State legislative efforts to label and ban mRNA vaccines

In the years following the COVID-19 pandemic, states across the country have taken legislative action to roll back mRNA vaccine access, and to otherwise stigmatize mRNA vaccines. Perhaps the most obvious example of mRNA vaccine stigmatization at the state level is efforts to ban mRNA vaccines from being administered in certain states.

Legislators in states like Montana, Idaho, and Iowa (among others) have recently introduced legislation attempting to ban mRNA vaccination. Montana’s HB371 (Reference Montero, Sparks, Montalvo, Kirzinger and Hamel2025), for example, proposed both fining providers who administer any “gene-based” vaccines (up to $500 per vaccine) and potentially revoking their medical licenses. While the proposed legislation was amended to include language exempting “gene therapy” for cancer, the bill included language broadly stigmatizing vaccines using mRNA technology. For example, the bill falsely claimed that “mRNA vaccines may integrate into the human genome,” and that “mRNA vaccines are contaminated with DNA, metallic particles, and other unknown nanoparticles.”

Montana’s bill failed to become law, as it was defeated by a 34–64 margin in the Montana House on a procedural vote. But, it did advance out of committee, which is one of the critical first steps in the legislative process. Moreover, bills that fail to become law can have important health policy consequences by serving as templates for legislators to consider in other state contexts and/or in future legislative cycles (Garlick, Reference Garlick2023). Potentially demonstrative of this dynamic, a similar bill advanced out of committee in the Iowa state legislature shortly after Montana introduced this legislation (Read, Reference Read2025).

It is also important to note that these legislative actions do not pertain exclusively to COVID-19 vaccines. For example, S1036 introduced in Idaho suggested placing a decade-long moratorium on all “gene therapy” products (which was defined to be inclusive of, but not limited to, mRNA vaccines), in order to further study their safety and efficacy (Stevenson, Reference Stevenson2025).

State efforts to stigmatize mRNA vaccination are also not limited to efforts to roll back vaccine access. For example, lawmakers in Texas (SB 2632) (2025) introduced legislation—similar to legislation introduced in Tennessee in 2023 (Tennessee Farm Bureau Federation., 2023 )—that would require food producers to label products from animals that have received mRNA vaccines. The bill’s text cited “growing concern that meat products for human consumption may come from livestock that have been injected with mRNA technology,” and noted that the purpose of the proposed legislation was to “give consumers the ability to make informed purchasing decisions.”

Although SB 2632 bill does not expressly prohibit mRNA vaccination, it stigmatizes vaccination as a potential public concern. If enacted, this legislation would allow consumers to refuse to purchase pork products that have received SEQUVITY; an mRNA-based vaccine designed to prevent infection from influenza, rotavirus, and porcine circovirus (PCV).

Similarly, some states—like Wyoming’s HB115 (2024) and Illinois’ HB1105 (2025)—have made an effort to require blood donated from people who received the COVID-19 vaccine to be labeled as mRNA vaccinated. The goal of this legislation is not necessarily to fully eliminate blood donation from mRNA-vaccinated people, given that nearly 8 in 10 US adults have ever received at least one COVID-19 vaccine (Sparks et al., Reference Sparks, Kirzinger, Kearney, Valdes and Hamel2025). If enacted, though, this legislation would present blood donated by people who received mRNA vaccines as being somehow different from that of those who have not. If those in need of blood transfusions come to view mRNA-vaccinated blood as somehow inferior to other forms of blood donation—even though there is no scientific evidence to suggest that mRNA vaccines in any way alter recipients’ DNA, and that mRNA particles tend to dissipate quickly after injection—people may nevertheless choose to forego lifesaving treatment on the basis of mRNA vaccine stigma (Ogata et al., Reference Ogata, Cheng, Desjardins, Senussi, Sherman, Powell, Novack, von, Li, Baden and Walt2022; Zizic, Reference Zizic2021 ).

