Breaking: HHS Secretary Kennedy Halts Clinical Trials of Experimental, Multi-million Dollar COVID-19 Vaccine

By Adam Garrie, Breaking News Reporter, The Kennedy Beacon

Two weeks into his job leading the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Tuesday stopped production of the latest COVID-19 vaccine, from U.S. biotech company, Vaxart. The vaccine had been greenlit under the Biden administration.

The news was first reported on Fox.

“While it is crucial that the Department [of] Health and Human Services (HHS) support pandemic preparedness, four years of the Biden administration’s failed oversight have made it necessary to review agreements for vaccine production, including Vaxart’s," Kennedy told Fox News Digital.

Kennedy said that pausing the work order on the experiment was necessary due to “failed oversight” by Biden administration officials.

The HHS Secretary said he has stopped a clinical trial of the vaccine until his agency determines whether it is prudent and safe to continue. HHS said it will make a decision about whether to resume development within the next 90 days.

The move follows President Trump's drive to pivot public health bodies from focusing primarily on patient outcomes rather than the costly development of experimental and, in some cases, controversial drugs.

According to Fox News, the Biden administration has already shelled out $460 million of taxpayer money on the development of the Vaxart oral vaccine.

Kennedy's statement on the experimental vaccine came on a day when he joined President Trump in the Oval Office for the signing of an executive order (EO) — outlining a new commitment to provide every American greater transparency in all clinical settings.

Secretary Kennedy was put in charge of implementing the provisions of the EO along with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Lori Chavez-DeRemer, the President's nominee for Labor Secretary.

According to the EO that many are referring to as the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) EO:

"It is the policy of the United States to put patients first and ensure they have the information they need to make well-informed healthcare decisions. The Federal Government will continue to promote universal access to clear and accurate healthcare prices and will take all necessary steps to improve existing price transparency requirements; increase enforcement of price transparency requirements; and identify opportunities to further empower patients with meaningful price information, potentially including through the expansion of existing price transparency requirements."

As reported in The Kennedy Beacon, in addition to forcing pharmaceutical companies and clinicians to disclose the full cost-benefit analysis of a procedure or medication to a patient, the EO also mandates that healthcare providers disclose the full price of medical "items and services" rather than simply give estimates.

The Trump administration’s goal is to streamline the labyrinthine healthcare system while bringing down prices for patients. President Trump said that the previous administration failed to reduce healthcare costs to Americans.

The content of the EO and the HHS Secretary’s decision to pause the experimental vaccine development aligns with Kennedy’s pledge to put safety, efficacy and radical transparency at the heart of a health system guided by what he calls “gold standard science."