Local health officials call HHS decision to pull vaccine funding ‘unethical’

Clinical research centers across the US, including the Jacksonville Center for Clinical Research, are being impacted by the Department of Health and Human Services’ announcement to cancel contracts and withdraw funding for vaccines being developed to combat viruses like COVID-19 and the flu. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy said in a statement Tuesday that $500 million worth of vaccine development projects using mRNA technology will no longer receive federal funding, which will cause mRNA vaccine research to halt, or force pharmaceutical companies to use their own money to pay research clinics to continue conducting human trials of mRNA vaccines.