{"id":34502,"date":"2025-08-08T21:31:57","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T21:31:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=34502"},"modified":"2025-08-17T05:25:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-17T05:25:15","slug":"trump-just-shrugs-as-kennedy-undermines-his-vaccine-legacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=34502","title":{"rendered":"Trump Just Shrugs as Kennedy Undermines His Vaccine Legacy"},"content":{"rendered":"
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President Trump\u2019s laissez-faire approach is notable, given that the development of the Covid vaccine was seen as one of his first term\u2019s most notable achievements.<\/p>\n

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During the early days of the coronavirus pandemic in the spring of 2020, President Trump was warned by medical officials that the development of a vaccine that could turn the tide against Covid could be over a year away.<\/p>\n

For Mr. Trump, that timeline was not good enough.<\/p>\n

He demanded a faster program. The creation of that program, Operation Warp Speed<\/a>, led to lifesaving vaccines that contained messenger RNA, or mRNA, a synthetic form of a genetic molecule that helps stimulate the immune system. Those vaccines are widely regarded in the scientific community as the quickest way to protect Americans against future threats, including viruses that could mushroom into a pandemic, or man-made menaces, like a bioweapons attack.<\/p>\n

Time has marched on and, apparently, so has Mr. Trump in his second term.<\/p>\n

This week, the president all but shrugged off an announcement by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health and human services secretary and a longtime critic of vaccines<\/a>, that a research division of his department had slashed $500 million in grants and contracts for work on mRNA vaccines.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was now a long time ago, and we\u2019re onto other things,\u201d the president told reporters on Wednesday. Mr. Trump added that his administration is now \u201clooking for other answers to other problems, to other sicknesses and diseases.\u201d He said he was planning to meet with Mr. Kennedy on Thursday to discuss the decision, but by Friday, White House officials did not say whether that meeting took place.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Mr. Trump\u2019s willingness to give Mr. Kennedy the space to impose his views is notable, given that the vaccines were once seen as legacy achievement during Mr. Trump\u2019s first term. But his laissez-faire posture also leaves room for Mr. Trump to position himself in line with the portion of his base that has grown deeply skeptical about the safety and efficacy of vaccines.<\/p>\n

In recent months, Mr. Trump has offered little to no public input as Mr. Kennedy fired a 17-member committee<\/a> at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that makes vaccine recommendations; appointed advisers who have rescinded some flu vaccine recommendations<\/a>; and suggested, contrary to evidence, that many pediatricians make money from vaccines<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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President Trump\u2019s laissez-faire approach is notable, given that the development of the Covid vaccine was seen as one of his first term\u2019s most notable achievements.During the early days of the coronavirus pandemic in the spring of 2020, President Trump was warned by medical officials that the development of a vaccine that could turn the tide against Covid could be over a year away.For Mr. Trump, that timeline was not good enough.He demanded a faster program. The creation of that program, Operation Warp Speed, led to lifesaving vaccines that contained messenger RNA, or mRNA, a synthetic form of a genetic molecule that helps stimulate the immune system. Those vaccines are widely regarded in the scientific community as the quickest way to protect Americans against future threats, including viruses that could mushroom into a pandemic, or man-made menaces, like a bioweapons attack.Time has marched on and, apparently, so has Mr. Trump in his second term.This week, the president all but shrugged off an announcement by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health and human services secretary and a longtime critic of vaccines, that a research division of his department had slashed $500 million in grants and contracts for work on mRNA vaccines.\u201cThat was now a long time ago, and we\u2019re onto other things,\u201d the president told reporters on Wednesday. Mr. Trump added that his administration is now \u201clooking for other answers to other problems, to other sicknesses and diseases.\u201d He said he was planning to meet with Mr. Kennedy on Thursday to discuss the decision, but by Friday, White House officials did not say whether that meeting took place.Mr. Trump\u2019s willingness to give Mr. Kennedy the space to impose his views is notable, given that the vaccines were once seen as legacy achievement during Mr. Trump\u2019s first term. But his laissez-faire posture also leaves room for Mr. Trump to position himself in line with the portion of his base that has grown deeply skeptical about the safety and efficacy of vaccines.In recent months, Mr. Trump has offered little to no public input as Mr. Kennedy fired a 17-member committee at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that makes vaccine recommendations; appointed advisers who have rescinded some flu vaccine recommendations; and suggested, contrary to evidence, that many pediatricians make money from vaccines.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34504,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34502"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34505,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34502\/revisions\/34505"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/34504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}