly matched, but they still provided that.

One of the things that the vaccines do is they basically elicit two different kinds of cells, the B cells and the T cells. The B cells are the ones that produce antibody right away. They're the ones that are more susceptible to changes in the actual virus structure. The T cells have this memory. They're like the cop that has all the pictures of all the criminals in town, and if they see one, they immediately pick them up. That's what the viruses do when they hit our body.

If they are basically something that is close to what we're at, those T cells immediately kick in and they go at it and they get it. In that sense, too, the idea of collapse is just not a biologically relevant point here. If I were a consumer listening to him, I'd say, "Oh, my gosh, the vaccines collapse. Oh, wow, I'm not going to get that." That's the problem we have.

Brian Lehrer: The other problem that you have is a general anxiety by many in the general public about the COVID-19 vaccine regardless of the politics that might have driven that. We did get a question from a texter, your guest used the word immunity when referring to vaccines. Could he please please describe what immunity looks like? Does not mean that a person would not get whatever the illness is, right?

Dr. Michael Osterholm: First of all, let me just be really clear about the vaccines. These are based on some very, very good studies. These are not cook the book kind of studies. COVID vaccine literally likely saved more than 3 million lives in the United States from the four years of the pandemic. Three million lives. That's Amazing. When people talk about it as if somehow it doesn't work or didn't work or it's dangerous, that has to be put up against that number.

Now, in terms of what we mean by immunity, immunity is something that can be all the way from reducing illness, reducing infection, no condition that you have to worry about in terms of getting really sick to one where it doesn't prevent infection, it doesn't cause you to basically not get infected, but it greatly reduces your serious illness and hospitalizations.

Measles as a vaccine is one, because the virus just doesn't change much over time. Basically, it has maintained protection for years and years and years. If many people today listening to this call had measles before or if they've been vaccinated, they likely have protection for the rest of their lives. If you look at influenza vaccine, you get protection for the first 90 to 180 days after vaccination against illness.

That starts to wane over time, but you still maintain a lot of protection against serious illness, hospitalizations and deaths. Immunity can be relative. It's not all yes or no, it's how much. For a life threatening disease, I'll take any day of the week not getting seriously ill, but yet still getting infected as a way to protect myself and why I'd get that vaccine.

Brian Lehrer: Dr. Osterholm, before you take off, I know you have to go, your University of Minnesota Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy has launched the Vaccine Integrity Project. Tell us real quick what that's about.

Dr. Michael Osterholm: What we're doing is evaluating what at one time was done by the advisory immunization practices at the CDC, that outside expert group that would do reviews of all the vaccine information that's been accumulated since the last review. What we did is brought together a group of real experts to review all the data that exists on influenza, RSV and COVID vaccines since the last time that the ACIP reviewed them.

We have now identified over 17,500 different abstracts of information that have been collected and have been published. We have gone through those in detail using a specific type of protocol to systematically collect the information. Actually next week we're going to be reporting out our results so that the medical societies that have traditionally made recommendations, such as the American Academy of Pediatrics makes recommendations for kids, the Infectious Disease Society of America makes recommendations for immune compromised individuals.

They will now have an updated database of which they can then come back and say, "This is why we recommended this," when they did not have that actually from the ACIP. This was our main thrust effort. Next week you'll get to hear in detail what we found. I think it will be very impressive for the public to see what these vaccines have done to date.

Brian Lehrer: We'll look for that. Thank you. My guest has been Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. He's also the co-author of the forthcoming book, The Big One: How We Must Prepare for Future Deadly Pandemics. Thanks so much for coming on the show today-

Dr. Michael Osterholm: Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: -and explaining all of this to us. Really appreciate it.

Dr. Michael Osterholm: Thank you.

Copyright © 2025 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.