Health Officials Announce New Effort to Develop Universal Vaccines Targeting Multiple Virus Strains
Federal health officials on May 1 announced a new effort to develop vaccines targeting a range of viruses, including the virus that causes COVID-19.
The Generation Gold Standard project will fund the National Institutes of Health (NIH) development of 'universal influenza and coronavirus vaccines' that 'aim to provide broad-spectrum protection against multiple strains of pandemic-prone viruses,' including the avian influenza—commonly known as the bird flu—and SARS-CoV-2, or the virus that causes COVID-19, the NIH and its parent agency
The budget of the new project has not been disclosed. Officials said that it was being promoted over Project NextGen, a $5 billion initiative started in 2023 under the previous administration that focused primarily on COVID-19.
'It delivers a cost-effective, accountable alternative to the Biden administration's wasteful Project NextGen, which spent $1.63 billion on COVID-19 vaccines and $1.19 billion on therapeutics, neglecting broader pandemic preparedness,' a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the NIH's parent agency, told The Epoch Times in an email.
One of the NIH's vaccine candidates, BPL-1357, performed well in a phase one safety study, the NIH's principal deputy director, Dr. Matthew Memoli, and other researchers
BPL-1357, an intranasal vaccine billed as providing protection against a number of influenza A viruses, is being tested in clinical trials and is on track for regulatory approval by 2029, officials said.
Related Stories
4/18/2025
5/1/2025
Another candidate, BPL-24910, has been tested for toxicity, according to
The platform from which the vaccines come is fully owned by the government, which 'ensures radical transparency, public accountability, and freedom from commercial conflicts of interest,' health officials said.
They also said that vaccines could eventually be developed with the platform against several other viruses, including the respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV.
'Our commitment is clear: every innovation in vaccine development must be grounded in gold standard science and transparency, and subjected to the highest standards of safety and efficacy testing,' Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a statement.
NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya added: 'Generation Gold Standard is a paradigm shift.
'It extends vaccine protection beyond strain-specific limits and prepares for flu viral threats—not just today's, but tomorrow's as well—using traditional vaccine technology brought into the 21st century.'
Officials had
Some companies, including Moderna, have been working on vaccines that target both COVID-19 and the flu, but none have been submitted for approval.
Project NextGen provided funding for multiple companies to develop new COVID-19 vaccines, in addition to funding for new treatments and other measures that could help with future COVID-19 outbreaks.
HHS stopped distributing funding to Vaxart and Geovax, which are developing COVID-19 vaccines under Project NextGen, although it recently lifted the stop-work order for Vaxart's study.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
21 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Ukrainian K-2 regiment's ground robots successfully evacuate four wounded soldiers in four days
The 20th K-2 Separate Unmanned Systems Regiment, led by Lieutenant Colonel Kyrylo Veres, has released a new video highlighting the use of ground-based robotic systems in rescuing soldiers. In the video, Veres says his regiment's robotic ground platforms have successfully evacuated four wounded soldiers in four days. Source: 20th K-2 Separate Unmanned Systems Regiment Quote: "Soon you will witness changes that will significantly increase the chances of survival for an ordinary infantryman. I'm not just talking about our unit, but about all the units in the defence forces. After all, K-2's job is to work in the interests of neighbouring brigades and save the lives of their men on the ground." Details: Veres added that following the successful use of drones in the air and at sea, the military is moving on to automate ground operations. One success story where a wounded soldier was evacuated with a ground drone was reported by the 13th Khartiia Brigade of the National Guard of Ukraine. The brigade successfully evacuated a wounded man using the Tarhan ("Cockroach") ground robotic system. The drone was able to deliver the wounded man to the evacuation team along a 12-km-long route. "The soldier in need of medical assistance was loaded onto the ground robotic system and successfully delivered to the evacuation team, from where he was taken to doctors," the team noted. This is further proof that the use of ground robotic systems is becoming increasingly common in the evacuation of wounded soldiers. More information about the use of ground drones in the Khartiia Brigade, including for the evacuation of military personnel, can be found in this article by Oboronka. Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon!
