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WBUR Podcasts, Boston.

What you're finding is that we now have cut all the research on an H5N1 or bird flu vaccine,

and so should bird flu become a pandemic, will be less prepared.

Vaccine research meets RFK Jr.'s 500 million dollar buzzsaw.

It's Wednesday, August 6th, and this is here and now anytime from NPR and WBOR.

I'm Chris Bentley.

Today on the show, AI airline ticket prices.

I know, I know.

Please stop throwing tomatoes at your podcast player.

Also, Microsoft has engineers in China maintaining data for the U.S. government.

Some cybersecurity experts say the arrangement is an invitation to espionage.

You know, if the situation was reversed, the CIA would be taking advantage of this kind of thing.

That's coming up in about 10 minutes.

But first, MRI vaccines saved untold numbers of lives during the COVID-19 pandemic and earned a Nobel

prize for the scientists who helped develop them. But Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is no fan. Before he was

the U.S. Secretary of Health, he said in a tweet that MRNA vaccines don't work at all,

which is not true.

Now, he's canceling nearly $500 million in government funding to develop new vaccines against respiratory viruses like COVID and the flu.

To replace the troubled RNA programs, we're prioritizing the development of safer, broader vaccine strategies,

...