Strikingly, these bills all share something very important in common. They were all introduced by Republican state legislators. This stark asymmetry in the partisan affiliation of bills aimed at stigmatizing mRNA vaccines is mirrored in the actions that federal lawmakers have taken as well, as detailed in the examples that follow.

Federal efforts to limit mRNA vaccine research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH)

Beyond state legislative actions to roll back mRNA vaccine access, the federal government has taken several actions in recent months to stigmatize mRNA vaccine technology. For example, in Spring 2025, mRNA vaccine researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) began to report that grant applications had been “flagged” by administrators at the agency as containing terminology referencing mRNA vaccines (Allen, Reference Allen2025). This reporting coincided with related stories suggesting that NIH employees compile lists of all mRNA vaccine-related awards (both pending and funded; Kozlov & Mallapaty, Reference Kozlov and Mallapaty2025).

Flagging awards as having an mRNA focus served as an ominous precursor for terminating existing grants or dismissing pending applications. Even staffers within the NIH recognized this possibility at the time. As one anonymous staffer put it, in a report to National Public Radio: “NIH staff internally are very worried that the mRNA grants will follow the outcome of the vaccine hesitancy grants and be terminated” (Stein & Stone, Reference Stein and Stone2025). Indeed, by late Summer 2025, HHS announced that it was cancelling mRNA vaccine research contracts totaling over $500 million, awarded through the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) (Nature, 2025).

mRNA-related research grant cancellations and efforts to de-prioritize funding applications that reference mRNA vaccine technology (Bhattacharya, Reference Bhattacharya2025) could have a “chilling effect” that stifles future innovation in this area. In other words, if researchers feel as if the opportunity costs of submitting mRNA funding applications are not worth the possibility of having their work either terminated or not considered for funding, they may feel as if they are forced to choose to temporarily suspend or fully abandon that research.

Lost research opportunities do not only impact researchers’ personal and professional lives. Stifling mRNA research could impact our ability to develop new vaccine technologies capable of combating endemic and emerging infectious disease threats, including Lyme disease, norovirus, pandemic influenza, RSV, and more.

Federal efforts to require COVID-19 vaccine placebo testing and other threats to mRNA vaccine access

Efforts to stigmatize mRNA vaccination have also extended to the vaccine approval process. In late Spring 2025, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told reporters at the Washington Post that “all new vaccines” would be subjected to “placebo-controlled trials prior to licensure” (Halpert, Reference Halpert2025).

Kennedy’s comments initially created confusion. Although Kennedy labeled the move as a “radical departure from past practices,” the Food and Drug Administration (FDA, which is a subagency of HHS) already requires all new vaccines to undergo placebo testing as part of the clinical trial process.

Shortly after Kennedy proposed this new standard, an HHS spokesperson clarified Kennedy’s comments. The spokesperson noted that new versions of existing vaccines, such as annually adjusted booster shots for COVID-19, would be subjected to enhanced scrutiny (Tirrell, Reference Tirrell2025). This policy represents a departure from typical regulatory standards. In the past, regulators have not required the seasonally adjusted flu vaccine to redemonstrate its safety and effectiveness in placebo controlled studies, due to both logistical considerations (e.g., the possibility that a vaccine may be outdated by the time intensive trials are completed), and ethical considerations (e.g., denying people access to a vaccine that is already known to be safe and effective) (Rosenbluth, Reference Rosenbluth2025).

Kennedy’s proposal establishes a new procedural hurdle in the approval process for updated vaccines. Like the seasonal flu vaccine, the COVID-19 vaccine has been deemed safe and effective in rigorous placebo-controlled clinical trials (Baden et al., Reference Baden, El Sahly, Essink, Kotloff, Frey, Novak and Zaks2021; Polack et al., Reference Polack, Thomas, Kitchin, Absalon, Gurtman, Lockhart and Gruber2020). Nevertheless, Trump administration officials Vinay Prasad and Martin Makary published an opinion piece at the New England Journal of Medicine questioning both the safety and protective benefits of annual vaccines for healthy adults at low risk of severe COVID-19 complications (Prasad & Makary, Reference Prasad and Makary2025). Echoing their language, an HHS spokesperson defending Kennedy’s proposal claimed that “COVID vaccines, including new ones by Pfizer and Moderna, are new and must have more gold standard science to ensure safety and efficacy for the public.”