Boston Globe
an hour ago
- Boston Globe
Biden's doctor failed to properly assess fitness for office, Obama's doctor says
The rare criticism of one White House doctor by another comes as Republicans have increased scrutiny of O'Connor and other former White House aides. House Republicans subpoenaed O'Connor on Thursday, a day after President Donald Trump ordered White House attorneys to determine whether Biden's inner circle tried to conceal his alleged cognitive decline. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Kuhlman also said the 2024 report merely assessed Biden's health when it should have considered his fitness to serve in one of the most taxing jobs on the planet. Advertisement 'It shouldn't be just health, it should be fitness,' Kuhlman said. 'Fitness is: Do you have that robust mind, body, spirit that you can do this physically, mentally, emotionally demanding job?' O'Connor did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Biden's recent disclosure of metastatic prostate cancer and reporting about his alleged physical and cognitive decline have fueled suspicion - among Democrats as well as Republicans - that the true state of Biden's health toward the end of his term was known only by O'Connor and a few others closest to Biden. Advertisement Journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson sketched a picture of a well-meaning but weakened president in a book they released last month. The book, which draws on interviews with dozens of Democratic insiders after the 2024 election, paints a portrait of a man suffering at times from forgetfulness, incoherence and fatigue. It also says that O'Connor was reluctant to give Biden a cognitive test, though he was assessed by a neurologist for conditions such as Parkinson's disease. Biden gave a sarcastic response last week. 'You can see that I'm mentally incompetent, and I can't walk, and I can beat the hell out of both of them,' he told reporters at a Memorial Day event, apparently referring to Tapper and Thompson. Biden's granddaughter Naomi Biden has called the book 'political fairy smut.' The book isn't the first time Biden's cognitive state has been questioned. Special counsel Robert K. Hur said in February 2024 that Biden had 'limited precision and recall' - including not remembering when his vice-presidential term ended - after Hur conducted two days of interviews with Biden about his handling of classified documents. Kuhlman formerly worked alongside O'Connor in the White House medical unit, a nonpartisan post, and appointed him in 2009 to serve as then-Vice President Biden's personal doctor. Kuhlman was Obama's physician from 2009 to 2013. O'Connor examined Biden - and signed his name to the February 2024 medical report that said the president 'continues to be fit for duty' - four months before a disastrous campaign debate between Trump and Biden prompted Democrats to call for Biden to step down as the nominee. Advertisement Kuhlman, who left the medical unit in 2013, said he tries not to criticize those who have held similar positions. He called O'Connor 'a good doctor' who seemed to do his best to 'give trusted medical advice.' 'I didn't see that he's purposely hiding stuff, but I don't know that,' he said. 'Maybe the investigation will show it.' Kuhlman wrote a 2024 book about his experiences in the White House Medical Unit in which he argued for cognitive testing for older candidates and presidents. O'Connor's six-page report included Biden's lab results and an explanation of various conditions for which he was being treated. It also listed 10 medical specialists, including a neurologist, who also examined Biden. 'President Biden is a healthy, active, robust 81-year-old male, who remains fit to successfully execute the duties of the presidency,' O'Connor wrote. White House doctors have long been under intense public scrutiny, balancing the deeply personal doctor-patient relationship with a responsibility to tell the American public whether the president is fit to serve - and if not, why. Some have gone to great lengths to hide when the president is severely ill - as Grover Cleveland's doctors did when they turned a yacht into an operating room to secretly remove a tumor from the president's mouth in 1893. Presidential physicians also are expected to communicate to Americans personal information about the very person who could fire them. 'Whether it's family who are worried for them or people who work for them and don't want to lose their jobs, no one has a vested interest in hearing the truth about the president's health - except for the American people and the world,' said Barbara Perry, a presidential historian at the University of Virginia. Advertisement It has not always been clear what role the White House doctors see for themselves. Even as they are often close confidants of the president, they must consider the good of the country in their recommendations about what tests and treatments to pursue. O'Connor repeatedly refused last year to administer a cognitive exam to Biden even as aides privately expressed concerns about his mental fitness, according to Tapper and Thompson's book. Trump's former doctors, including Ronny Jackson and Sean Conley, have at times sounded more like cheerleaders for the president than sober judges of his health. His current doctor, Sean