Trump administration cancels contract with Moderna to develop bird flu vaccine
US President Donald Trump's administration on Wednesday, May 28, canceled a $590 million contract with Moderna to develop an avian flu vaccine, the US biotech company said. It marked the latest move against vaccines by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, who has spent decades promoting misinformation about immunization.
The contract, announced on January 17 – three days before Trump took office – was for an mRNA vaccine targeting the H5N1 influenza strain, which has been circulating in birds and cattle. Experts have warned the virus could jump to humans and spark a pandemic.
American pharmaceutical and biotechnology company Moderna disclosed the news as it announced positive results from an early-stage clinical trial of 300 people designed to test safety and immune response.
"While the termination of funding from HHS adds uncertainty, we are pleased by the robust immune response and safety profile observed in this interim analysis of the Phase 1/2 study of our H5 avian flu vaccine and we will explore alternative paths forward for the program," said CEO Stephane Bancel in a statement.
"These clinical data in pandemic influenza underscore the critical role mRNA technology has played as a countermeasure to emerging health threats." The statement added Moderna would "explore alternatives" for funding the development and manufacturing of the vaccine.
Dr. Ashish Jha, a public health expert who served as former president Joe Biden's Covid-19 response coordinator, reacted with dismay. "The attack on mRNA vaccines is beyond absurd," he posted on X. "It was President Trump's Operation Warp Speed that gave us mRNA vaccines."
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Local France
a day ago
- Local France
What you can and cannot do as a non-resident in France
This is a question that is particularly pertinent for second-home owners in France, but can also apply to those who just like to spend time here - should you keep your non-resident status or apply for French residency? Contrary to popular belief, simply owning property in France does not give you any extra rights, but there are some processes that are easier to access if you have a French address. Here's a look at what non-residents in France can and cannot do; Stay more than 90 days - NO If you are a non-EU citizen, you cannot stay more than 90 days out of every 180 in France unless you have a residency card. Some nationalities need a visa even for a short stay, but countries covered by the '90 day rule' (including the UK, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) allow their citizens to spend up to 90 days visa free. If you want to stay longer than that, you will need a visa. READ ALSO How does the 90-day rule work? Citizens of EU countries are not bound by the 90-day rule and can have unlimited stays (although if you stay more than six months per year you are likely to be counted as a tax resident in France ). There's a popular misconception that non-EU citizens who are married to an EU national also benefit from unlimited stays, although in reality it's not that simple . Right to enter France - NO If France ever closes its borders, as it did during the Covid pandemic, there are exemptions in place to allow foreigners resident in France to re-enter the country. Non-residents, however, get no special access and even those who own property here are treated as 'visitors' and denied entry. Hopefully this point won't be relevant in the future, but you never know. Access healthcare - YES The French healthcare system works on a reimbursement model, which means that everyone pays up front for a medical appointment, treatment or prescription. Those who are registered in the French system then get some or all of the cost reimbursed via the state Assurance maladie . Non-residents cannot register in the health system so they won't be reimbursed, but they can access any kind of healthcare in France if they don't mind paying out of pocket, or claiming the cost back later via their own health insurance or European health insurance (if applicable). Advertisement For non-urgent care such as a GP appointment people can be turned away if the doctor is busy or is not taking on new patients, but urgent care services such as hospital emergency departments and ambulances are open to all - non-resident foreigners cannot be turned away, but they may get a bill afterwards . READ ALSO How to access medical care in France Get a carte vitale - NO Proof of registration in the French system is the green card known as the carte vitale - you show this when paying medical costs and the reimbursement goes automatically into your bank account. You can apply for this after three months of living in France - however during the application process you must make a legal declaration that you are resident in France, making it non-applicable for non-residents. Advertisement Buy property - YES Foreigners are free to buy property in France and unlike some of its European neighbours the country is not considering any kind of restriction or extra taxes on foreign second-home owners. Owning property will of course bring you into the scope of French property taxes, and some areas do charge an extra tax on second homes. Accessing a French mortgage is likely to be difficult if you are a non-resident, but for cash buyers (or those who can secure a mortgage in their home country) the market is wide open. Ask the experts: Where is the best place in France to buy a second home? Rent property - YES If you're not ready to buy you might be looking to rent instead, and there are no specific restrictions on this for non-resident foreigners, but the process of getting a long-term lease is likely to be complicated. Tourist rentals such as Airbnb are of course available to foreigners, but these rentals cannot last for longer than 90 days. If you want to rent a place for longer, you will need to sign a tenancy agreement , and even resident foreigners often find that landlords are reluctant to rent to them. There are, however, no specific restrictions on renting to non-residents. Open a French bank account - YES This is especially common for second-home owners, since a French bank account is useful for setting up direct debits to pay utility bills or property taxes. Although most high-street French banks require you to be a resident there are options for non-residents including specialist accounts aimed at non-residents such as Crédit Agricole's BritLine (which despite the name is not limited to Brits). Americans