Recently, University of Cambridge and DIOSynVax researchers published the results of the first human clinical trial of a universal coronavirus vaccine. Scientists designed the new vaccine candidate with the help of artificial intelligence to provide protection against a large group of SARS- and SARS-CoV-2-related coronaviruses.
The possibility of broad protection means that if the vaccine is successful, it could help prevent the next pandemic before it even starts. Previous animal trials have already shown effective protection; further human trials are needed before the vaccine is ready for public use.
This new development, which has grown out of academic research in the UK and the global efforts of researchers in fields such as computational biology, virology and vaccine development, throws the US obsession with COVID-19 (and vaccines more generally) into stark relief.
In 2025, we looked at some of the next- generation COVID-19 vaccines in the works. Even as we were reporting on that story, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) was issuing stop work orders to companies in the middle of agency-funded trials. Some of these were later lifted.
Since taking office, HHS secretary and longtime vaccine critic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has led a squadron that seems committed to relitigating COVID-19.
There is Jay Bhattacharya, who is leading both the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); he rose to fame by criticizing measures meant to contain the spread of COVID-19 back in 2020. According to the Washington Post, Bhattacharya recently delayed, then stopped, the publication of a CDC report showing that COVID-19 vaccines had reduced emergency department visits and hospitalizations among healthy adults.
As Food and Drug Administration vaccine office director, Vinay Prasad, a cancer doctor turned public health policy critic who has since left the agency, claimed in a memo in November that COVID-19 vaccines had killed 10 US children according to a new review of incident reports. He never made that data public—a step experts have said would be necessary to evaluate such a claim.
Former FDA commissioner Marty Makary also made a name for himself by criticizing the medical establishment—sometimes correctly, other times less so—and deriding COVID-19 vaccine mandates and other pandemic responses. The New York Times reported that during his tenure, senior leaders at the FDA directed scientists to withdraw two COVID-19 vaccine studies that had been accepted for publication in medical journals; they also did not greenlight abstracts about studies of a shingles vaccine for a medical conference.
Makary and Prasad said last year that otherwise healthy people do not need COVID-19 boosters; the CDC study the Post refers to indicates that is not true.
Studies, including the CDC’s own, repeatedly show that vaccines against COVID 19 are effective and mitigate harm.
In a perfect world, the US’s public health leaders would offer evidence-based guidance on coping with COVID-19. They would encourage the publication of robust studies, whether or not those findings support their original hypotheses (or podcasts or Substack newsletters). And they would apportion their attention appropriately to protect public health and support biomedical innovation. AI raises urgent questions about achieving this balance, considering the scale at which it can work. Other countries, such as the UK, are doing just this.
In a BBC news report on the new vaccine, British science minister Patrick Vallance calls it “another British science success story.” He goes on to speak about the potential to roll out these vaccines for the benefit of people around the world.
Science needs a certain amount of skepticism, but too much of it, like too much nationalism, is not the antidote for our times.
This editorial is the result of collective deliberation in C&EN. For this editorial, members of the life sciences team were the lead contributors.
Views expressed are not necessarily those of ACS.
