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Speaker 1: Good morning, and welcome to the Daily OS. It's Friday,
Speaker 1: the eighth of August.
Speaker 2: I'm Sam Kazlowski, I'm Billy Fitzsimon's.
Speaker 1: This week, US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Junior announced
Speaker 1: he's canceling twenty two vaccine development projects worth five hundred
Speaker 1: million US dollars, specifically targeting mRNA technology used in COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen vaccines. The decision has sparked concern from infectious disease experts,
Speaker 1: who say could leave a man Erica vulnerable to future pandemics.
Speaker 1: On today's podcast, we're going to dive into what these
Speaker 1: cuts actually mean, why we're seeing such dramatic changes in
Speaker 1: US health policy and where the similar changes could actually
Speaker 1: come to Australia.
Speaker 2: So, Sam, this story all centers around RFK Junior, who
Speaker 2: is now in charge of America's health policy. For anyone
Speaker 2: who's not familiar with him, do you want to just
Speaker 2: give us a quick overview about who is RFK Jr.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So this is the main character of this story,
Speaker 1: I'd say so. Robert F. Kennedy Junior is Donald Trump's
Speaker 1: Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Speaker 2: He's kind of like our Minister for health exactly.
Speaker 1: So it's the Mark Butler of America. He's from the
Speaker 1: famous Kennedy political dynasty. He's the nephew of former President
Speaker 1: John F. Kennedy. Now, before entering politics, RFK was an
Speaker 1: environmental lawyer, but over the past twenty years he's become
Speaker 1: a really prominent vaccine skeptic. He's repeatedly questioned vaccine, particularly
Speaker 1: during the COVID pandemic, and he linked vaccines to autism
Speaker 1: despite overwhelming scientific evidence showing no connection there. He founded
Speaker 1: an organization called the Children's Health Defense that spreads what
Speaker 1: experts say is vaccine misinformation. And what's really significant now is,
Speaker 1: as you said, he is in charge of America's health system,
Speaker 1: so he oversees multiple health agencies. The ones that we
Speaker 1: would know and be familiar with would be the CDC,
Speaker 1: the Center for Disease Control, and the FDA, which regulate
Speaker 1: and recommend vaccines and medications.
Speaker 2: I remember the CDC, the Center of Disease Control, was
Speaker 2: very prominent during the pandemic, so I think maybe a
Speaker 2: lot of us would know it from.
Speaker 1: There Doctor Anthony Fauci, he was the figurehead.
Speaker 2: Yes, so this was a pretty dramatic move from RFK
Speaker 2: Junior to cut funding for a lot of vaccines in
Speaker 2: the US. Do you want to just break down exactly
Speaker 2: what that announcement was this week?
Speaker 1: Sure? So it was on Tuesday US time and RFK
Speaker 1: got up and announced that the Department of Health and
Speaker 1: Human Services will cancel contracts and pull funding for twenty
Speaker 1: two projects. And when you bundle all of those projects together,
Speaker 1: the total amount of funding being pulled is five hundred
Speaker 1: million US dollars, which is about seven hundred and seventy
Speaker 1: million Australian dollars.
Speaker 2: And is this funding into the rollout of vaccines or
Speaker 2: funding into the research of future vaccines.
Speaker 1: It's more in that second bucket, So it's more about
Speaker 1: the development of vaccines, particularly the ones that use mRNA
Speaker 1: technology to fight respiratory viruses.
Speaker 2: Remind me what that is.
Speaker 1: So mRNA technology I'll get to in a sect. But
Speaker 1: the respiratory viruses that we would know about from a
Speaker 1: vaccine context would be COVID nineteen, the flu and bird flu. Familiar, yes,
Speaker 1: And so the contracts being canceled, they involve some of
Speaker 1: America's biggest pharmaceutical companies. We're talking about Pizer and Maderna,
Speaker 1: and those are the companies that we know develops the
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen mRNA vaccines. And so Kennedy comes out with
Speaker 1: this video exp blaming his decision, and he says, to
Speaker 1: replace the troubled mRNA programs, we're prioritizing the development of safer,
Speaker 1: broader vaccine strategies like whole virus vaccines and novel platforms
Speaker 1: that don't collapse when viruses mutate.
Speaker 2: And to translate that into US non scientific yes, folk.
Speaker 1: So basically what he's saying there is they're putting energy
Speaker 1: and money into developing a universal vaccine. So what's one
Speaker 1: vaccine that can adapt on the fly within the human
Speaker 1: body and fight any virus? That comes along the weakness
Speaker 1: with the mRNA vaccine. In Kennedy's view is that with
Speaker 1: every iteration of a virus like COVID, you need a
Speaker 1: new modification to the vaccine. And so he's looking for
Speaker 1: this idea of a universal vaccine, a one stop shot.
Speaker 1: Do you like that, I get it, instead of a
Speaker 1: vaccine that when a virus mutates, isn't useful anymore.
Speaker 2: Okay, that makes sense. And to go back to my
Speaker 2: earlier question, what exactly is MRNS technology?