in France (both resident and non-resident) face a particular challenge in opening a French bank account due to the FATCA legislation. Advertisement How to set up a bank account in France Internet banks such as Wise or Revolut are also popular options for second-home owners as they offer accounts in both euros and pounds/dollars with the option of an EU bank account number. Access property renovation grants - NO The French government has quite a few different schemes offering grants or loans to help people make home improvements. However, the majority of these are not open to non-residents. Any grant that is means-tested requires detailed information from your most recent annual tax declaration, meaning that they are in effect only open to people who live here and declare their income here. Buy a car - YES If you're spending time in rural France then you will likely need a car. It's common for second-home owners to buy a French car and leave it at their property for use when visiting. Although there are no specific restrictions on non-residents owning a car, you will have to search carefully for an insurance company willing to cover non-residents. There are some companies that offer specific packages for this, although they are usually more expensive than the local market. Advertisement Pay taxes - YES When it comes to paying taxes it's less that you 'can', more that you 'must' - and non-residents can still be liable for tax in France. There are two things to consider here; tax residency and French income/assets. Broadly speaking, the French consider you a tax resident if you spend more than six months of the year here - unlike being a resident in immigration terms, tax residency can happen automatically after spending a certain amount of time in the country. If you are considered to be a tax resident in France you will be required to complete the annual tax declaration - full details here . If you are not a tax resident in France, you may still have to complete the French annual tax declaration if you have income in France - this includes income from renting out a second home as a holiday rental. If you are neither tax resident nor have income in France but own property here then you won't have to complete the annual French tax declaration, but you will have to pay property taxes and complete the one-off property tax declaration . Find full information on the French tax system in our Tax Guides . Work in France - YES AND NO This one depends on your country of origin - if you are a non-EU citizen then you do not have the right to work in France apart from in certain specific circumstances such as attending a conference. EU citizens have the right to work in France. Vote - NO Voting rights for foreigners in France are quite limited even for residents - EU citizens who are resident in France can vote in local and European elections (but not presidential or parliamentary elections), while non-EU citizens living in France cannot vote at all. Non-resident foreigners have no voting rights in France, not even at the local level.
AFP
4 days ago
- AFP
'Make America Healthy Again' report cites nonexistent studies: authors
The highly anticipated "Make America Healthy Again" (MAHA) report was released on May 22 by the presidential commission tasked with assessing drivers of childhood chronic disease. But it included broken citation links and credits authors with papers they say they did not write. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt downplayed the errors as "formatting issues" during a press briefing on May 29 (archived here). "It does not negate the substance of the report," said Leavitt, who expressed confidence in Kennedy and his team, and insisted their work was "backed on good science." Image White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt takes questions during the daily briefing at the White House in Washington, DC, on May 29, 2025 (AFP / Jim WATSON) The issues were first reported May 29 by NOTUS (archived here), a US digital news website affiliated with the nonprofit Allbritton Journalism Institute. Noah Kreski (archived here), a Columbia University researcher listed as an author of a paper on adolescent anxiety and depression during the Covid-19 pandemic, told AFP the citation is "not one of our studies" and "doesn't appear to be a study that exists at all." The citation included a link (archived here) that purported to send users to an article in the peer-reviewed medical journal JAMA Pediatrics, but it was broken. Jim Michalski, a spokesman for the JAMA Network (archived here), said it "was not published in JAMA Pediatrics or in any JAMA Network journal." Columbia University epidemiologist Katherine Keyes (archived here), who was also listed as an author of the supposed JAMA study, told AFP she does research on the topic but does not know where the statistics credited to her came from, and that she "did not write that paper." She expressed concern about the error saying: "Citation practices are an important part of conducting and reporting rigorous science." She said she would be happy to send her actual research on depressive symptoms in adolescents and young adults "to the MAHA committee to correct the report, although I have not yet received information on where to reach them." Guohua Li, another Columbia University professor named in the citation (archived here), said the reference is "totally fabricated" and that he does not even know Kreski. AFP also spoke with Harold Farber, a pediatrics professor at Baylor College of Medicine (archived here), who said the paper attributed to him "does not exist" nor had he ever collaborated with the co-authors credited in the MAHA report. Similarly, Brian McNeill, spokesperson for Virginia Commonwealth University, confirmed that professor Robert Findling (archived here) did not author a paper the report says he wrote about advertising of psychotropic medications for youth. A fourth paper on ADHD medication was also not published in the journal Pediatrics in 2008 as claimed in the MAHA report, according to the journal's publisher, the American Academy of Pediatrics. A keyword search reveals a blog post with the same title as the purported paper, "Direct-to-consumer advertising and the rise in ADHD medication use among children" but it has a different author and is not a peer-reviewed publication (archived here). The Democratic National Committee blasted the report as "rife with misinformation" in a May 29 press release, saying Kennedy's agency "is justifying its policy priorities with studies and sources that do not exist" (archived