A perfect storm has been brewing with health, politics, and the economy all crashing together at the center. Folks, it’s time to batten down the hatches, because we’re about to face this mess with fewer resources than we’ve ever had before. So here’s the story: the price of eggs played a significant role in the Mango Taco getting back into office. A contributing factor to the high prices has been a bird flu epidemic on the rise since 2022. Fun fact: the oldest way of manufacturing flu vaccines is to grow the virus in eggs; it allows the virus to replicate and then be inactivated, thus safe to inject and inoculate. Lucky for us, scientists have been developing mRNA vaccine technology for decades, which is what allowed Pfizer and Moderna to roll out the Covid vaccines as swiftly as they did. Well, the Department of Health & Human Services may have kneecapped the CDC’s communications team, but they made sure to get the word out on Wednesday that they’re canceling a $766 million contract with Moderna for a bird flu vaccine that was being developed using mRNA.
“After a rigorous review, we concluded that continued investment in Moderna’s H5N1 mRNA vaccine was not scientifically or ethically justifiable,” HHS Communications Director Andrew Nixon said in a statement.
“This is not simply about efficacy — it’s about safety, integrity, and trust. The reality is that mRNA technology remains under-tested, and we are not going to spend taxpayer dollars repeating the mistakes of the last administration, which concealed legitimate safety concerns from the public,” Nixon said.
He added that “the move signals a shift in federal vaccine funding priorities toward platforms with better-established safety profiles and transparent data practices. HHS remains committed to advancing pandemic preparedness through technologies that are evidence-based, ethically grounded, and publicly accountable.” The official did not provide any additional details.
Jennifer Nuzzo, the director of Brown University’s Pandemic Center, said the decision was “disappointing, but unsurprising given the politically-motivated, evidence-free rhetoric that tries to paint mRNA vaccines as being dangerous.”
“While there are other means of making flu vaccines in pandemic, they are slower and some rely on eggs, which may be in short supply,” Nuzzo added in an email. “What we learned clearly during the last influenza pandemic is there are only a few companies in the world that make flu vaccines, which means in a pandemic there won’t be enough to go around. If the U.S. wants to make sure it can get enough vaccines for every American who wants them during a pandemic, it should invest in multiple types of vaccines instead of putting all of our eggs in one basket.”
The cancellation comes even though Moderna says a study involving 300 healthy adults had produced “positive interim” results and the company “had previously expected to advance the program to late-stage development.”
…According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the H5N1 flu virus has spread to 1,072 dairy herds, more than 173 million poultry, and caused 70 human cases. While the virus has had a high mortality rate in other countries, so far H5N1 has only caused one death in the U.S. and has not shown any signs of spreading easily from one person to another. But infectious disease experts are concerned that the more the virus spreads, the greater the chance it could mutate into a form that would spread from person to person, which would increase the risk of a pandemic.
“The reality is that mRNA technology remains under-tested, and we are not going to spend taxpayer dollars repeating the mistakes of the last administration…” Ok, first of all, mRNA technology has been researched and tested for longer than Trump has dabbled in politics — by a couple decades. Second, the Covid vaccine was developed under Trump’s first term!!! Operation Warp Speed, remember?! Trump was squawking with the CDC to get the vaccines out in time to be his 2020 October Surprise, and then after he lost the election he was still pushing for it to be called “the Trump Vaccine.” (Barf) These f–king idiots.
I must applaud the elegant way in which Jennifer Nuzzo took a hatchet to HHS’s lies, complete with delicious egg references throughout. Her final caution against “putting all of our eggs in one basket” in particular was the icing on the cake. Or poached egg on an English muffin, as it were. The way Nuzzo also slid in that line that eggs “may be in short supply” was likewise, perfection. But it’s also the fraught position in which we find ourselves: eggs are in short supply in America — enough that people are stealing them off trucks — and this administration just cut us off from a viable, totally sound alternative.
Which came first: the chicken, or the eggheads running our government… into the ground.
Samuel Corum/POOL via CNP/INSTARimages.com, Niyi Fote/TheNews2/Cover Images, Getty and via Instagram
So I guess those of us who work in a hospital or school are just gonna be sitting ducks when the poo hits the fan? None of these people can produce a thought that sees past the next 30 seconds.
