New report sounds alarm on health fallout from mRNA vaccine funding cuts

A new report from the Yale School of Public Health (YSPH) warns that the U.S. government’s abrupt cancellation of funding for mRNA vaccine research could have devastating health and economic consequences for the nation.

The report—produced by the YSPH Center for Infectious Disease Modeling and Analysis (CIDMA)—estimates that mRNA vaccines could avert over $75 billion in economic costs annually. Those projected losses reflect reduced survival rates for patients with some of the most lethal cancers, increased disease burden, and foregone therapeutic advances for these diseases.

Beyond the financial toll, the researchers found that withdrawing support for rapidly advancing mRNA vaccine technology could result in over 49,000 preventable deaths annually among patients diagnosed with four major cancers: pancreatic cancer, renal cell carcinoma, non-small cell lung cancer, and metastatic melanoma. All four cancers are the focus of cutting-edge mRNA vaccine and immunotherapy trials that have shown promising early results.

“mRNA vaccine platforms represent an extraordinary convergence of clinical promise and societal value. Our results show that sustained investment could dramatically reduce cancer mortality and avert medical costs,” said Alison Galvani, director of CIDMA and the Burnett and Stender Families Professor of Epidemiology at YSPH.

CIDMA researchers generated the report at the request of U.S. Senator Maggie Hassan (D-New Hampshire) after the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced on Aug. 5 that it was terminating 22 contracts supporting mRNA vaccine research and development.

“The mRNA vaccine platform is one of the most powerful new medical technologies to be discovered and used in the last decade,” Hassan wrote in her letter to CIDMA. She asked CIDMA to assess the human and economic consequences of allowing the promising new technology to stall just as it was approaching transformative clinical milestones in cancer prevention and treatment.

For the report, CIDMA researchers reviewed clinical trial outcomes, cancer epidemiology, and federal valuation metrics to model the health and economic impact of discontinuing mRNA research investment.

“Our analysis shows that mRNA cancer vaccines have the potential to save tens of thousands of lives and generate enormous economic value in the United States,” Galvani said. “Abandoning this technology risks forfeiting one of the most promising advances in cancer treatment in decades.”