Barbabella, mentioned Trump's 'frequent victories in golf events' in the first medical report of his second term. Jackson suggested to the media in 2018 that Trump had 'incredibly good genes' and joked that he might live to 200 years old if his eating habits were more healthful. Jackson, now a Republican congressman from Texas, was demoted by the U.S. Navy after an inspector general report shed light on multiple misdeeds involving alcohol and harassment while he served in the White House medical unit. Conley, who succeeded Jackson, repeatedly downplayed the severity of Trump's symptoms when he was hospitalized with covid-19 in the fall of 2020. Past presidents who didn't want the public to know the truth about their poor health have orchestrated elaborate cover-ups. After Woodrow Wilson suffered a major stroke in 1919, leaving him with a paralyzed left side, his doctor conspired with Wilson's wife to keep his condition hidden from his own Cabinet. Advertisement Cleveland insisted the operation to remove his tumor be secretly performed on a friend's yacht, under the guise that he was on a fishing trip near his summer home on Long Island. The administration denied an initial report about the surgery, and the truth wasn't widely accepted until after Cleveland's death many years later, when one of his doctors publicly confessed. On the other hand, Dwight D. Eisenhower reportedly ordered his press secretary to 'tell them everything' after suffering a heart attack in 1955. His surgeons regularly briefed the public after his heart surgery. But medical transparency is only as strong as the president wants it to be. Like regular Americans, the president is protected by medical privacy laws, so disclosing any health information is ultimately up to him. An additional challenge, former White House doctors and presidential historians say, is that there is no official requirement for how often a president should undergo an exam, what the exam should include and which of the results should be made public. 'There's nothing codified about what to do,' said Kuhlman, who also served on the White House medical unit under George W. Bush. White House doctors traditionally conduct an annual physical exam on the president and release a memo of varying length that includes vital signs, a summary of the physical examination and the results of blood tests. These memos generally conclude with some kind of pronouncement from the doctor that the president is fit to execute the duties of the presidency. Trump's and Biden's doctors have largely followed that pattern, although the reports on Biden's health have been significantly longer and more detailed than the reports on Trump. Advertisement Kuhlman and Lawrence Mohr, who served as physician to Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, said they were never asked by any president to withhold medical information in their reports. Mohr said he recalls that there was 'never any question' about being candid about the president's health. 'You never lie; never, never say anything that's not true,' Mohr said. 'You put out a clear press release about what's going on, what to expect and you get it out there. If you don't do that, you end up with all sorts of speculation.' Reagan was 77 when he left office and five years later announced he had Alzheimer's disease. He faced similar questions about his fitness to serve. Mohr recollected administering the Mini-Mental State Examination - a test used to assess cognitive function - to the 40th president. Trump's doctors have given him a different cognitive test, the Montreal Cognitive Assessment. But cognitive tests are not standard practice. Neither George W. Bush nor Obama took one, Kuhlman said. But they were much younger while in office than Biden. 'I was fortunate to have 50-year-old patients instead of 80-year-old ones,' Kuhlman said.
New York Post
an hour ago
- New York Post
Biden should've been given multiple cognitive tests while in the White House, Obama's doctor says
WASHINGTON — Joe Biden's doctor should've made him undergo multiple neurocognitive tests during his presidency, former President Barack Obama's physician told The Post. Jeffrey Kuhlman, who served as Obama's doctor from 2009 to 2013, highlighted in a phone interview Saturday how Biden — and all politicians over the age of 70 — should be submitted to 'a few hours' of annual mental exams and release those results to the public. 'My position is that a 78-year-old candidate, Trump at the time, an 82-year-old president [Biden] would both benefit from neurocognitive testing,' said Kuhlman, who published a book 'Transforming Presidential Healthcare,' recommending that in November 2024. Advertisement 'Any politician over the age of 70 has normal age-related cognitive decline,' Kuhlman said, pointing out that he's been making the recommendation for nearly a year — and did so in a New York Times op-ed on the day Biden bowed out of the 2024 race. 'If you look at his three physicals that were released as president, Dr. [Kevin] O'Connor wrote five to six pages, single-spaced. He referenced 10 to 20 specialist physicians.' 