HHS cancels Moderna's $590M bird flu vaccine award

The Trump administration canceled a nearly $600 million award to Moderna to develop an mRNA vaccine for bird flu in humans, the company announced Wednesda y.
Why it matters: It ends one of the remaining Biden-era efforts aimed at creating vaccines for pandemic preparedness. But the company said it would explore alternatives for further developing and manufacturing the shot.
Driving the news: Moderna reported positive early stage data on the mRNA vaccine, saying clinical testing in roughly 300 adults was found to be generally well-tolerated.
Participants achieved 98% immunity within three weeks of the second dose of the vaccine, the company said.
"While the termination of funding from HHS adds uncertainty, we are pleased by the robust immune response and safety profile observed in this interim analysis of the Phase 1/2 study of our H5 avian flu vaccine and we will explore alternative paths forward for the program," Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said in a statement.
"These clinical data in pandemic influenza underscore the critical role mRNA technology has played as a countermeasure to emerging health threats."
Details: The funds awarded in January from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority were aimed at creating a line of defense against H5N1 in peoplethat matches the strains circulating in cows and birds.

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A judge just took Trump to task for his attack on science

In some quarters, science has a bad name. Some children, from their first exposure to courses in biology, chemistry, or physics, are intimidated by their quantitative focus or turned off by what they mistakenly see as its sterility. On college campuses, humanists feel under siege due to the growing popularity of scientific fields among their students. They reject the view of some scholars that because 'science follows the methodology of rational dialogue,' it 'transcends culture.' But, as the Trump administration proceeds to take down the existing infrastructure of scientific research in the U.S., all Americans need to rally to its defense. That is because scientific literacy and research are essential to the well-being of all of us and to the country itself. The administration claims that it does not want to limit or end scientific research, just rid it of the taint of politics. On May 23, President Trump issued an executive order alleging that 'Actions taken by the prior Administration … politicized science, for example, by encouraging agencies to incorporate diversity, equity, and inclusion considerations into all aspects of science planning, execution, and communication.' The president promised to restore what he called a 'gold standard for science to ensure that federally funded research is transparent, rigorous, and impactful.' But on June 16, Judge William G. Young of the Federal District Court for the District of Massachusetts exposed that promise as just a pretext for carrying out a war on science. He said that cuts to the National Institutes of Health grants mandated by the president and others in the federal government were blatantly discriminatory and rooted in prejudice. Judge Young ordered the government to restore most of those grants. This is not the first time in American history that the scientific enterprise has been used as a political football. Indeed, as a 2017 article in Scientific American notes, 'The reality is that engaging in scientific research is a social activity and an inherently political one.' Scientific projects, like World War II's Manhattan Project, which led to the atomic bomb, and the massive investment in science after Russia launched the first satellite into space, have been fueled by political goals. Moreover, the work of scientists on subjects like global warming can easily get caught up in partisan contests. Critics worry that the scientific enterprise will be tainted by the political agendas of those who supply funding and help drum up public support for the work scientists do. Those worries reached a fever pitch following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Science skepticism spiked as resentment grew over such polices as universal masking and school closures. Although polls show that trust in science has rebounded, a substantial portion of the population remains doubtful that scientific research is sound and helpful in making public policy decisions. Enter the Trump administration. As The Atlantic's Adam Serwer observes, 'The Trump administration has launched a comprehensive attack on knowledge itself, a war against culture, history, and science.' But it has done so by using a skillful kind of double-speak. The president's executive order puts the administration on the side of 'restoring a gold standard for science,' and guarantees that scientific research is 'transparent, rigorous, and impactful.' At the same time, Trump has cut science funding to 'its lowest level in decades.' The administration has taken a meat ax to research budgets everywhere, including the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, to say nothing about what it has done to research funding at universities like Columbia and Harvard. 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Americans should not be blind to why the Trump administration is targeting science and what its consequences will be for all of us. As Serwer puts it, the president and his allies believe that the kind of 'truth-seeking' that goes on in scientific laboratories all over the country 'imperils their hold on power.' But whatever its motivation, the president's assault on science will leave us sicker, less prosperous, and more vulnerable to the ravages of nature. It will leave this country weaker and will undermine its position in the world. Put simply, America loses when science loses. Austin Sarat is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College.

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Republican senators' proposed Medicaid cuts threaten to send red states ‘backwards'

