A Better Flu Vaccine Is Possible, if Team RFK Jr. Stays Out of the Way
Slate · L · trust 49/100
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The Food and Drug Administration approved a potentially revolutionary flu vaccine yesterday, and the push alerts came rolling in. The bureaucratic, multistep process for bringing new shots to market used to be the uncontroversial stuff of trade publications and medical journals, not national news. That has changed under an administration that tends to sow doubt about vaccines. But are Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other Trump officials really backing down on their vaccine skepticism? Let’s weigh the evidence.
Hang on. Flu shots have been around forever. What makes this one special?
Call it a solution to the chicken-and-egg problem. For more than 70 years, most annual flu vaccines have come from a manufacturing process that incubates the virus in chicken eggs . That process takes about six months, which means scientists have to guess which strain will dominate the upcoming flu season and tailor the shot to it in advance. As a result, seasonal flu shots can be less protective against unforeseen strains. It’s a big issue: The flu kills tens of thousands of Americans each year. This new vaccine, which is called mFlusiva and comes from the pharmaceutical company Moderna, is the first seasonal flu shot that uses mRNA. That technology, which Moderna also uses in its COVID vaccines, lets scientists modify the shot much faster. Moderna’s clinical trial also showed that mFlusiva is more protective against the flu.
Moderna’s study found that mFlusiva carries a higher risk of fatigue, headache, and other side effects than earlier vaccines. But as with many vaccines, more serious complications are extremely rare.
Therein lies the rub. The FDA greenlit mFlusiva for adults age 50 and up, and Moderna wants to have it available for the coming flu season—that is, a few months from now. But a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory panel gets to set guidance for who should receive it. Kennedy, Donald Trump’s kooky Health and Human Services secretary, fired the experts on that panel last year and replaced them with people who have in some cases sought to limit who gets COVID shots, promoted unproven treatments, and spread misinformation about other vaccines. So while mFlusiva has the FDA’s blessing, Kennedy’s handpicked panel could still recommend that only a subset of Americans—say, people with compromised immune systems—get it. That could undermine the vaccine’s financial viability, a de facto way of discouraging Moderna from continuing to market it.
I was going to say: It seemed a little out of character for the Trump administration to sign off on this. What’s the backstory?
You’re not wrong to wonder. Kennedy has repeatedly criticized mRNA vaccines. Last year, he falsely said the shots “fail to protect effectively” against disease in order to justify cutting funding for mRNA research. Earlier this year, it did indeed look like the administration would block mFlusiva; the FDA initially refused to review Moderna’s application, backtracking only after experts and the company pushed back.
So does that mean the administration is changing its mind about vaccines?
The signals are mixed. In the “Yes” column: Trump nominated Dr. Erica Schwartz to lead the CDC, even though she has repeatedly broken with Kennedy’s anti-vaccine views. The Senate confirmed her this week. Last week, the administration released $600 million to an international group that helps poor countries get and distribute vaccines—overruling Kennedy, who had blocked the funding for months. And Dr. Vinay Prasad, the Kennedy-aligned FDA official who signed off on the agency’s refusal to review mFlusiva, has since left the administration.
Elsewhere, the administration seems to be hewing to its vaccine-skeptical approach. It’s appealing a federal judge’s order that blocked Kennedy’s plan to overhaul vaccine recommendations for kids . And according to the Wall Street Journal , Trump himself has encouraged Kennedy’s efforts to find evidence for the conspiracy theory that vaccines cause autism.
Yikes. But this kind of straddling must surely be making Trump’s base mad?
Tensions have been brewing between the administration and the so-called Make America Healthy Again movement for months. Some MAHA voters, who backed Trump after Kennedy endorsed him in 2024, have become disillusioned as the administration repeatedly sides with the pesticide, agriculture, and pharmaceutical industries. Last month, an impromptu debate broke out in the Oval Office between MAHA farmers and a top agriculture lobbyist. So Trump’s hot-and-cold approach to vaccines may just reflect his efforts to muddle through a political conundrum. While any departure from Kennedy’s anti-science approach is welcome, the real tests are yet to come.
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