Interestingly, the administration was careful to exempt annual flu vaccination from this order. As the same HHS spokesperson put it (and again echoing the sentiments expressed in Prasad & Makary’s commentary), flu vaccine booster shots have been “tried and tested” for several decades, and therefore ought to be exempted from enhanced scrutiny. Although the Trump administration did not directly single out all forms of mRNA vaccination in its decision to require new forms of placebo testing for COVID-19 vaccines, the decision to reference Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccines by name in prepared HHS remarks about the controversial order—and to draw a distinction between boosters for seasonal flu versus COVID-19—may be indicative of elevated discomfort with mRNA-based vaccine technology.

Ultimately, the decision to employ placebo testing could have negative public health consequences. If non-at-risk adult populations who want to receive COVID-19 vaccines are unable to get them (Erman, Reference Erman2025), access restrictions could thereby allow the virus to spread throughout the population.

Despite issuing this order, the administration promised that those at risk of severe complications from COVID-19 could continue to receive booster shots. That promise, however, may now be in jeopardy, as COVID-19 vaccine access could be complicated by Kennedy’s unprecedented decision to fire every single sitting member of the American Council on Immunization Practices (ACIP) due to alleged conflicts of interest (Bendix et al., Reference Bendix, Zadronzy and Edwards2025).

ACIP’s recommendations not only guide clinical vaccine administration practices, but determine which vaccines are covered through insurance. Replacing ACIP’s members with people like former mRNA vaccine research Dr. Robert Malone, who notably (and falsely) claimed that mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines could cause people to develop an “AIDS-like virus,” could further encumber vaccine access for those who need it most if the Council decides to place restrictions on COVID vaccine recommendations (Bendix et al., Reference Bendix, Zadronzy and Defrank2025; Stobbe, Reference Stobbe2025).

How mRNA stigmatizing policy action may “spill over” to public opinion

Political elites’ efforts to stigmatize mRNA vaccination stand not only to decrease vaccine research and access but could change the way that the public thinks about mRNA vaccine safety. Social scientific theories of opinion formation suggest that the public takes cues from political elites to figure out where they fall on a wide range of issues (Zaller, Reference Zaller1992), including issues related to their health (Gollust, Reference Gollust, Morone and Ehlke2025). Elite influence over public opinion is made possible by the growing centrality of partisan identity (i.e., whether people consider themselves to be Democrats or Republicans) in how they conceptualize their sense of self, how they navigate their social worlds (e.g., where they live, who they spend time with; Mason, Reference Mason2018), and decisions they make about a wide range of topics that are not expressly political in nature (Iyengar et al., Reference Iyengar, Lelkes, Levendusky, Malhotra and Westwood2019; Martin & Webster, Reference Martin and Webster2020), including on matters related to their health (Fox et al., Reference Fox, Choi and Feng2022; Pacheco et al., Reference Pacheco, Gollust, Callaghan and Motta2024). Shared partisan identity thereby provides people with an incentive to be comparatively more receptive to messaging from elites who share their partisan identity (Bolsen et al., Reference Bolsen, Druckman and Cook2014; Druckman & Bolsen, Reference Druckman and Bolsen2011; Leeper & Slothuus, Reference Leeper and Slothuus2014).

