Washington, D.C. – August 29, 2025 – In a seismic shift that’s sent shockwaves through the medical establishment, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), under the leadership of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has pulled the plug on Emergency Use Authorizations (EUAs) for COVID-19 vaccines and issued a bold directive: states must honor religious exemptions for all vaccine mandates or risk losing federal funding. This double-barreled move, announced in the last week, is a direct challenge to Big Pharma’s grip on public health and a rallying cry for individual freedom of conscience.
The EUA Takedown: A Slap in the Face to mRNA Giants
On August 27, 2025, HHS announced it was rescinding EUAs for COVID-19 vaccines, limiting their use to high-risk groups—those over 65 or with serious health conditions. The decision, backed by Kennedy’s team, cites data questioning the efficacy of mRNA vaccines, particularly those from Pfizer and Moderna, against respiratory infections. “The science is clear: mRNA vaccines fail to deliver the protection promised,” an HHS spokesperson declared, echoing Kennedy’s long-standing concerns. The agency pointed to studies showing waning immunity and breakthrough infections, arguing that blanket authorizations no longer serve the public good.
This isn’t just a policy tweak—it’s a gut punch to the pharmaceutical giants who’ve raked in billions from vaccine contracts. HHS has already canceled $500 million in mRNA research funding, including a Moderna contract for an H5N1 bird flu vaccine, signaling a broader pivot to “safer” platforms. “We’re done with opaque clinical trials and industry-driven science,” Kennedy said in a statement that’s got Pfizer and Moderna execs sweating. The move has drawn legal fire from groups like the American Medical Association, who call it “unscientific” and warn of resurgent COVID risks. But Kennedy’s supporters see it as a long-overdue reckoning for a system they claim prioritizes profits over people.
Religious Exemptions: States Told to Fall in Line or Pay Up
Hot on the heels of the EUA revocation, HHS dropped another bombshell: states must recognize religious exemptions for vaccine mandates or face the loss of federal health funds.
Under Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s leadership, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has just confirmed in writing what vaccine safety advocates have long argued: federal law requires states to honor religious vaccine exemptions.
On August 21, 2025, the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued a stern reminder to West Virginia, citing federal conscience and religious freedom laws. States cannot trample on sincerely held beliefs, the OCR stated, warning that noncompliance could jeopardize billions in Medicare and Medicaid dollars. This directive is a direct shot across the bow of states like New York and California, where strict vaccine mandates have historically sidelined religious objectors. In 2021, New York eliminated religious exemptions for healthcare workers, prompting lawsuits and resignations. Now, HHS is flipping the script, leveraging federal purse strings to force compliance. “This is about restoring bodily autonomy,” Kennedy said at a D.C. press conference, flanked by advocates waving signs reading “My Faith, My Choice.” The policy aligns with a growing push for personal freedom, with states like Florida and Montana already expanding exemption laws.
Economically, these moves could hammer Pfizer and Moderna, whose stocks dipped 8% and 11% respectively after the EUA rescind announcement. Analysts predict a $20 billion hit to their 2026 revenues if mRNA vaccines lose broader authorization. Meanwhile, states face a tough choice: comply with HHS’s exemption mandate or risk federal funding cuts that could cripple healthcare systems. West Virginia, singled out by HHS, is already scrambling to revise its policies.
Kennedy’s moves signal a significant reordering of public health, one that prioritizes individual choice over collective ‘Faucian’ mandates.
The irony bites hard in religious circles, where even faith-based organizations have clashed internally over vaccines. Take the Seventh-day Adventist General Conference: back in 2015 and again in 2021, they issued statements wholeheartedly endorsing immunization and COVID-19 vaccines as "an important public health measure," even recommending the jab during the pandemic without any faith-based objections. Contrary to the HSS OCR letter of this week, the GC said,
“The Seventh-day Adventist Church, in consultation with the Health Ministries and Public Affairs and Religious Liberty departments of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, is convinced that the vaccination programs that are generally being carried out are important for the safety and health of our members and the larger community. Therefore, claims of religious liberty are not used appropriately in objecting to government mandates or employer programs designed to protect the health and safety of their communities.”
This toe-the-line stance, which implicitly backed mandates by urging adherence, has left millions of our own members disillusioned —devout Adventists who view forced jabs as a violation of their "liberty of conscience," a core tenet of the faith.
Dissenters have pushed back hard, with delegates at GC sessions trying—and failing—to amend the pro-vaccine statements, only to be shut down by leadership (Wilson et al) more aligned with Big Pharma's playbook than the flock's cries for freedom.
Kennedy's stance represents a shift in federal policy, reinterpreting conscience protections to include religious objections to (C-19) vaccines and tying compliance to federal funds.
Disclosure
Fulcrum7 is not ideologically opposed to vaccines. We are opposed to mandates that violate the individual freedom of conscience of church members, and the GC’s blind fealty to such mandates. We prefer natural immunity over the coerced C-19 jab debacle. Our Seventh-day Adventist eschatological expectations should have provoked concerns about mandates that shuttered SDA churches, and violated the liberty of conscience of members who preferred natural immunity & early treatment over coercion. It did, for us.
It did not—for the GC, who has alliances with the United Nations and the WHO, and financial incentives to support the dominant narrative.
To them I say—with Paul and John—trying to be liked by this world is the worst possible evidence that you are on the right track (Romans 12:2; 1 John 2:15; John 15:19).
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“Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (2 Corinthians 3:17).