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Moderna co-founder Noubar Afeyan issues warning: Assault on science 'isn't going to stop at mRNA'
"BOSTON — Over the last year, venture capitalist Noubar Afeyan has watched his signature creation, Moderna Therapeutics, go from perhaps the world’s most celebrated company, hailed for helping ease a once-in-a-century pandemic, to a target of government officials promoting falsehoods about mRNA technology.
Those attacks, Afeyan warned Thursday, would not end with Moderna or mRNA vaccines. They are a canary in the coal mine for a larger assault on science and expertise, he said.
“I think the notion that people can play with science, scientific fact, and essentially say opinions could be replaced for facts, or facts should be taken for opinions … isn’t going to stop at mRNA, isn’t going to stop with vaccines, childhood vaccines,” Afeyan said at the STAT Summit in Boston. “It’s going to go to every medicine.”
Afeyan has had a front row seat to the disruptions inflicted by the Trump administration and health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on the science world. He still chairs Moderna, the company he co-founded in 2010.
Those attacks, Afeyan warned Thursday, would not end with Moderna or mRNA vaccines. They are a canary in the coal mine for a larger assault on science and expertise, he said.
“I think the notion that people can play with science, scientific fact, and essentially say opinions could be replaced for facts, or facts should be taken for opinions … isn’t going to stop at mRNA, isn’t going to stop with vaccines, childhood vaccines,” Afeyan said at the STAT Summit in Boston. “It’s going to go to every medicine.”
Afeyan has had a front row seat to the disruptions inflicted by the Trump administration and health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on the science world. He still chairs Moderna, the company he co-founded in 2010.
https://www.statnews.com/2025/10/20/moderna-founder-noubar-afeyan-science-attacks-go-beyond-vaccines/