Thus, mRNA vaccine stigmatizing messaging could politicize public mRNA vaccine attitudes. Partisans, in other words, could come to hold different views about mRNA vaccine safety and efficacy in response to elite messaging, as has been demonstrated in many other vaccination contexts (Callaghan et al., Reference Callaghan, Moghtaderi, Lueck, Hotez, Strych, Dor, Fowler and Motta2021; Gadarian et al., Reference Gadarian, Goodman and Pepinsky2021; Motta, Reference Motta2023), including both adult elective vaccines like seasonal flu, childhood vaccines like MMR, vaccines in development for cancer (Motta, Reference Motta2024) and Lyme disease (Lunz Trujillo et al., Reference Lunz Trujillo, Green, Safarpour, Lazer, Lin and Motta2024), and even vaccines for our pets (Haeder, Reference Haeder2023; Motta et al., Reference Motta, Motta and Stecula2023).

Public mRNA vaccine stigmatization could have disastrous public health consequences, as negative attitudes toward vaccination have been shown to be powerful predictors of vaccine refusal (Brewer, Reference Brewer2021; Brewer et al., Reference Brewer, Chapman, Rothman, Leask and Kempe2017). Negative views toward the technology may also create public demand for policies limiting mRNA vaccine access (like those described above), thereby providing policymakers with an incentive to continue to take aim at mRNA vaccines (Callaghan & Motta, Reference Callaghan and Motta2025). Correspondingly, elite efforts to stigmatize mRNA vaccination could ultimately undermine vaccine uptake if the public comes to share their views.

The good news, from a public health perspective, is that elite actions to take aim at mRNA vaccination have not yet “spilled over” to shape public opinion. A Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) poll published in May 2025, following many of the elite-level actions reviewed in this perspective, found that only 16% of Americans view mRNA vaccination as “generally unsafe” (Montero et al., Reference Montero, Sparks, Montalvo, Kirzinger and Hamel2025). Most simply have no opinion about the technology, with 32% viewing it as “generally safe” and the remaining 52% expressing no opinion about the subject.

Likewise, while a large minority (45%) of Americans have heard about the rumor that mRNA vaccination can change one’s own genetic code—a piece of misinformation referenced in many of the state legislative efforts to stigmatize mRNA vaccination discussed above—few (approximately 3%) accept that misinformation as “definitely true.” However, a minority view the statement as “definitely false” (24%), with most again expressing uncertainty (71%).

Moreover, conjoint experimental research carried out both in the US (e.g., Motta, Reference Motta2021) and cross-nationally (e.g., Stöckli et al., Reference Stöckli, Spälti, Phillips, Stoeckel, Barnfield, Thompson, Lyons, Mérola, Szewach and Reifler2022; Thompson et al., Reference Thompson, Stöckli, Spälti, Phillips, Stoeckel, Barnfield, Lyons, Mérola, Szewach and Reifler2023) prior to the widespread availability of mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines has explored whether differences in vaccine platforms influence vaccine uptake intentions. Extant work typically finds that vaccine platform has little impact on uptake intentions, thereby raising the possibility that the public does not draw a distinction between mRNA versus more conventional vaccine platforms. However, whether or not the public has come to hold differing views toward mRNA vaccines as public familiarity with the platform increased remains an open question.

Of course, the fact that mRNA vaccines are not yet stigmatized in public consciousness does not mean that this will always be the case. Increased attention to mRNA technology resulting from the Trump administration’s efforts to cancel mRNA vaccine research grants and change federal COVID-19 vaccination guidelines could cause more Americans to formulate negative opinions about mRNA vaccines. Presently, uncertainty about mRNA vaccine safety implies that elite efforts to stigmatize the technology have not yet spilled over to shape public opinion.

Yet, there are concerning signs that the technology is about to become polarized along partisan lines. The same KFF poll finds a 37-percentage-point gap between the number of Democrats (52%) and Republicans (15%) who view mRNA vaccination as safe. It also documents over a 30-percentage-point gap between Democrats (43%) and Republicans (12%) who accept mRNA vaccine misinformation as true.

For now, it remains to be seen whether elite efforts to stigmatize mRNA vaccination will erode public confidence in the technology. The possibility that it might, though, could have devastating public health consequences.