here). Citations edited The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) declined to comment, referring AFP's questions to the White House. At her briefing, Leavitt declined to answer how the report was produced and whether artificial intelligence tools may have been used to craft it, directing those questions back to HHS. t reported its analysis of the citations showed "oaicite" was attached to the URLs, the presence of which indicates the use of artificial intelligence products from OpenAI (archived here). Within hours of the briefing, an edited version of the report replaced the original paper on the White House website (archived here). Changes are not flagged or marked as corrections, but the four citations investigated by AFP were replaced with working links. The modifications are as follows: The paper said to come from the team at Columbia University was swapped out for a reference to a briefing on the Teen National Health Interview Survey published by KFF (archived here). The nonexistent paper credited to Farber was replaced with a paper on oral corticosteroid medication prescribed for asthma he published in Pediatrics in 2017 (archived here). An article published in the journal Psychiatric Services in 2006 replaced the paper initially credited to Findling (archived here). The reference to a paper on ADHD medication advertising was supplanted by a 2013 article from The New York Times (archived here) Concerns about Kennedy The revelations about the MAHA study came just a day after Kennedy attacked major medical journals, accusing them of collaborating with the pharmaceutical industry and threatening to bar government scientists from publishing in them. Kennedy was approved as health secretary earlier this year despite widespread alarm from the medical community over his history of promoting vaccine misinformation and denying scientific facts. Since taking office, he has ordered the National Institutes of Health to probe the causes of autism -- a condition he has long falsely tied to the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. The report's chronic disease references appear to nod to that same disproven theory, discredited by numerous studies since the idea first aired in a late 1990s paper based on falsified data. It also criticizes the "over-medicalization" of children, citing surging prescriptions of psychiatric drugs and antibiotics, and blaming "corporate capture" for skewing scientific research. Image US Senator Roger Marshall (R-KS) (L) look on as Director of the National Institutes of Health Dr. Jayanta Bhattacharya holds up a copy of a MAHA health report during a MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) Commission Event in the White House in Washington, DC, on May 22, 2025. A White House report detailing Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s priorities devotes sizable space to stoking fear about vaccines -- even as it tackles more grounded worries over chemicals and diet. (AFP / Jim WATSON) Read more of AFP's reporting on health misinformation here. Gwen Roley and Manon Jacob contributed reporting to this article.
France 24
4 days ago
- France 24
Experts point out how TV's Dr House often got it wrong
But Dr Gregory House, the misanthropic genius who was the star of the long-running "House" television series, got an awful lot wrong himself, Croatian doctors claim. From a neurologist at work on the wrong end of a patient by performing a colonoscopy, or an MRI scan done by a physician who is clearly not a radiologist, Croatian researchers have pulled the American series up on its medical accuracy in a paper published this month. Denis Cerimagic, a professor at Dubrovnik University, and two fellow neurologists -- all big fans of the series -- listed 77 errors after analysing all 177 episodes of the show, which ran from 2004 to 2012. "We focused on the diagnoses of main cases, reality of clinical practice presentation and detection of medical errors," Cerimagic told AFP. He and his peers -- Goran Ivkic and Ervina Bilic -- broke the mistakes down into five categories including misuses of medical terminology, misinformation and simple weirdness -- something which the show's anti-hero, played by British star Hugh Laurie, possessed in abundance. That limp They included the use of mercury thermometers -- which had long given way to digital ones -- the term heart attack and cardiac arrest being used interchangeably when they are not the same, and that vitamin B12 deficiency can be corrected with just one injection. Nor is there a universal chemotherapy for all types of malignant tumours, as one episode suggested. But arguably the biggest error of all is that Laurie -- whose character's genius for deduction comes from the misdiagnosis that left him with a limp and chronic pain -- uses his cane on the wrong side. The stick should be carried on his unaffected side, Cerimagic said, though he understood why the actor had done it because "it's more effective to see the pronounced limp on the screen". Their research also found medical procedures being done by specialists who had no business being there, like an infectologist performing an autopsy. At times the series also stretched reality beyond breaking point, with the findings of complex laboratory tests done in just a few hours. And doctors rarely turn detective and take it upon themselves to enter patients' homes to look for environmental causes of illnesses. Not to mention Dr House's unethical behaviour -- "Brain tumour, she's gonna die" the paper quoted him as saying -- and the character's opiates addiction. The researchers say they may have missed other mistakes. "We are neurologists while other medical specialists would certainly establish additional errors," Cerimagic added. Medical errors Whatever their criticisms, the researchers say that modern medical series are far better produced than in the past, thanks to medical advisors. It is not like some 20 years ago when you had doctors looking at X-rays upside down, the neurologist said. "Now only medical professionals can notice errors," Cerimagic said. Despite its flaws, they thought the series could even be used to help train medical students. "The focus could be on recognising medical errors in the context of individual episodes, adopting the teamwork concept and a multidisciplinary approach in diagnosis and treatment," Cerimagic said. He said he and his colleagues were taken aback by the response to their paper "House M.D.: Between reality and fiction" -- which is not the first academic study to cast doubt on the good doctor and his methods.
