HHS cancels contract with Moderna to develop bird flu vaccine

Moderna will not be developing a vaccine to protect against bird flu — at least on the federal government’s dime. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services canceled a contract with the pharmaceutical company worth close to $600 million to propel the vaccine’s creation.

Last summer, President Joe Biden announced roughly $175 million that was to go toward the effort and to ensure the government has the right to buy resulting shots. In January, $590 million was added during the outbreak of bird flu that has impacted chickens and dairy cattle.

According to The Washington Post, HHS cited Moderna’s use of messenger RNA technology, calling it “under-tested” as its reason to cancel the contract.

“The decision also forfeited the U.S. government’s right to purchase doses ahead of a pandemic, and canceled an agreement set up by the Biden administration in January to prepare the nation for a potential bird flu pandemic. The Moderna contract built on a previous government investment of $175 million last year,” per The New York Times.

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has repeatedly called into question mRNA technology, which was also used by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech during President Donald Trump’s first term to develop COVID-19 vaccines as quickly as possible during the pandemic.

The designation mRNA stands for messenger RNA, which tells cells to produce proteins that will trigger the desired immune system response or treat a disease, as Pfizer has explained. Telling the body to make a small segment of the targeted virus jumpstarts the body’s immune response to the virus.

HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon told the Times that “after a rigorous review, we concluded that continued investment in Moderna’s H5N1 mRNA vaccine was not scientifically or ethically justified.”

Avian influenza and its spread

Avian influenza, more colloquially called bird flu, has been a global concern for some time, but reached the U.S. in 2022. It is often spread by flocks of wild birds, which in turn can infect other animals that are in close contact or that eat an infected bird. A wide variety of mammals, including bears, mink, seals, sea lions, cats and others have been infected.

But the biggest toll has been on poultry flocks. In the U.S., more than 173 million birds have been destroyed as a result of infection in their flocks. And the outbreak spread to dairy cattle, too.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the H5N1 flu virus has spread to 41 dairy herds and 24 poultry farms and culling operations. Along the way since the outbreak began, more than 70 humans have also been infected, mostly those who work with the livestock and flocks.

Globally, avian influenza has been quite deadly, but in the U.S., just one person has died. Most who tested positive for bird flu had mild symptoms like miserable red itchy eyes.

Human cases have not been common and health officials say the virus does not easily spread to people at this point. But viruses can mutate in many ways and can do so often. There has been concern expressed in public health circles that some mutation will occur that helps bird flu more easily jump to humans or spread from one person to another with perhaps devastating results.

Because the “message” using mRNA technology can be changed quickly if the targeted virus changes, some believe that technology is the best option in a “fast-moving outbreak,” per the Times.

“Moderna’s contract covered several types of flu viruses that have the potential to cause a pandemic. In response to the government’s decision, Moderna said it would explore alternatives for developing its vaccines," the article noted.