Advocates are urging Senate Republicans to reject a proposal to cut billions from American healthcare to extend tax breaks that primarily benefit the wealthy and corporations. The proposal would make historic cuts to Medicaid, the public health insurance program for low-income and disabled people that covers 71 million Americans, and is the Senate version of the 'big beautiful bill' act, which contains most of Donald Trump's legislative agenda. 'With the text released earlier this week, somehow the Senate made the House's 'big, bad budget bill' worse in many ways,' said Anthony Wright, the executive director of Families USA, a consumer healthcare advocacy group, in a press call. The Senate's version makes deeper cuts to Medicaid and so-called Obamacare (Affordable Care Act) plans, 'both by expanding paperwork requirements and making it harder for states to fund Medicaid coverage for their residents', said Wright. Related: Democratic senators call on private firm to reveal how it will profit from Trump's Medicaid cuts If passed, the House-passed bill would have already made the biggest cuts to Medicaid since the program's enactment in 1965. With red tape and an expiration of additional healthcare subsidies to Obamacare, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the House version would leave 16 million people without health insurance by 2034. CBO has not yet released estimates, or 'scored', the impact of the Senate proposal, but advocates and experts said the cuts are more draconian, 'punish' states that expanded Medicaid, and attack Medicaid by going after its byzantine financing structures. 'If we look at the big picture of our healthcare system that's where the inefficiencies are – not in Medicaid – but in all the groups profiting off the system,' said David Machledt, a senior policy analyst at the National Health Law Program, referring to Republicans' assertions that they are targeting 'waste, fraud and abuse' with cuts. 'What these cuts are going to do is look at the most cost-efficient program and squeeze it further, and take us backwards, and put us back at a system where the people at the low end are literally dying to fund these tax cuts for rich people and businesses.' A recent study found that expanding Medicaid, as was done during the Obama administration, probably saved an additional 27,400 lives over a 12-year period, and did so cheaper than other insurance programs. The same study found that about a quarter of the difference in life expectancy between low- and high-income Americans is due to lack of health insurance. Republicans, such as Senator John Thune of South Dakota, argue that their bill 'protects' Medicaid by 'removing people who should not be on the rolls', including working-age adults, legal and undocumented immigrants; by adding work requirements and by going after a tax maneuver states use to bring in more federal Medicaid funding. Related: 'Fiscally irresponsible': Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' benefits the rich at the expense of the poor 'Removing these individuals is just basic, good governance,' said Thune. But experts and advocates argue the cuts will not only remove the targeted individuals, including many who are working but struggle to get through red tape, but will also place states in impossible situations with potentially multibillion-dollar shortfalls in their budgets. Both versions contain so-called work requirements, which analyses show will cause people to lose coverage even if they are eligible, experts said. Instead, the largest difference between the Senate and House versions of the bill is the Senate's attack on Medicaid's complex financing arrangements. Medicaid is jointly financed by states and the federal government, making it simultaneously one of states' largest expenditures and sources of revenue. The Senate's version specifically attacks two ways states finance Medicaid, through provider taxes and state-directed payments. With a provider tax, states bring in additional federal revenue by increasing payments to providers. Because the federal portion of Medicaid is based on a percentage rate, increasing payments to providers in turn increases the amount that federal officials pay the state. States then tax those same providers, such as hospitals, to bring the funding back to the state. Although this maneuver has been criticized, it has also now been used for decades. It's in place in every state except for Alaska, is legal and openly discussed. The Senate bill caps this manuever by cutting the tax rate by about half, from 6% to 3.5%, according to Machledt. [Cuts will] put us back at a system where the people at the low end are literally dying to fund these tax cuts for rich people and businesses David Machledt, National Health Law Program In a 2024 analysis, the Congressional Research Service estimated that lowering the provider tax cap to 2.5% would effectively cut $241bn from Medicaid payments to states. Although the exact impacts of the Senate tax cap are not yet known, Machledt expects it would be in the billions, which states would then be under pressure to make up. 'We took great pains to close a $1.1bn shortfall caused by rising healthcare costs,' said the Colorado state treasurer, Dave Young, in a press call. 'To protect healthcare and education, we had to cut transportation projects, maternal health programs and even $1m in aid to food banks.' Because of taxing provisions in Colorado's state constitution, Young said: 'It will be nearly impossible to raise taxes or borrow money to make up the difference.' Similarly, the Senate bill goes after 'state-directed payments'. To understand state-directed payments, it's helpful to understand a big picture, and often hidden, aspect of American healthcare – health insurance pays providers different rates for the same service. Providers are almost universally paid the worst for treating patients who have Medicaid. Medicare pays roughly the cost of providing care, although many doctors and hospitals complain it is still too little. Commercial insurance pays doctors and hospitals most handsomely. To encourage more providers to accept Medicaid, lawmakers in some states have chosen to pay providers treating Medicaid patients additional funds. In West Virginia, a federally approved plan allows the state to pay providers more for certain populations. In North Carolina, state-directed payments allow the state to pay hospitals rates equal to the average commercial insurance rate, if they agree to medical debt forgiveness provisions. The first state-directed payment plan was approved in 2018, under the first Trump administration. These kinds of payments were criticized by the Government Accountability Office during the Biden administration. Related: Trump's 'big, beautiful' spending bill, from tax cuts to mass deportations However, the Senate bill goes after these rates by tying them to Medicaid expansion – a central tenet of Obamacare – and gives stricter limits to the 41 states that expanded the program. Doing this will effectively be 'punishing them', Machledt said, referring to states that participated in this key provision of Obamacare, 'by limiting the way they can finance'. Advocates also warned of unintended knock-on effects from such enormous disruption. Medical debt financing companies are already readying new pitches to hospitals. Even people who don't lose their insurance and are not insured through Medicaid could see prices increase. When Medicaid is cut, hospital emergency rooms are still obliged to provide stabilizing care to patients, even if they can't pay. Hospitals must then make up that shortfall somewhere, and the only payers they can negotiate with are commercial: for example, the private health insurance most people in the US rely on. 'Folks who do not lose their health insurance will see increased costs,' said Leslie Frane, the executive vice-president of SEIU, a union that represents about 2 million members, including in healthcare. 'Your copays are going to go up, your deductibles are going to go up, your bills are going to go up.' Republicans hope to pass the bill by 4 July.