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Trump Administration Terminates Moderna Bird Flu Vaccine Deal, Undermining Pandemic Preparedness

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In a striking reversal of pandemic preparedness efforts, the Trump administration has canceled a $600 million contract with Moderna aimed at developing a human vaccine against H5N1 bird flu—a virus with the potential to spark a national outbreak.

The termination also scrapped a key provision granting the U.S. priority access to doses in the event of a pandemic, dismantling an agreement crafted under the Biden administration to boost national readiness against the evolving bird flu threat. The Moderna initiative had expanded on a $175 million government investment made in 2023.

Although the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) had signaled earlier this year that the contract was under review, the cancellation has still raised alarms across the scientific and public health communities.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has long questioned the safety of mRNA vaccine technology, played a role in the decision. Moderna’s vaccine design relied on mRNA, the same technology used successfully in Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna’s COVID-19 shots, to prime the immune system by delivering a coded message to produce a harmless piece of the virus.

After what it described as a “rigorous review,” the HHS said it found “continued investment in Moderna’s H5N1 mRNA vaccine was not scientifically or ethically justifiable,” according to department spokesman Andrew Nixon.

Moderna, for its part, defended the project and the underlying mRNA platform. The biotech company said it would continue exploring other avenues to develop vaccines targeting potentially pandemic-level influenza strains.

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“Results during the pandemic speak for themselves, including demonstrated efficacy and a safety profile established in over a billion people worldwide.”

Public health experts are calling the decision short-sighted, particularly given the nature of bird flu’s current spread. The highly pathogenic H5N1 virus has been detected globally in wild birds, poultry, mammals such as bears and sea lions, and most recently, dairy cattle. Since arriving in the U.S. in 2022, it has triggered the culling of more than 173 million birds and infected over 1,000 cattle herds across 17 states.

At least 70 human cases have been reported, with the majority involving farm or dairy workers. One fatality occurred in January in Louisiana, involving an older adult exposed to infected backyard birds, the first known U.S. death tied to the virus.

While H5N1 has not yet shown sustained human-to-human transmission, virologists warn it could mutate and become highly contagious, underscoring the urgent need for adaptable vaccine platforms. Existing stockpiles of bird flu vaccines are limited and may not offer sufficient protection against future variants.

“Pandemic preparedness is about being proactive, fast and adaptable — the mRNA vaccine platform is all of that,” Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease physician and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told The New York Times.

“The rationale given is likely fabricated and more of a function of R.F.K. Jr.’s assault on vaccines, the value of which he evades. Canceling this contract makes the world less safe.”

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Jennifer Nuzzo, who leads the Pandemic Center at Brown University, echoed that concern.

“When the next flu pandemic occurs, there is not going to be enough vaccine for everyone who wants it unless we invest to broaden the types of flu vaccines being made and the number of companies that make them. We shouldn’t let politically motivated attempts to unfairly brand mRNA vaccines as dangerous stand in the way of ensuring everyone who wants a pandemic vaccine can get one.”

Critics attribute Kennedy’s unconventional views on disease management as a key factor in the administration’s decision. In a recent interview, he suggested that farmers allow bird flu to run through flocks to study birds that survive the illness for the source of their immunity — an approach many scientists describe as both unethical and dangerous.

Last week, Kennedy publicly urged Canada to halt the planned euthanasia of 400 ostriches exposed to H5N1. Dr. Mehmet Oz, who heads Medicare and Medicaid services, even offered to relocate the birds to his Florida ranch.

Kennedy has a long history of promoting vaccine skepticism, especially toward mRNA vaccines, which he has falsely claimed are the “deadliest” ever developed. Such assertions starkly contradict a broad scientific consensus.

Currently, the federal government holds three other contracts focused on avian flu vaccine development. Still, the Moderna cancellation deals a significant blow to the push for faster, more agile pandemic response tools — and signals a broader resistance within the administration to emerging vaccine technologies.

chickens

FDA Reports Over A Dozen Cats Sick Or Dead From Bird Flu In Raw Food 

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According to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), bird food found in raw food has killed or infected more than a dozen house cats throughout America. 

