The Trump administration has canceled a $766 million contract with Moderna for the development of a human bird flu vaccine, the pharmaceutical company announced Wednesday.
The Biden administration signed a $176 million deal with Moderna last year for the development of an mRNA-based shot targeting the virus that causes bird flu, H5N1. Then, earlier this year, Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services awarded the drugmaker an additional $590 million for late-stage development of the vaccine and to support clinical trials for five additional H5N1 subtypes.
Health Secretary and noted vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy has repeatedly expressed concerns over the safety of mRNA vaccines, despite their saving millions of lives. Just a week ago, Moderna withdrew its application for approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for a hybrid covid-flu vaccine, said to be more effective than either shot on its own. The CDC has also ended vaccine recommendations for children and pregnant women.
Since 2022, over 148 million birds have been culled, and the virus has spread to other wildlife, cows, and humans. So far, H5N1 has infected 70 people in the U.S.—most of them farmworkers—and killed one, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Worldwide, the virus has a case fatality of roughly 50%, according to the World Health Organization.
“The cancellation means that the government is discarding what could be one of the most effective and rapid tools to combat an avian influenza outbreak,” Amesh Adalja, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told Reuters. He added that the Trump administration is taking the opposite approach to Operation Warp Speed, which it launched to combat the covid-19 pandemic.
In a statement Moderna said it plans to explore alternatives for late-stage development of the vaccine. On Wednesday, the company also announced positive interim trial data for its late-stage clinical study of the shot against a subtype of H5N1.
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