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Efforts Grow to Thwart mRNA Therapies as RFK Jr. Pushes Vaccine Wariness
Utah and Tennessee passed laws requiring foods containing vaccines to be classified as drugs, even though no such foods are on the market. Legislators pointed to a University of California study that is investigating whether it is possible to put vaccines in lettuce.
“You eat a bunch of this lettuce, take a bunch of these mRNA vaccines, and you go back and get your DNA tested again, it’s going to be a little different, it’s not going to be the same as it was that you were born with, that you got from your parents,” Frank Niceley, a Tennessee Republican state senator, said during the debate last year, arguing that the legislature should ban mRNA entirely. “This is dangerous stuff.”
In fact, mRNA vaccines cannot change the genetic code, because they cannot access the nucleus of the cells, where DNA resides. Small amounts of DNA are in all vaccines — often, as with the flu vaccine, because they are made from eggs — but the Food and Drug Administration enforces strict limits, and the levels are so small that they are negligible. Scientists had been conducting clinical trials on mRNA vaccines against infectious diseases and cancer for years, well before Covid: on mice in the 1990s and in humans starting in the early 2000s. While no vaccine is without side effects, including deadly ones, the mRNA vaccines often have fewer side effects than traditional vaccines that insert a small amount of live virus.
“mRNA is not some foreign substance, it’s something that you’re exposed to all the time,” said Melissa Moore, who was chief scientific officer at Moderna when it produced the Covid vaccines. “Every time you’re eating whole foods, meat or vegetables, you are consuming lots of mRNA and your body is breaking it down and creating its own.”
Even if the bills do not pass, their proponents say they are playing a long game. Last month, Republicans in Minnesota proposed a ban that would classify mRNA products as weapons of mass destruction, adding it to a list that includes smallpox, anthrax and mustard gas. The ban copied the language of a bill written by a Florida hypnotist, Joseph Sansone, who says he wants to try to get the ban passed in every state and in Congress. In his newsletter, Mr. Sansone praised local Republican organizations that have adopted resolutions in favor of the bans, and encouraged his followers to start showing up at political events to challenge politicians.
It’s “poking them in the eye,” he wrote, “which has an important psychological effect.”
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Inside Trump’s Touring Exhibition of American Heroes
The museums, designed by conservative nonprofits and Trump appointees, tell the story of early America, from colonization to revolution. The one exhibition looking beyond the early years is the “Wall of American Heroes.” It is a list of 51 people, chosen to illustrate 250 years of American history.
A White House spokesman said they were “individuals who shaped this nation’s history, culture and spirit across generations.”
The people pictured on this national honor roll — and the people left out — help illustrate what this administration sees as the highlights of American history.
Amid the administration’s efforts to reshape the nation’s relationship with its past, Trump appointees heavily weighted the list toward a single era of American history — and a few specific kinds of hero.
The other exhibitions in the Freedom Trucks were crafted by a pair of conservative nonprofits, PragerU and Hillsdale College. But the “Wall of American Heroes” was created by Freedom 250, a nonprofit effort whose leaders were chosen by President Trump and that was created to lead the planning of celebrations of the nation’s 250th birthday, overshadowing a bipartisan congressional commission.
A spokeswoman for Freedom 250 said Mr. Trump was not directly involved in the selection of those featured.
But the list clearly tracks Mr. Trump’s own lifetime and the heroes of the conservative political movement.
The wall’s tilt toward heroes of the baby boomer generation, for instance, extends beyond Hollywood stars and musicians. Of the four religious leaders on the list, two — Archbishop Fulton Sheen and the Rev. Billy Graham — also appeared on TV regularly in the 1950s and 1960s. The only painter on the list is Norman Rockwell, known for his idealized depictions of American life in that period.
By contrast, there is only a handful of figures from the first decades of American independence.
“That’s a disservice, if your intention is to present the last 250 years,” said Sarah Weicksel, the executive director of the American Historical Association. “Because all of the people on this list are building on the work and struggles and progress that was made by the people in the 150 years prior.”
The “Wall of American Heroes” was inspired by a similar display in a traveling museum created by the State of Virginia. But Virginia’s display celebrates little-known historical figures.
Mr. Trump’s, by and large, celebrates people who are already well-known — and, often, people who were famous in their own time. For example, it praises P.T. Barnum, a circus impresario who used hoaxes and freak shows to draw crowds. The wall calls him an “icon of American sensationalism.”
The spokeswoman for Freedom 250 said that many of the names on the wall were drawn from a list of 250 people that Mr. Trump wants to include in a “Garden of American Heroes” in Washington.
The spokeswoman declined to say what criteria were used to narrow down the list.
The only president whose name appears on the wall — not on the list of heroes, but alongside his quotation — is Mr. Trump himself.
Explore the Wall of Heroes
Navigate the display by dragging from side to side.
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GOP Rep. Tom Kean, missing from Congress for months, set to return on June 30
Washington — Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr. of New Jersey will return to Congress on June 30, his spokesperson said, after being away since March in an unexplained absence that has confounded Capitol Hill.
“Congressman Kean is eager to return to in person work on June 30 and resume a full schedule,” Kean’s spokesperson, Harrison Neely, told CBS News on Thursday. The New Jersey Globe first reported on his return date.
Kean’s whereabouts since he last voted on March 5 have not been disclosed. When he first made a statement about the absence in late April, the New Jersey Republican said he was addressing a “personal medical issue.”
Kean said earlier this month that he would return to Washington within a matter of weeks, at which point he would provide more details about his health.
“Right now I am focused on my recovery and under the advice of healthcare professionals, I will transition from virtual work to in person work within a matter of weeks. At that time I will be completely transparent as to the nature of my medical condition,” Kean said in a June 2 statement released by his campaign.
The statement came hours before polls closed in New Jersey’s GOP primary for his seat, in which he ran unopposed.
He has missed more than 130 votes during his absence.
House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters earlier this month that he had recently spoken with Kean. Johnson said he was aware of the health issue, but would not disclose the details.
“What he’s dealing with is not very common and not a big thing,” Johnson said.
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Video: Obama Presidential Center Opens in Chicago
new video loaded: Obama Presidential Center Opens in Chicago
By Shawn Paik
June 18, 2026
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