Trump administration ending multiple HIV vaccine studies, scientists and officials say
Source: CBS News
May 30, 2025 / 7:37 PM EDT
The Trump administration has moved to end funding for a broad swath of HIV vaccine research, saying current approaches are enough to counter the virus, multiple scientists and federal health officials say. Notifications that the funding would not be extended were relayed Friday to researchers, who were told by National Institutes of Health officials that the Department of Health and Human Services had elected "to go with currently available approaches to eliminate HIV" instead.
The cuts will shutter two major HIV vaccine research efforts that were first funded by the NIH in 2012 at the Duke Human Vaccine Institute and the Scripps Research Institute, multiple scientists said. A spokesperson for Moderna said the vaccine manufacturer's clinical trials through the NIH's HIV Vaccine Trials Network have also been put on pause.
One senior NIH official said the HHS had also instructed the agency not to issue any more funding in the next fiscal year for HIV vaccine research, with only a small handful of exceptions. A budgetary rule change specifically targeted at HIV vaccine research is also expected to lead to another cut to the NIH's awards for studies initiated by scientists, an official said.
The change, to be finalized shortly, inflates the accounting for the upfront cost of studies into HIV vaccines funded by the agency. Instead of the cost of a five-year grant being spread out over five years, the NIH plans to make HIV vaccine dollars from multi-year grants all count toward a single year, the official said, making it harder for them to get funded.
Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-administration-ending-multiple-hiv-vaccine-studies/
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