The Department of Health and Human Services is canceling an enormous contract with Moderna, ending a multimillion-dollar partnership to develop vaccines for emerging flu strains.
The agency, led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., signaled in February that it would be conducting a review of a $590 million contract penned during the Biden administration. Kennedy—a virulent vaccine conspiracy theorist—has been highly critical of the messenger RNA process utilized by Moderna to expedite vaccine development. The contract had been awarded through the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, which issues money for treatment programs aimed at curbing potential future pandemics.
The nixed contract comes on the heels of positive interim results from an early-stage trial of the shot for the H5 bird flu virus, months after strains of the virus wiped out millions of birds across America’s poultry farms.
“While the termination of funding from HHS adds uncertainty, we are pleased by the robust immune response and safety profile observed in this interim analysis,” CEO Stephane Bancel said in a statement. Bancel noted that Moderna would “explore alternatives” to continue funding for the new vaccine, reported AFP.
The mRNA method of building new vaccines came under scrutiny in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, when critics of the government vaccine mandate poked at the strategy—which allows bodies to build resistance to a virus without ever being exposed to the real deal—for developing immunity. MRNA vaccines have been around for decades but were relatively new to the U.S. at the time, prompting suspicion from anti-vax circles.
The mRNA acts as a “cellular messenger,” according to the National Institutes of Health, influencing the body’s cells to develop spike proteins that latch onto a virus, evoking the body’s immune response “without a person ever having been exposed to the viral material.” Further still, mRNA is a temporary addition to the body that “degrades easily and does not last long inside cells,” according to the NIH’s National Human Genome Research Institute.
But the science didn’t stop conspiracists from claiming that the jab was causing more harm than good, spreading misinformation that the vaccine could alter an individual’s DNA makeup. Years later, mRNA vaccines have proven to be entirely safe, with millions of real-world lives saved by the Covid-19 vaccine as plausible examples of their efficacy.
Kennedy brushed off concerns about his anti-vax beliefs during his confirmation hearings to run HHS, claiming that under his leadership, the agency would not be limiting access to well-vetted vaccines. But months later, that hasn’t proven to be the case.
Instead, the health secretary has made it his mission to attack vaccine access in his time atop HHS. On Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed that it would no longer be recommending Covid-19 vaccines to pregnant women and young children, a decision that experts claim will allow insurance companies to stop paying for the shots and make it significantly more difficult to obtain them. That directive—issued by Kennedy—was made without the input of the CDC’s usual advisers, as the body’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices is not scheduled to meet until the end of June.
As a reminder: Vaccines have proven to be one of the greatest accomplishments of modern medicine. The jabs are so effective at preventing illness that they have practically eradicated some of the worst diseases from our collective culture, from rabies to polio and smallpox, a fact that has possibly fooled some into believing that the viruses and their complications aren’t a significant threat for the average, health-conscious individual.
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