What’s the evidence for vaccines?

BBC Inside Science

BBC

Technology, Science

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 4 September 2025

⏱️ 29 minutes

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Summary

US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr announced plans this week to cancel $500 million dollars of funding for mRNA vaccine development. The research was focusing on trying to counter viruses that cause diseases such as the flu and Covid-19.

Marnie Chesterton is joined by Professor Anne Willis, Director of the MRC Toxicology Unit at the University of Cambridge, to explore the claims made by The US Department of Health and Human Services that the technology “poses more risks than benefits”, and to look at the evidence behind the vaccines.

We also visit the most powerful computer the UK has ever seen at the University of Bristol, and explore how the Isambard-AI supercomputer is being used to carry out groundbreaking new research.

After last week’s call for our listeners to pay homage to the satirical songwriter and mathematician Tom Lehrer, who died at the age of 97, we hear a range of your brilliant musical tributes.

And Marnie is joined by journalist Caroline Steel to explore the week’s fascinating scientific discoveries.

Presenter: Marnie Chesterton Producers: Clare Salisbury, Dan Welsh, Jonathan Blackwell Editor: Martin Smith Production Co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Rory Stewart and I grew up wanting to be a hero and I'm still fascinated by the ideas of heroism.
0:09.0	In my new series, I'm taking in the long sweep of history from Achilles to Zelensky and asking, what is a hero?
0:16.0	Simply doing your job, being a decent human being.
0:20.0	A true hero is someone who just kind of shines by
0:23.1	their own light and that light is to be recognised by others. The long history of heroism
0:27.8	with me, Rory Stewart. Listen on BBC Sounds. BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. This is the podcast of BBC Inside Science first broadcast on the 7th of August 2025.
0:43.3	Hello, US Health Secretary Kennedy pulls half a billion dollars in mRNA vaccine research.
0:50.2	Why? And what will the fallout be for scientists and society? Also, we meet the most powerful
0:57.1	computer in the UK to see what it's up to. Plus, we asked, you really delivered, stay tuned for
1:03.5	a Tom Leera-inspired Elements Fest. And broadcaster Caroline Steele joins me in the studio to talk
1:09.9	through the most distractingly sexy breaking science stories of the week.
1:13.7	Caroline, what are you talking about?
1:15.4	So I've got astronomers using satellites to chase a mystery object, what really killed Napoleon's army, and divorcing birds.
1:25.2	Okay, looking forward to that, but let's start with the money.
1:29.3	Half a billion dollars of it.
1:31.6	That's how much the US Department of Health and Human Services declared this week
1:35.6	that they were cancelling from MRNA vaccine development.
1:40.2	You probably best know MRNA from the Pfizer-COVID-19 vaccine.
1:45.4	It's a new technology and it won the Nobel Prize in 2023.
1:50.2	In short, MRNA delivers genetic instructions into your cells
1:54.4	and then your body does the work of producing a harmless copy of the pathogen
1:58.8	and the antibodies to fight it.
	...

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