I won’t blame a single teacher or medical provider who says F that. The mortality rate for the bird flu in humans is 50%. These idiots are literally going to kills us all.
Felon47 and his crowd of christofacists, wanna-be oligarchs, and pathologically greedy billionaires WANT to kill off a lot of us.
The poors. The liberals. The people most likely to vaccinate. The people most likely to resist them.
They got a great start with Covid, with a nice side hustle of profiteering off medical supplies diverted from the public.
This time is all about the chaos, which leads both to failure of public confidence in the democratic system of government, and to increased opportunities to profit, as from the repeatedly tanking-then-reviving stock market, with its many chances to sell short and make bank.
They want this. They think they will be insulated from the effects by their money and power. And maybe they will.
Unless we #Resist.
It’s 50% without access to intensive medical care and intervention, but yeah, it’s nasty. I had Influenza A a few years back despite being vaccinated (they said the strain was literally one they had barely seen that year, lucky me!). Definitely one of the worst respiratory infections I ever had. I didn’t wind up going to the hospital, but I was totally knocked out for a week and had to briefly stay with my mother while she kept an eye on me. Took more than a month for me to regain full respiratory function, too. I couldn’t exercise or exert myself without coughing and gasping for weeks. If I’d been immune compromised, I likely would’ve wound up hospitalized, but I was a fairly healthy 30 something at the time.
I applaud the picture–shows off the Mango Chicken Taco’s bald spot and gosh, don’t his fingers look little next to that pen?
I’m assuming that other countries will continue to fund the development of these vaccines, but since our tax dollars will no longer be contributing, it won’t be available here!
I’ve never been so grateful that I live in a state that borders Canada. I hope Canadian pharmacies can handle the influx of Americans this Fall. You can bet if Trump got bird flu, he’d be getting whatever new treatment was available. F the rest of us. And for what? Moderna literally saved our lives by pioneering the Covid 19 vaccine. Its scientists deserve the Nobel Prize.
Katalin Karikó of BioNTech and her former colleague Drew Weissman of UPenn received the 2023 Nobel Prize in Medicine for their decades of pioneering work developing mRNA technologies that laid the foundation for the manufacturing of the COVID vaccine.
The so-called Pfizer vaccine was developed by BioNTech in Germany, Pfizer was their distribution partner.
That said, it is unimaginable how much the scientific community will suffer from fundings cuts etc wielded by Felon47’s maladministration.
Be it Moderna and the H5N1 vaccine, or Novavax, or the new COVID/Influenza combo developed by several companies. Or BioNTech and their testing on ~ 300 patients in the EU so far of an mRNA-based intervention — called cancer vaccine even if it isn’t — that can be used against lung cancer. Inventions the US won’t be able to profit from, for now, if they don’t contribute to funding research.
Cluck Trump.
Like Pepperidge Farm, I remember when Trump had COVID — and received top notch medical care and the benefits of cutting edge medical research. It would be a real shame if anything like that were to happen again with bird flu — with “shifts” like these impacting both clinical research and clinical care. A real shame. Just sayin’.
He then fired the doctor who saved his fucking life.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/4/3/2314343/-Trump-Just-Fired-the-Doctor-Who-Saved-His-Life
God I hate these people so much. Mid-terms cannot come fast enough.
I have been trying to only watch coverage on a few sites that mock the magat morons mercilessly. My blood pressure spikes when I read this lunacy. This is eugenics in action to deliberately m##### the elderly, immune compromised, disabled, developmentally disabled, pregnant women and children. Be careful out there. A nasty bug is lurking. I have seasonal allergies and have masked up in public consistently since February. About a month ago i got laid on my @$$ for weeks by an unknown virus(es) that was a combo of stomach flu, covid, rsv and flu (with seasonal allergies thrown in). I rested negative for every major virus, but I ended up with bronchitis. I haven’t felt that bad in years. The magats are morons to play chicken with this when so many of their supporters are not the picture of health. But. Here we are. Who are the sheep again?
