{"id":9011,"date":"2025-08-06T14:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-06T18:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/?p=9011"},"modified":"2025-08-06T15:23:39","modified_gmt":"2025-08-06T19:23:39","slug":"hhs-scraps-further-work-on-life-saving-mrna-vaccine-platform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/news\/hhs-scraps-further-work-on-life-saving-mrna-vaccine-platform\/","title":{"rendered":"HHS scraps further work on life-saving mRNA vaccine platform"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In what experts say will hobble pandemic preparedness, US Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. yesterday announced the dismantling of the country&#8217;s mRNA vaccine-development programs\u2014the same innovation that allowed rapid scale-up of COVID-19 vaccines during the public health emergency.<\/p>\n<p>The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) is terminating 22 mRNA vaccine-development contracts totaling just under $500 million, including an award to Moderna\/University of Texas Medical Branch for a vaccine against the H5N1 avian flu now sweeping the world. That grant was terminated in late&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cidrap.umn.edu\/avian-influenza-bird-flu\/hhs-cancels-funding-moderna-s-candidate-h5-avian-flu-and-pandemic-vaccines\">May<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Contracts awarded to Emory University and Tiba Biotech were cancelled, and agreements with Luminary Labs, ModeX, and Seqirus have been scaled back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In what experts say will hobble pandemic preparedness, US Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. yesterday announced the dismantling of the country&#8217;s mRNA vaccine-development programs\u2014the same innovation that allowed rapid scale-up of COVID-19 vaccines during the public health emergency.<\/p>\n<p>The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) is terminating 22 mRNA vaccine-development contracts totaling just under $500 million, including an award to Moderna\/University of Texas Medical Branch for a vaccine against the H5N1 avian flu now sweeping the world. That grant was terminated in late&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cidrap.umn.edu\/avian-influenza-bird-flu\/hhs-cancels-funding-moderna-s-candidate-h5-avian-flu-and-pandemic-vaccines\">May<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Contracts awarded to Emory University and Tiba Biotech were cancelled, and agreements with Luminary Labs, ModeX, and Seqirus have been scaled back.<\/p>\n<div class=\"more-link-wrapper\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/news\/hhs-scraps-further-work-on-life-saving-mrna-vaccine-platform\/\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">HHS scraps further work on life-saving mRNA vaccine platform<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1007,18,1008,1301,253,309,8,14,1252,51,15],"class_list":["post-9011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-avian-flu","tag-covid-19","tag-h5n1","tag-kakistocracy","tag-moderna","tag-pro-virus-policies","tag-research","tag-sars-cov-2","tag-trump-regime","tag-united-states","tag-vaccines","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9011"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9012,"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9011\/revisions\/9012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}