5 Joe Biden's doctor should've made him undergo multiple neurocognitive tests during his presidency, former President Barack Obama's physician told The Post. Getty Images Advertisement But the tests did not include any neurocognitive work, nor did Biden submit to the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, as Trump did in his first term, a two-minute screening comprising around 30 questions to test for signs of dementia, according to Obama's ex-physician. 'I have no doubt that President Trump aced it,' he said of the test, but said the current White House, in the interest of full transparency, should also release CT scans that were taken after the assassination attempt against the Republican candidate in Butler, Pa., last July. Kuhlman added the Montreal Cognitive Assessment isn't adequate to determine more serious mental slippage, one of the three main areas that medical professionals should be considering when evaluating the president, along with cancer and cardiovascular issues. Memory, reasoning, speed of processing and spacial visualization all begin to decline around the age of 60, he also said. Advertisement 5 Kevin O'Connor served as Biden's doctor during his vice presidency, overlapping with Kuhlman in the White House medical unit. David Lienemann/The White House O'Connor served as Biden's doctor during his vice presidency, overlapping with Kuhlman in the White House medical unit. Kuhlman said he 'respects' O'Connor's 'medical judgment,' but also told The Washington Post: 'Sometimes those closest to the tree miss the forest.' In apparently his only media interview during Biden's term, O'Connor insisted to The Post in July 2024 that the president's cognitive health was 'excellent' — days after being forced out of a re-election bid and replaced by Vice President Kamala Harris due to a dismal debate performance June 27. Advertisement 5 Kuhlman said he 'respects' O'Connor's 'medical judgment,' but also told The Washington Post: 'Sometimes those closest to the tree miss the forest.' Getty Images In a break from his predecessors, Biden's doctor never answered questions from the press in the White House briefing room but submitted annual physical reports that noted some physical ailments without addressing the president's mental acuity, other than to say he was 'fit for duty.' 'The president doesn't need a cognitive test,' claimed White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre in a February 2024 briefing following what would be Biden's final physical as commander-in-chief. 'He passes a cognitive test every day.' White House visitor logs show the oldest-ever president did submit to evaluation from an expert in Parkinson's disease and 20-year veteran of Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Dr. Kevin Cannard, but O'Connor said the January 2024 meeting was part of Biden's annual physical. 'If somebody turns up a report that Kevin Cannard said he has Parkinson's,' said Kuhlman, 'then that's a completely different story, but we have 14 years of Kevin Cannard evaluating him and that's who I would trust.' 5 O'Connor said that was part of his annual physical and ruled out a Parkinson's diagnosis, though other doctors expressed skepticism. American Osteopathic Association O'Connor said that was part of his annual physical and ruled out a Parkinson's diagnosis, though other doctors expressed skepticism. 'I could've diagnosed him from across the Mall,' neurologist Dr. Tom Pitts told NBC in July 2024, pointing to Biden's 'rigidity,' 'shuffling gait' and 'slow movement.' Advertisement Special Counsel Robert Hur, who determined that Biden 'willfully' hoarded classified documents after leaving the Obama White House, chose not to bring charges months earlier that year in February, in part because a jury would view the president as a 'sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory.' The Republican-led House Oversight Committee subpoenaed O'Connor on Thursday to appear for questioning about the former president's mental abilities on June 27. 5 The Republican-led House Oversight Committee subpoenaed O'Connor on Thursday to appear for questioning about the former president's mental abilities on June 27. AP Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) in a cover letter accompanying the subpoena suggested the doctor's past 'financial relationship with the Biden family' may have 'contributed to an effort to hide former President Biden's fitness to serve from the American people.' Advertisement Jean-Pierre, who left the Democratic Party and is publishing a tell-all book about the 'broken' Biden administration, is also expected to be hauled in for testimony. Days before a book was set to be published alleging a vast cover-up of his decline during his last two years in the White House, Biden announced that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer that had spread to his bones. The book, 'Original Sin,' notes that O'Connor was reluctant to administer a cognitive test, according to co-authors Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson. Advertisement Kuhlman said O'Connor had conducted tests for that kind of cancer between 2009 and 2014 when they served together in the White House, but it may not have been 'worth doing in the next 10 years' based on the findings of that final exam, known as a PSA, in the vice presidency. 'I hope that Kevin O'Connor had that conversation every year with his patient, Joe Biden, and documented that in the medical record,' he said. 'If he did the PSA and chose not to release it, I don't agree with that.'