Speaker 1: So basically, it's a type of technology where scientists create
Speaker 1: a snippet of genetic code that carries instructions for how
Speaker 1: the body can make a protein that can fight a virus.
Speaker 1: So they pick a protein to target from a virus,
Speaker 1: they inject the instruction manual into the code of the vaccine,
Speaker 1: and your body then makes enough of that protein to
Speaker 1: trigger a protection from the virus. So it basically helps
Speaker 1: your body produce its own vaccine dose. Now, the big
Speaker 1: advantage to mRNA technology is the speed at which it
Speaker 1: can be developed, and that's something we talked a lot
Speaker 1: about during the pandemic because mRNA vaccines were developed in
Speaker 1: record time and in the early stages of the pandemic.
Speaker 1: When we were talking about traditional vaccines, we were talking
Speaker 1: about years of development time needed. mRNA vaccines can potentially
Speaker 1: be created in months now. Infectious disease experts say that
Speaker 1: the technology could be crucial for responding to future pandemics,
Speaker 1: especially in current concerns around bird flow in the US
Speaker 1: where it's potentially spreading to humans. Don't tell us that,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: That you can't tell us there's another pandemic on the way.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean this has been a really interesting legacy
Speaker 1: from the pandemic is looking at pandemic preparedness, and there's
Speaker 1: a really interesting perspective for countries now of how ready
Speaker 1: is a country if another pandemic was to arrive on
Speaker 1: our doorstep.
Speaker 2: So what I'm hearing about mRNA technology is that the
Speaker 2: value of it, its prime value is how speedy it
Speaker 2: can be in responding to any new viruses that emerge.
Speaker 2: But now RFK Junior has pulled funding from it. Now,
Speaker 2: neither you or I are vaccine experts. So what have
Speaker 2: the experts said about this?
Speaker 1: It's such an in depth area of science. Let's talk
Speaker 1: about what the people who actually not going to talk
Speaker 1: about are saying. So I mean, the basic concern is
Speaker 1: that America could be caught unprepared for the next pandemic,
Speaker 1: and experts argue that the rapid development capability of the
Speaker 1: mRNA vaccines could be the difference between containing a new
Speaker 1: virus quickly or facing another health crisis. So Jerome Adams,
Speaker 1: who was the surgeon General for the bulk of Donald
Speaker 1: Trump's first term, he wrote on X this week that
Speaker 1: while he has tried to be objective and non alarmist
Speaker 1: about recent decisions made by RFK jor, quite frankly, this
Speaker 1: move is going to cost lives. And that's somebody who
Speaker 1: was appointed by a Trump administration, which I thought was
Speaker 1: really interesting. There's a leading academic expert on infectious diseases,
Speaker 1: Mike Osterholm, and he said, I don't think I've seen
Speaker 1: a more dangerous decision in public health in my fifty
Speaker 1: years in the business. Wow.
Speaker 2: And obviously, Donald Trump, the US President, is the person
Speaker 2: who appointed RFK Junior, so I imagine that he's in
Speaker 2: support of this.
Speaker 1: He is, so he gave Kennedy really significant freedoms to
Speaker 1: reshape American health policy. He's previously said he wants RFK
Speaker 1: to quote go wild on health and food policy. It's
Speaker 1: interesting with Trump because during his first presidency, Trump actually
Speaker 1: horted the development of mRNA technology. It was called Operation
Speaker 1: Warp Speed, and it was this big investment in funding
Speaker 1: to develop COVID vaccines really quickly. At the time, Trump
Speaker 1: called mRNA vaccines a medical miracle. Now, in recent years,
Speaker 1: especially after the pandemic, he has expressed increasing skepticism about vaccines,
Speaker 1: and we can, I guess, look to the fact that
Speaker 1: he has appointed RFK Junior in this position as an
Speaker 1: indication of where he stands on the issue. There's one
Speaker 1: really interesting comment I wanted to tell you about. So
Speaker 1: in the press conference this week with RFK Junior, when
Speaker 1: asked whether Trump is satisfied with his performance in the
Speaker 1: role in the first six months, RFK Junior said Trump
Speaker 1: calls him multiple times a week, always with the same question,
Speaker 1: why aren't people healthier?
Speaker 2: Yet?
Speaker 1: That was kind of cool. I mean, that's that very
Speaker 1: blunt question, one way to describe it. Very interesting. I
Speaker 1: would yeah, yeah, I can only imagine the conversation those
Speaker 1: two are having.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I want to go back to something you
Speaker 2: said earlier, because what you're sa said is that RFK
Speaker 2: Junior is not saying that we should cut vaccines all together.
Speaker 2: From what you said, you're saying that he thinks that
Speaker 2: there should be a universal vaccine. What does that look
Speaker 2: like and is that possible?