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The FDA said in a statement to CBS that the administration was “aware of reports of death or illness associated with uncooked food in 13 domestic cats in eight households, 1 exotic cat in one household, and an unknown number of animals at two sanctuaries for large felids.”

CBS also reported that the FDA informed them that cases were found in Colorado, California, Washington, and Oregon. 

The FDA has issued a statement to cat and dog food manufacturers as well. They warned manufacturers who use uncooked or pasteurized materials from both cattle or poultry to keep the H5N1 bird flu in their food safety plans. 

The FDA explained that the bird flu virus can be transmitted to cats and dogs when they eat food products made from infected poultry or cattle. Unpasteurized milk, uncooked meat, or unpasteurized eggs are some of the biggest culprits when it comes to transmitting the virus.

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Dogs, on average, display much more mild clinical signs and symptoms and have lower mortality when infected. In cats, the virus can unfortunately lead to severe illness or death. 

The initial outbreak of the H5N1 virus in the US began last March when it was found in dairy cattle in both Texas and Kansas. 

Last year, twelve barn cats died after they drank infected raw milk and in December 20 exotic cats, including a Bengal tiger, four cougars, and four bob cats died at an animal sanctuary in Washington. 

In a study published last year in the academic journal Emerging Microbes and infections, “cat H5N1 genomes had unique mutations that could suggest potential virus adaptation. It found cats could serve as mixing vessels for reassortment of avian and mammalian influenza viruses as well as a bridge to infect other species,” according to the Guardian. 

Since the initial outbreak more than 20 million hens have died along with 134 million birds across the poultry industry being impacted, according to a report from the US Department of Agriculture.

eggs

Former CDC Director Believes Next Pandemic Will Be Caused By The Bird Flu

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Robert Redfield, former director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), recently stated that the next pandemic could be caused by the bird flu. 

Additionally, the World Health Organization recently announced the first human death from bird flu in Mexico, and the virus itself has been found in cattle across dairy farms in the US, according to reports. 

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“I really do think it’s very likely that we will, at some time, it’s not a question of if, it’s more of a question of when we will have a bird flu pandemic,” Redfield said to NewsNation last week. 

He also discussed that the mortality rate will likely be much higher in a bird flu pandemic versus what the world experienced during the Covid-19 pandemic. The Covid-19 pandemic had a mortality rate that was 0.6%, and Redfield predicts the mortality “for the bird flu would probably be somewhere between 25 and 50%.”

The Hill reported that by late May, the CDC had found the third case of an individual diagnosed with bird flu within three months. Each case was found in a farmworker, but were unrelated to each other. The main symptoms included a cough and pink eye. 

As of right now, there is no direct evidence that suggests the virus is spreading amongst humans right now. 

Health experts and researchers found that in order for the bird flu to be able to connect to a human receptor, five amino acids have to change their key receptors. If that does occur, the virus would spread like Covid-19 did. 

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“Once the virus gains the ability to attach to the human receptor and then go human to human, that’s when you’re going to have the pandemic,” Redfield said. 

“I think it’s just a matter of time.”

While Redfield stated that it’s hard to predict how long it would take for the amino acids to change, but the fact that it’s been detected in cattle across the US is concerning. 

The CDC reported that more than 40 herds of cattle have been infected with the virus. They’ve been following wastewater treatment sites to track where the virus is originating from, and said that there’s low risk of the virus spreading throughout the public. 

The cattle infected live in the vicinity of pigs, which could allow the virus to evolve from pigs to humans, however, Redfield stated there’s more of a severe risk that the virus will be grown in a lab and spread that way. 