It is my hope that when the ish hits the fan, as it undoubtedly will given the complete incompetence/malevolence of the GOP, that doctors and liberal people choose to withhold medical care from as many Republicans as possible. If they’re going to continue to denigrate medical care, medical workers, preventative care and everything else, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to make the decision to remove care from those people. We don’t give new livers to active alcoholics, for example.
There is no question that it’s only a matter of time until the first case of human-to-human transmission of bird flu. And because the CDC has been knee-capped, no one will be warned. When that time comes, we’re facing an Outbreak-level pandemic. It’s terrifying.
It is so upsetting how this administration is attacking science and medicine. We are going to feel this damage for a long time. I also find it so odd how people are so concerned with RNA vaccines but are fine with viral RNA and DNA entering their cells. “I’ve heard people say they don’t want any RNA added to their bodies.” But that is exactly what viruses do, just with more and more harmful ones.
Worse is the fact that we are all affected by the ignorant, vile policies of this administration. We are all vulnerable and will be for years to come as they curtail funding for vaccines, cancer research, and various other life-saving/forward thinking programs.
Honestly, I wouldn’t care if it only applied to his voters – eff em.
This isn’t even the worst thing the Republican Party has done this week. Or, should I say, it’s among several equally awful things, like Palantir creating a database of all Americans, probably with the data that Elon and his dumb dogs stole.
I will say this again: the Republican Party stole the 2024 election. Now why the Democratic Party simply rolled over and said NOTHING about this, requested zero recounts, nothing, didn’t mention how we had record turnout but about 11-20 million missing votes, I do not know.
But Election Truth Alliance and The Common Coalition have put out all sorts of papers indicating places where votes tallies were very plainly tampered with. I would put direct links but I do not think it’s allowed. Or, if you prefer watching to reading, Christopher Titus’s YouTube Channel has had Election Truth Alliance guests on to speak several times.
And it could be argued that Trump and Musk have both admitted several times to their cheating, including in the New York Times article about Musk’s alleged departure from the government. “On Oct. 5, he appeared with Mr. Trump at a rally for the first time, bouncing up and down around the candidate. That evening, Mr. Musk shared his excitement with a person close to him. “I’m feeling more optimistic after tonight,” he wrote in a text message. “Tomorrow we unleash the anomaly in the matrix.” “This is not something on the chessboard so they will be quite surprised,” Mr. Musk added about an hour later. “‘Lasers’ from space.”
I have thought that Trump cheated on the election when he won!! I know ALOT of people, and I am a VERY Vocal VERY Left leaning Democrat. Many co- workers and acquaintances that “were” old school Repubs before Don Old TURNED the party to s*it, some voted for him the first time but 2nd time all but 1 crossed the PARTY line and voted for Biden, and of course Joe beat his butt and the orange menace is a narcissist and couldn’t handle it so he lied , cheated, bribed people in high places BUT still LOST! So the 3rd round when Biden dropped out of race and Kamala stepped in and kicked ass; All those former Repubs crossed the party lines this time and voted for Kamala, but when Muskrat became dumps best friend and moneybag and PAID people to vote for Trump and judges allowed it, I had a Bad feeling and I am always right with my gut “FEELINGS”! I hoped Kamala would of contested it BUT she didn’t!! I think he cheated the 2nd time but they caught it AND he got mad cause he LOST and he got caught CHEATING!! They will be watched in 26 &28 Don’t trust THEM as far as I can throw THEM and that’s not VERY FAR lol !!! PEACE to all!! Keep fighting the GOOD fight!!!
This has been an issue since before this administration. Yes, this is terrible, but I get so heated watching people be surprised by this when the world has been living as if COVID went away. I’ve been masking since 2020 because I’m high risk. I get boosted (or did when I could). And I still isolate because no one else has cared about public health – about my life. So many people on here decrying eugenics – the same people who have been going maskless – and will continue to do so. It’s infuriating. It’s cognitive dissonance. And until people confront how we got here and that eugenics is *not* party-exclusive, we’ll continue with the same problems.
Scientists used mRNA technology to make great advances in cancer research as well as many other health issues but sure it’s “UnDeR-tEsTeD”.