Elon Musk's Assault on the Government Has Canceled a Human Trial for a Promising HIV Vaccine
Billionaire Elon Musk's assault on the US Agency for International Development (USAID) is already proving devastating for ongoing, life-saving research.
Case in point, as Science reports, researchers across eight African countries were set to launch a phase 1 clinical trial of two experimental HIV vaccines.
But now that foreign aid funding has officially been frozen for at least three months by president Donald Trump's administration, the trial is indefinitely on hold.
The trials were designed to evaluate the safety and immune response of two experimental HIV vaccines, dubbed BG505 GT1.1 and 426c.Mod.Core-C4b, in HIV-negative adults.
Scientists have been excited about the discovery of HIV-1 broadly neutralizing antibodies (bnAbs), which could realize a new generation of vaccines against the deadly sexually transmitted virus.
"The vaccines are in the country," South African Medical Research Council chief scientific officer Glenda Gray told Science. "The regulators have approved the study. [Clinicians] at the sites have been trained."
USAID had recently awarded more than $45 million to the BRILLIANT Consortium, a pan-African program established to advance the HIV vaccine field. But with the Trump administration yanking all funding, Gray and her colleagues had to cancel the trials.
"It would be unethical to start a study that you can't guarantee you can continue," she told Science, calling Trump's decision to cut off aid as "tectonic."
Besides funding HIV vaccine research, Trump's executive order, which pauses new obligations for US foreign aid and introduces a "90-day pause" on existing foreign development assistance, is also grinding other potentially lifesaving research to a halt.
As Agence France-Press reports, USAID's President's Malaria Initiative (PMI) is also in limbo. The funding freeze caught its staffers, some of whom have built entire careers around the initiative, by surprise.
"I have never been more stunned by anything in my life," former PMI senior community health adviser Anne Linn, who was fired last week, told AFP. "I don't know how anyone could possibly justify that. The cruelty and the waste of it all."
What particularly stands out is Musk's motivations for targeting USAID. The richest man in the world has since called the agency "evil" and a "criminal organization," outright calling for its destruction and furthered harebrained conspiracy theories that link USAID to the outbreak of COVID.
The billionaire's crusade against the foreign aid agency will likely play an insignificant role in his overly ambitious plans to excise $2 trillion from the federal government's budget as foreign aid makes up less than one percent of the total budget.
Instead, as some have suggested, Musk has needlessly sentenced "thousands, if not hundreds of thousands" to die, as one anonymous USAID official told Politico.
As The Lever reported earlier this week, Musk also appears to have a huge conflict of interest motivating him to gut USAID, as the agency's inspector general was investigating his Starlink partnership with the Ukrainian government.
Following the whirlwind of Musk's excoriating comments and his inexperienced minions infiltrating USAID's offices, the agency's new acting leader, secretary of state Marco Rubio, has promised in a waiver that "implementers of existing life-saving humanitarian assistance programs should continue or resume work if they have stopped."
What exactly counts as "life-saving" assistance will likely remain contentious. As AFP reports, Linn and her colleagues have yet to resume work. According to Science, however, anti-HIV drug distribution does fall under the vague header.
Rubio has also since clarified his personal stance on the matter, arguing in a recent televised segment that the US isn't a "global charity" and that "these are taxpayer dollars."
In short, the Trump administration's vengeful plot to sabotage USAID has already caused major chaos around the world.
"It's an absolute mess," Middle East at Refugees International senior advocate Jesse Marks told AFP. "All of these organizations who received stop-work orders need to communicate with USAID about what it all means... But there is no one on the other line to answer."
Beyond putting thousands of lives in danger, experts have since pointed out that the US is surrendering a huge amount of geopolitical influence and goodwill — and the money saved by abandoning USAID is pitiful in comparison.
"If we're not there as a country giving them an alternative to Chinese investment, I guarantee you [China] will start funding the hospitals for goodwill," Jason Glaser, CEO of a US-based nonprofit named the La Isla, told Science.
"The Trump administration has just put America last, while handing a gift to our biggest adversaries, notably China," former USAID Bureau for Asia assistant administrator Michael Schiffer wrote in a recent opinion piece. "America's alliances will suffer. US partners will be at risk. And America's enemies will rejoice."
More on USAID: Elon Musk Reportedly Has a Huge Conflict of Interest Motivating Him to Gut USAID
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