Speaker 1: Well, it's largely theoretical at this stage. That's according to
Speaker 1: scientists and experts in the field. Scientists have been trying
Speaker 1: to develop an idea of a universal vaccine, even just
Speaker 1: a universal flu vaccine, for decades and they haven't been
Speaker 1: able to be successful in that. Essentially, a universal vaccine
Speaker 1: would mimic natural immunity and it would then be effective
Speaker 1: against both coronavirus and flu, but also any other virus
Speaker 1: that we might not even know about yet, and it
Speaker 1: essentially would stimulate the body's natural immunity function. As I said,
Speaker 1: it's a promising idea, but scientists have no timeline on
Speaker 1: how this can be developed and if and when it
Speaker 1: could be available in the wider market.
Speaker 2: And if we were to bring this back to an
Speaker 2: Australian context, is there any signal from the Australian government
Speaker 2: that they will move in a similar direction at all
Speaker 2: in line with the US.
Speaker 1: No signal at all, really, I mean, there hasn't been
Speaker 1: a direct response to rfk's policy changes this week. But
Speaker 1: we can look to the investment in vaccine research and
Speaker 1: roll out as a pretty safe it's bipartisan as it's
Speaker 1: supported by everyone, it's part of our health framework, So
Speaker 1: I can pretty safely say that the government would not
Speaker 1: be looking to follow this path in Australia.
Speaker 2: It's bipartisan, I meaning it's supported by basically both sides
Speaker 2: of Parliament or all sides of Parliament.
Speaker 1: Yes, But what I did think was interesting is that
Speaker 1: there has been a number of stories that have come
Speaker 1: into the news over the last couple of months about
Speaker 1: the changing attitudes of Australians towards the flu vaccine. For example,
Speaker 1: there's been a steady decline in the percentage of adults
Speaker 1: in Australia who are getting the flu vaccine, and hospital
Speaker 1: admissions from flu have spiked this year by up to
Speaker 1: fifty percent in some states. And at twenty twenty four
Speaker 1: survey published in the Media Journal of Australia found that
Speaker 1: about one in five said they would not get a
Speaker 1: government offered vaccine in a future public health emergency, while
Speaker 1: another seventeen percent said they were uncertain whether they would
Speaker 1: or wouldn't. So we can kind of say that about
Speaker 1: forty percent of Australians are either hesitant or outright against
Speaker 1: a government offered vaccine.
Speaker 2: It would be interesting to know what those stats were
Speaker 2: prior to the pandemic and to kind of look at
Speaker 2: how it's changed since. But I think from everything that
Speaker 2: you've said, it's clear that they kind of are seemingly
Speaker 2: changing attitudes about.
Speaker 1: Vaccinations definitely, and there's a clear delineation from pre pandemic
Speaker 1: attitudes to post pandemic attitudes, particularly in children. And that
Speaker 1: was something that our Health Minister Mark Butler touched on
Speaker 1: in June when he got up and released a new
Speaker 1: national immunization strategy.
Speaker 2: Do you mean children getting vaccinations or the attitudes of children?
Speaker 1: No, so I don't the type of age of children
Speaker 1: we're talking about here probably don't have vaccine attitudes just
Speaker 1: yet at six months to three, right, But the attitude
Speaker 1: of their parents to be getting children vaccinated has changed
Speaker 1: and it's kind of going down about one or two
Speaker 1: percent a year. So Mark Butler got up in June
Speaker 1: and released this new national strategy, and part of that
Speaker 1: strategy was a direct opposition to another move that RFK did.
Speaker 1: RFK had announced a couple of weeks before that that
Speaker 1: America would withdraw its funding for GAVY, which is the
Speaker 1: Global Vaccine Alliance in Mark Butler's strategy. He announced a
Speaker 1: three hundred and eighty six million boost in funding to
Speaker 1: that body between twenty twenty six and twenty thirty. One
Speaker 1: interesting angle that we can talk about in terms of
Speaker 1: the effect of rfk's decision this week is actually the
Speaker 1: opportunities it presents in terms of Australia's capabilities to make
Speaker 1: and even one day export mRNA vaccines. So CSL and
Speaker 1: Maderna they're the two biggest producers of mRNA vaccines in Australia.
Speaker 1: They've got large vaccination facilities now in the country. Experts
Speaker 1: say that Australia wouldn't be quite prepared today if there
Speaker 1: was another pandemic to roll out rapidly and universally a
Speaker 1: vaccine program. So we're not quite at the stage where
Speaker 1: we would look at exporting it to other countries. But
Speaker 1: if you think about how much America produces in this space,
Speaker 1: if that was all cut, there would be some openings
Speaker 1: in the global export landscape, which is a quirky way
Speaker 1: to look at it, but an interesting to take.
Speaker 2: So interesting such a topical story at the moment, Sam,
Speaker 2: thank you for explaining it to us. Thanks Billy, and
Speaker 2: thank you so much for listening to this episode of
Speaker 2: The Daily os. We'll be back this afternoon with your
Speaker 2: evening headlines, but until then, have a great day. My
Speaker 2: name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda Bungelung
Speaker 2: Caalcuttin woman from Gadigol Country. The Daily oz acknowledges that
Speaker 2: this podcast is recorded on the lands of the Gadighl
Speaker 2: people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Speaker 2: Island and nations. We pay our respects to the first
Speaker 2: people of these countries, both past and present.