RFK Jr. Cites Three False COVID Vaccine Claims to Justify Canceling mRNA Vaccine Funding
What happened: Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. advanced three false claims about COVID-19 vaccines to explain his cancellation of $500 million in government-funded mRNA vaccine projects, NewsGuard found.
Context: In an Aug. 5 X video, Kennedy announced that he was cancelling federal funding for development of new flu and COVID mRNA vaccines. This type of vaccine, which in 2021 was the first COVID-19 vaccine to be approved, carries instructions to the body’s cells to make a piece of a virus, rather than relying on weakened or dead viruses grown in a lab to build immunity.
As one of his justifications for the funding cut, Kennedy said that mRNA vaccines were responsible for mutations of the COVID virus, thus creating new variants that more easily infect vaccinated people.
- The vaccine, he said, “paradoxically encourages new mutations and can actually prolong pandemics as the virus constantly mutates to escape the protective effects of the vaccine.”
Actually: Vaccine experts say there is no evidence that COVID vaccines caused the COVID virus to mutate more quickly.
- University of Surrey immunology professor Deborah Dunn-Walters told the U.K. Science Media Centre on Aug. 6, “Mutation is a natural process that occurs with these viruses, and the use of any vaccine does not impact it.”
Kennedy pushed the same false claim in a Jan. 4, 2023, X post that linked to an article from his anti-vaccine nonprofit Children’s Health Defense and generated 180,000 views. His more recent video had 7 million views on X in less than 48 hours.
Kennedy’s video also included two broader — and previously debunked — claims about vaccines’ effectiveness.
- He stated that mRNA vaccines “don’t perform well against viruses that infect the upper respiratory tract,” which would include the COVID virus. He also said that “mRNA technology poses more risks than benefits” for viruses such as the flu or COVID.
Actually: Both claims are false.
- U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one of the agencies overseen by Kennedy, states on a webpage last updated in June 2025, “The COVID-19 vaccine helps protect you from severe illness, hospitalization, and death” from COVID, which is a respiratory infection.
- Dunn-Walters, the University of Surrey immunology professor, said to the U.K. Science Media Centre that, “the benefits [of COVID vaccines] by far outweigh the risks in the people for whom the vaccines are recommended.” This is supported by an abundance of scientific evidence, such as an April 2025 Nature study that said that COVID vaccines were 68 percent effective against hospitalization from COVID between September and November 2024.
HHS press secretary Emily Hilliard did not address NewsGuard’s questions about this apparently countervailing evidence. Instead, her Aug. 7 email referred NewsGuard to a list of hundreds of studies posted on the scientific research platform Zenodo purportedly showing the harms of COVID vaccines. The list originated from the anti-vaccine book “Toxic Shot,” which promotes multiple false claims about COVID vaccines, including that they caused widespread death and infertility.
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