Feds Sink Millions Into mRNA Bird Flu Vaccine to Prepare for Hypothetical Pandemic

By Megan Redshaw

With the COVID-19 pandemic in the rearview mirror, the U.S. government is preparing for the next big thing as it sinks millions into an mRNA vaccine for a virus that currently poses little risk to humans.

Throwing all caution to the wind with a questionable technology linked to every condition from heart inflammation and prion diseases to aggressive cancers and death, the U.S. government recently awarded Moderna $176 million in funding to support the late-stage clinical trial of its mRNA bird flu vaccine. The award is part of a broader strategy to prepare for a hypothetical pandemic driven by avian flu.

“If this is a modRNA [modified RNA] vaccine, then we would have many of the similar concerns as for the C19 modRNA vaccines,” Dr. David Wiseman, a research bioscientist involved in medical product development, told Reform Pharma in an email.

Wiseman is referring to the COVID-19 injections, which resulted in more than 1.6 million reported adverse events, including nearly 38,000 deaths, to the government’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). VAERS data show nearly 11,000 of the 38,000 reported deaths are attributed to Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine.

Moderna is already testing its bird flu vaccine, mRNA-1018, in a phase 1/2 clinical trial that includes avian flu strains H5 and H7. According to the company’s trial data, none of the participants received inert placebos. Instead, they were given different versions and doses of the company’s mRNA-1018 vaccine.

The company says the results will inform its phase 3 trial, although it's questionable how a proper clinical trial can be performed when so few humans have acquired the infection.

According to HHS, Moderna's funding flows through BARDA, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, as part of a new Rapid Response Partnership Vehicle Consortium created to accelerate the development and rollout of medical countermeasures, including vaccines.

Under its contract with BARDA, Moderna will prepare materials and perform clinical trials to gather safety and immunogenicity data to support licensure, establish the means to scale up production, and put mechanisms in place to rapidly develop vaccines for new strains should there be a future public health emergency. 

HHS Uses BARDA To Help Vaccine Makers Cut Corners

BARDA distributes billions of federal dollars to pharmaceutical companies to develop vaccines and drugs for potential infectious disease outbreaks to accelerate clinical trials, scale up production capabilities, and speed up the regulatory process. It was used during the COVID-19 pandemic to do just that and arguably enabled pharmaceutical companies to cut corners.

It was BARDA, through Operation Warp Speed, that funded and supported the rapid development, manufacturing, and distribution of experimental COVID-19 vaccines that injured countless Americans.

In fact, BARDA is currently under investigation after Dr. Richard Bright, former BARDA director, alleged the organization was unduly influenced by political pressure to fund certain companies without sufficient scientific merit during the COVID pandemic.

Dr. Bright has spent his entire career in vaccine development. In addition to leading BARDA, he was Deputy Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response at HHS until he was reassigned and demoted for insisting BARDA funds be spent on “safe and scientifically vetted” proposals, not “drugs, vaccines, and other technologies that lack scientific merit.” HHS believes the mRNA technology used for Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine was “leveraged successfully” during the COVID-19 response, as it resulted in one of the two vaccines first authorized and licensed.

Only Five Confirmed Cases of Bird Flu Since 2022

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), avian influenza or bird flu is a disease caused by avian (bird) influenza (flu) Type A viruses. These viruses “naturally spread among wild aquatic birds” but can also infect domestic poultry and other bird and animal species. More recently, it has been detected in cattle. 

Even though Colorado has declared a “disaster emergency” prompted by avian flu, there have only been 11 bird flu cases in humans since 2022—and only five of those cases have been confirmed by the CDC. 

There has been no person-to-person spread, meaning the virus can not spread from human to human. The individual who reportedly developed bird flu in 2022 experienced fatigue. The nine cases reported this year reported mild symptoms such as eye redness, runny nose, or mild respiratory symptoms.

Although HHS says these preemptive measures are designed to protect Americans from future pandemics and public health emergencies, HHS is using tax dollars through agencies like BARDA to create and subsidize the vaccine treadmill.

Drug companies are given millions of dollars to create vaccines for hypothetical threats, while the corporate media generates headlines that make it look like a virus is far more prevalent than it actually is. There’s no stockpiling of nutrients like Quercitin and vitamin C or drugs like Ivermectin, low-dose Naltrexone, or hydroxychloroquine—the stockpiles are for vaccines and patented drugs.

The funding contract with Moderna also secured a “fair pricing agreement” to ensure “equitable access to vaccines” for a virus that isn’t circulating in humans because the government is dedicated to “leveraging investments now” for the benefit of American taxpayers “in the future.” 

Although a vaccine isn’t expected until next year, the timeline for Moderna’s bird flu vaccine can be sped up if there are more human cases, cases grow in severity, or if the virus develops the ability to transmit from person to person.

Conversations are also ongoing with Pfizer to develop a nucleoside-modified mRNA (modRNA) pandemic influenza vaccine against H5N1, and CSL Seqirus has already produced 4.8 million doses of a finished vaccine.

Rumor has it that farm workers will be the first lucky recipients gently coerced to roll up their sleeves.

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