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FIRST ON FOX: Division of Well being and Human Providers Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. paused a multimillion-dollar contract from the Biden period to create a brand new COVID-19 vaccine, Fox Information Digital has realized.
“Whereas it’s essential that the Division and Well being and Human Providers (HHS) help pandemic preparedness, 4 years of the Biden administration’s failed oversight have made it essential to assessment agreements for vaccine manufacturing, together with Vaxart’s,” Kennedy stated in remark supplied to Fox Information Digital Tuesday.
“I stay up for working with Vaxart and medical consultants to make sure this work produces protected, efficient, and fiscal-minded vaccine expertise.”
Kennedy issued a 90-day cease work order Friday associated to HHS’ contract with American biotech firm Vaxart Inc., which is working to develop a brand new COVID-19 vaccine that will be taken orally. The stopwork order comes as 10,000 people have been slated to start scientific trials Monday.
The trial is just paused, not terminated, with Kennedy and different well being officers set to look at the examine’s preliminary findings over the following 90 days earlier than deciding on subsequent steps.
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Well being and Human Providers Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. issued a 90-day stopwork order associated to HHS’ contract with American biotech firm Vaxart Inc., which is working to develop a brand new COVID-19 vaccine that will be taken orally. (Rebecca Noble/Getty Photographs)
The creation of a brand new COVID-19 vaccine was a part of the Biden administration’s huge $4.7 billion Mission NextGen initiative, which was launched in 2023 and works to streamline the event of latest vaccines. The Vaxart vaccine particularly was funded by an settlement with the Biomedical Superior Analysis and Growth Authority (BARDA), which is a division inside the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response below the HHS umbrella.
BARDA obligated roughly $460 million to Vaxart’s growth of the brand new vaccine, with a complete of $240 million already licensed for the preliminary examine, Fox Digital realized.
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A latest modification to the contract would have allowed Vaxart to bill BARDA for the remaining roughly $230 million for scientific trials, however the stopwork order prevents the biotech firm from invoicing BARDA till additional discover. Vaxart, nevertheless, can nonetheless bill HHS associated to medical monitoring of people who took half in an preliminary spherical of trials, Fox Digital realized.
The announcement comes slightly below two weeks after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was confirmed and sworn in because the nation’s twenty sixth chief of Well being and Human Providers. (Getty Photographs)
The announcement comes slightly below two weeks after Kennedy was confirmed and sworn in because the nation’s twenty sixth chief of HHS. The identical day he was sworn in, President Donald Trump signed an govt order creating the Make America Wholesome Once more Fee, which is led by Kennedy to research and tackle “the foundation causes of America’s escalating well being disaster.”
COVID-19 vaccines have been mandated throughout the federal authorities below the Biden administration. (Brian Snyder/Reuters)
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The fee initially will focus its investigations into childhood power illnesses, equivalent to autism.
Kennedy, who ran for president as a Democrat within the 2024 cycle earlier than finally dropping out and endorsing Trump, has come below fireplace from critics for an alleged anti-vaccine stance, which he has repeatedly denied, together with throughout his Senate affirmation hearings earlier in 2025.
President Donald Trump indicators an govt order withholding federal funding from colleges and universities that impose a COVID-19 vaccine mandate within the Oval Workplace on the White Home on Feb. 14, 2025, in Washington, DC. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Photographs)
“I labored for years to boost consciousness in regards to the mercury and poisonous chemical compounds in fish,” Kennedy stated throughout his listening to earlier than the Senate Finance Committee in January of his vaccine stance. “And no person known as me anti-fish. And I imagine that … that vaccines play a vital function in healthcare. All of my children are vaccinated. I’ve learn many books on vaccines. My first guide in 2014, a primary line of it’s ‘I’m not anti-vaccine’ and final line is ‘I’m not anti-vaccine.’ Nor am I the enemy of meals producers. American farms are the bedrock of our tradition, of our politics, of our nationwide safety.”
COVID-19 vaccines have been mandated throughout the federal authorities below the Biden administration, whereas many companies within the non-public sector additionally required workers to get the vaccine, which sparked widespread backlash and protests as some workers misplaced their jobs for bucking the orders.
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Trump signed a couple of govt orders associated to the earlier administration’s mandates upon his return to the Oval Workplace in January, together with reinstating army members who have been fired for refusing the vaccine and one other EO that prohibits federal funding for vaccine mandates in colleges.
HHS pauses $240 million Biden-era undertaking to create new COVID vax
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