“I know exactly what amino acids I have to change because in 2012, against my recommendation, the scientists that did these experiments actually published them. So, the recipe for how to make bird flu highly infectious for humans is already out there,” he said.

vaccine

Scientists Worried About Bird Flu Vaccine Development As Cases Rise In Farm Animals Across US 

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The avian flu virus has been taking out flocks of birds and infecting other animals, mainly on farms, throughout the US. According to reports from CBS, there are cattle in at least nine states that have been infected, as well as two people. While the two individuals only suffered from pink eye and quickly recovered, the spreading is relatively unheard of, raising concerns of another global pandemic. 

Scientists are particularly concerned about the millions of fertilized hen eggs that are needed to make vaccines, in the case that there’s a larger outbreak of a new flu strain. 

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“It’s almost comical to be using 1940s technology for a 21st-century pandemic,” said Rick Bright, who led the Health and Human Services Department’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority.

“It’s not so funny when the currently stockpiled formulation against the H5N1 bird flu virus requires two shots and a whopping 90 micrograms of antigen, yet provides just middling immunity. For the U.S. alone, it would take hens laying 900,000 eggs every single day for nine months,” Bright said.

The raw material utilized for an influenza vaccine derives from the virus being grown within fertilized eggs. The birds themselves need to not be infected, and there’s always a chance that the virus won’t grow well, or well grow in a mutated form that would make it ineffective. 

“Everyone knows cell-based vaccines are better, more immunogenic, and offer better production. But they are handicapped because of the clout of egg-based manufacturing,” said Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease specialist at Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Health Security. 

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“The companies that make the cell-based influenza vaccines, CSL Seqirus and Sanofi, also have billions invested in egg-based production lines that they aren’t eager to replace. And it’s hard to blame them,” said Nicole Lurie, an executive director of CEPI, the global epidemic-fighting nonprofit.

“Most vaccine companies that responded to an epidemic — Ebola, Zika, COVID — ended up losing a lot of money on it,” Lurie said.

CBS reported that Adalja said “the vaccines currently in the national stockpile are not a perfect match for the strain in question. Even with two shots containing six times as much vaccine substance as typical flu shots, the stockpiled vaccines were only partly effective against strains of the virus that circulated when those vaccines were made.” 

“Flu vaccine companies have a system that works well right now to accomplish their objectives in manufacturing the seasonal vaccine. And without a financial incentive, we are going to be here with eggs for a while, I think,” Boucher said.

milk

FDA Says Traces Of Bird Flu Found In 1 In 5 Samples Of Pasteurized Milk 

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The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has stated that 1 in 5 samples of retail milk contains traces of the highly contagious bird flu. They also said that these findings may not be an indicator of an infectious risk to consumers, according to reports from The Hill. 

The FDA has been publishing updates throughout the week, and just recently shared some of the biggest takeaways from their nationally representative commercial milk sampling study. 

“The agency continues to analyze this information; however, the initial results show about 1 in 5 of the retail samples tested are quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR)-positive for [Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza] viral fragments, with a greater proportion of positive results coming from milk in areas with infected herds,” the FDA stated. 

The Administration continued to state that additional testing will be required in order to determine whether or not intact pathogens of the bird flu are present in the milk and if those who consume it would be at risk of infection. 

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“To date, the retail milk studies have shown no results that would change our assessment that the commercial milk supply is safe. The pasteurization process that retail milk undergoes as well as the diverting and destroying of milk from infected cows,” the agency shared.

They also re-emphasized their long-standing warnings against drinking raw milk. Earlier this year, a worker on a dairy farm in Texas became infected with the bird flu after working closely with cows that were later found to be infected with the highly infectious H5N1 strain of the bird flu. 

According to William Schaffner, professor in the division of infectious diseases at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, “pasteurization should kill the virus and people generally shouldn’t be too concerned about buying milk from a grocery store.”

“A bird flu virus can pick up the capacity to spread readily from person to person. This is a rare event, every 15 years or so. There’s no indication that the current bird flu virus has picked this up but it’s out there circulating,” Schaffner told The Hill.