The path forward: Directions for future research about mRNA vaccine stigmatization

Political and life science researchers have a critically important role to play in monitoring mRNA vaccine stigmatization and its potential public health consequences. For example, regular surveillance of public opinion (e.g., survey research, content analyses of social media, etc.) about mRNA vaccine technology—coupled with efforts to track elite actions aimed at stigmatizing mRNA vaccination (e.g., tracking state legislative bill introductions, elite rhetoric, etc.)—can help researchers better understand how political elites’ efforts to stigmatize mRNA vaccination might be “spilling over” to shape public vaccine demand.

Moreover, answering even basic questions about whether (and to what degree) the public draws meaningful distinctions between different types of vaccine platforms remains fruitful grounds for future research. Scholars might consider, for example, replicating the conjoint experimental studies referenced in the previous section to assess changes in mRNA public vaccine sentiment and/or behavioral intentions in a context where increasingly more Americans are becoming familiar with the technology.

Relatedly, assessing public demand for mRNA versus other vaccine platforms in survey research poses an important measurement question. While vaccination intentions tend to be correlated with actual behavior (Brewer et al., Reference Brewer, Chapman, Gibbons, Gerrard, McCaul and Weinstein2007), measuring public vaccine opinions can be biased by inaccurate recall, incomplete information, and/or social desirability pressures (e.g., see, Daoust et al., Reference Daoust, Nadeau, Dassonneville, Lachapelle, Bélanger, Savoie and Van der Linden2021). Public opinion researchers therefore ought to explore how differences in (a) the provision of information about different vaccine platforms (which may be unfamiliar to some) and (b) how questions about mRNA vaccines are worded and constructed might impact measurement. Accurately measuring public mRNA vaccine attitudes and behaviors will be essential for determining whether or not the public holds meaningfully different opinions about mRNA versus more familiar vaccine platforms, and the degree to which views toward mRNA vaccines may become stigmatized in response to elite rhetoric.

These data can help researchers better anticipate how vaccine refusal may increase infectious disease burdens (e.g., the spread of COVID-19 and other diseases potentially preventable through mRNA vaccination) and to forecast demand for vaccines currently in development. However, these data may be difficult to collect in a funding environment where federal funding agencies at the NIH and NSF have deprioritized and outright cancelled research pertaining to vaccine hesitancy. Correspondingly, private foundations and other non-government entities may consider making an effort to bridge this growing funding gap.

Similarly, the political dynamics highlighted throughout this perspective should serve as a call for additional vaccine promotion research, across the social and biomedical sciences. For example, political and health researchers can (and should) make an effort to debunk false information about mRNA vaccine technology that may facilitate vaccine refusal, such as the above-referenced claim that COVID-19 vaccines can alter one’s DNA or the false claim that they promote sterility and infertility (Abbasi, Reference Abbasi2022; Chen et al., Reference Chen, Zhu, Dai, Hao, Luan, Guo, Meng and Zhang2021; Smith & Gorski, Reference Smith and Gorski2024). They may also consider formulating and pilot testing “pre-bunking” campaigns that aim to inoculate the public against false claims that are not yet widely accepted, like those referenced in the previous section (Van der Linden, Reference Van der Linden2023).

This is not to say that political and health researchers ought to encourage people to uncritically accept all forms of mRNA vaccination as safe and effective. Like any new technology, it is important to proceed with caution when evaluating its strengths and limits.

Finally, although this perspective has primarily focused on the United States, it may be the case that mRNA vaccine stigmatization is occurring in other countries as well. In the UK, for example, cardiologist Aseem Malhotra—who has become an influential voice in shaping the Reform Party’s health policy platform—recently made headlines for suggesting that mRNA vaccination may cause cancer (Iacobucci, Reference Iacobucci2025a), and may be responsible for recent cancer cases among members of the royal family (Iacobucci, Reference Iacobucci2025b). Studying both elite and public mRNA vaccine stigmatization beyond the US remains a fruitful area for future research.

Whatever form it might take, vaccine researchers ought to pay attention to growing mRNA vaccine stigmatization and make an effort to combat it by promoting widely held public health objectives.