ACTION: HHS Halts $230M NextGen Covid Vax Trial to Prioritize Safety

An opening signal that business as usual in the vaccine space is over

In the wake of a historic postponement the CDC’s ACIP committee, HHS action is now moving forward into the vaccine development space.

FOX News is reporting statements made by HHS secretary RFK Jr.

"While it is crucial that the Department [of] Health and Human Services (HHS) support pandemic preparedness, four years of the Biden administration’s failed oversight have made it necessary to review agreements for vaccine production, including Vaxart’s," Kennedy said in comments provided to Fox News Digital on Tuesday.

His statement continued adding:

"I look forward to working with Vaxart and medical experts to ensure this work produces safe, effective, and fiscal-minded vaccine technology."

A hybrid Doge-style approach looks to have descended upon the American government’s health space. An overlay that looks not just at government waste, but also the overall safety and efficacy [benefit to harms ratios] of medical countermeasures and pharmaceuticals.

In addition to giving PREP Act immunity to Covid countermeasures until 2029, the Biden administration allotted $4.7 billion to Project NextGen, a COVID-19 initiative launched in 2023 of which over 50% of the grants are going to new vaccine development.

The Vaxart vaccine is an orally administered adenovirus vaccine with plasmid constructs created based on available DNA sequences of SARS-CoV-2 for the parental Wuhan strain. Published in the journal Vaccines, the phase 2 trial endpoints were elevated antibody responses.

While popular culture labeled those concerned about and pointing out the real issue of viral shedding in Covid vaccine recipients, another Vaxart trial endpoint focused on the oral vaccine’s ability “to reduce virus replication/shedding in the respiratory tract” and “reductions in viral load and infectious particle shedding.”

If shedding wasn’t a major red warning light over the last five years of injectable mRNA tech, why would Vaxart highlight and proudly market their new vaccine’s ability to reduce shedding abilities?

Vaxart’s entire business model is directed by the highly suspect ‘One Health’ approach. Their website’s front facing text sells their oral vaccine tech as “kinder to the environment in a future pandemic” highlighting results from a study showing large potential GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions reductions from the use of oral vs. intramuscular vaccines for mass COVID-19 vaccination programs.

Vaxart was preparing to launch phase 2b of its trial moving into human experimentation of the new tech when the HHS halt came down.

“The stop-work order comes as 10,000 individuals were slated to begin clinical trials on Monday…A recent modification to the contract would have allowed Vaxart to invoice BARDA for the remaining roughly $230 million for clinical trials, but the stop-work order prevents the biotech company from invoicing BARDA until further notice. -FOX News

Also this past week, HHS ordered CDC to “shelve promotions it developed for a variety of vaccines, including a “Wild to Mild” advertising campaign urging people to get vaccinated against flu” reported Stat News.

Why?

The Department of Health and Human Services’ assistant secretary for public affairs informed the CDC that HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wanted advertisements that promote the idea of “informed consent” in vaccine decision-making instead.

The federal move to halt vaccine advertising goes in lockstep with moves at the state level by Louisiana Surgeon General who released a memo two weeks ago stating:

“The State of Louisiana and LDH have historically promoted vaccines for vaccine preventable illnesses through our parish health units, community health fairs, partnerships and media campaigns…While we encourage each patient to discuss the risks and benefits of vaccination with their provider, LDH will no longer promote mass vaccination.”