After a series of confusing choices made by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Department of Health and Human Services regarding mRNA vaccines, former supporters are starting to voice their concerns.
In an open letter addressed to Kennedy and President Donald Trump, prominent figures including Tucker Carlson, former Republican Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, and over 100 other journalists, activists, doctors, and nurses conveyed their growing dissatisfaction with the alliance formed between the Make America Great Again (MAGA) and Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movements, which are key to winning the 2024 presidential election. Messenger RNA (mRNA) forms the basis for the COVID-19 vaccines produced by Pfizer and Moderna.
This letter clearly indicates that the support from MAHA grassroots towards the Trump administration has weakened — it seems to be the result of months of hushed discontent and questions about whether Kennedy is truly in control of his health department. Notable critics, like Robert Malone and Bret Weinstein, who challenged the COVID-19 pandemic approach under the Biden administration, also added their names to the signatories.
“Millions of concerned citizens set aside partisan differences and identities to support the historic MAGA/MAHA alliance,” the letter states. “Instead of decisive policy actions on these core issues, we see distractions, linguistic misdirections, and watered-down announcements that avoid serious action on the deadly mRNA injections.”
The correspondence directly counters claims made by some senior administration officials who suggest that focusing on nutritional concerns would be a more effective strategy for the midterm elections.
“We did not fight to place you in positions of leadership so that our clearly stated policy goals would suffer a ‘bait and switch’ that rebranded the grassroots powerful objection to the damaging mRNA platform as a concern about coloring agents in Skittles,” the letter asserts.
In a poll obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation, but not publicly released in full, Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio discovered that a bipartisan majority of voters, 90%, do not trust the pharmaceutical industry, with 73% expressing worries about vaccine mandates.
The open letter was organized by Mary Talley Bowden, president of Americans for Health Freedom and an ENT doctor who faced backlash from her employer and the Texas Medical Board after making critical comments about the COVID vaccine and for prescribing ivermectin upon a patient’s family request — which led to a lengthy legal struggle.
The letter outlines multiple recent approvals and contracts related to mRNA that have alarmed critics of the COVID vaccine:
- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 9.7% of children received a COVID vaccine this year, with 9.2% of that group not classified as being at high risk for complications from COVID, thus not eligible for booster shots based on FDA rules established under former commissioner Marty Makary, who resigned in May. An FDA evaluation before his resignation found that about 10 children’s deaths might be linked to the COVID vaccine, though this figure was later revised down by FDA staff, a move criticized by a forensic pathologist who investigated two of the cases.
- In August, the FDA authorized Moderna’s mRNA flu vaccine through “accelerated approval,” a route for drugs targeting diseases with limited treatment options, contingent on further testing in seniors. Just six months prior, in February, the FDA had considered the data insufficient, promptly returning the application to Moderna. The flu shot approved was not meant for seniors, who are targeted for a higher dose by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and it reportedly causes side effects at double the rate of the conventional flu vaccine.
- A newly established indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract with Pfizer permits HHS to procure up to $1.24 billion worth of mRNA vaccines for adults and children.
- The extension of the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act declaration until December 31, 2029, which grants immunity to COVID vaccine manufacturers from legal liability.
“As influential leaders within the MAHA and health freedom movements, we are writing to object to policies under your oversight related to the mRNA platform, and to call you to act on our policy goals,” states the letter.
