Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has achieved what many thought impossible: convincing the federal government that medical technology from 1796 represents the pinnacle of 21st-century innovation, while simultaneously treating vaccines that saved millions of lives during the pandemic like they were designed by witches.
Kennedy's master plan involves eliminating $500 million in funding for mRNA vaccine research - the same technology that helped end the COVID-19 pandemic in record time - and redirecting those funds toward whole-virus vaccines, a medical approach so cutting-edge it was first used when George Washington was president and people still believed disease was caused by "bad air."
"We're going back to basics," Kennedy announced while dramatically gesturing at a medical textbook from the 1800s. "Why use fancy modern science when we can use the same vaccine technology that was available when people traveled by horse and died from paper cuts?"
The policy shift is based on Kennedy's careful analysis of a 750-page document titled "COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine Harms Research Collection," which sounds very scientific until you discover that most of the studies cited are actually about the harms of getting COVID-19 itself, not the vaccines. This is roughly equivalent to blaming umbrellas for causing rain because people holding umbrellas are often seen during storms.
Trump has demanded that pharmaceutical companies prove mRNA vaccines work, apparently having missed the part where they already did that by preventing millions of hospitalizations and deaths during the world's worst pandemic in a century. This is like asking someone to prove that seatbelts work while standing next to a pile of crash test data showing they save thousands of lives annually.
Scientists are baffled by Kennedy's claim that mRNA vaccines are more dangerous than whole-virus vaccines, given that mRNA vaccines produce a tiny, controlled amount of spike protein to train the immune system, while actual COVID-19 infection produces massive amounts of the same protein along with the bonus features of potential death and organ damage.
"It's brilliant," explained fictional medical expert Dr. Backwards McRegression. "Instead of using vaccines that can be updated in months to fight new variants, we're switching to technology that takes years to develop and is less effective. It's like replacing Formula 1 race cars with horse-drawn carriages because horses are more 'natural.'"
Kennedy has particularly targeted the rare side effect of myocarditis from mRNA vaccines, which occurs in about 20 cases per million doses, while conveniently ignoring that unvaccinated people have an eleven-fold higher risk of myocarditis from COVID-19 infection. This is equivalent to banning swimming pools because of the risk of drowning while recommending people swim in shark-infested waters instead.
The new "Generation Gold Standard" vaccine program promises to deliver universal protection using technology from when people thought illness was caused by an imbalance of bodily humors. The irony of calling 200-year-old medical technology a "gold standard" has apparently been lost on everyone involved in the decision.
"We're pioneering breakthrough research into vaccines that were already invented before electricity," Kennedy declared while standing next to a time machine disguised as a podium. "Why settle for vaccines that can be developed in months when we can wait years for inferior protection?"
The policy has scientists scrambling to explain that mRNA vaccines don't cause viral mutations - viruses mutate naturally during replication, and vaccines actually reduce mutation rates by preventing viral replication. But Kennedy remains unmoved by this "fancy book learning" and continues to champion medical approaches from an era when the most advanced diagnostic tool was looking at someone's tongue.
The scientific community is now preparing for Kennedy's next brilliant innovation: replacing antibiotics with bloodletting and treating cancer with positive thoughts and essential oils.