The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced on Tuesday that it will cancel $500 million worth of projects dedicated to designing messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines for pandemic preparedness.

The move drew sharp criticism from medical and health experts. “Scrapping the fastest platform we have is a reckless move rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of vaccinology,” wrote Jake Scott, an infectious diseases specialist and clinical associate professor of medicine at Stanford University, on the social media site Bluesky .

The use of mRNA in vaccines has opened new doors beyond infectious disease . Researchers are investigating promising mRNA vaccines for pancreatic cancer , which currently has a five-year survival rate of just 13 percent. They’re also studying mRNA trea

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