Reversing course on years of anti-vaccine rhetoric, President Donald Trump is preparing an executive order that seeks to compel the Department of Health and Human Services to modernize the flu vaccine and encourage mass inoculations.
That’s according to a report by Politico, which cited nine anonymous sources with knowledge of Trump’s plan based on related documents.
The executive order would codify work that’s already underway at HHS, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration, which for years have sought to revolutionize flu prevention with a universal, long-lasting vaccine.
Earlier this year, the director of the National Institutes of Health predicted a universal flu shot would be one of the 10 major medical breakthroughs in the next decade. The agency is conducting its first clinical trial of a flu vaccine that may be able to provide long-lasting protection for all age groups from multiple influenza subtypes.
Trump would direct the health department to develop an alternative to seasonal flu vaccines, which are typically egg-based and mass produced overseas. Research along these lines has been funded by HHS and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority for a decade.
People with knowledge of Trump’s plan said neither budget officials not Congress had signed off on any additional funding.
Trump also would create an interagency task force to monitor vaccine progress and explore new economic incentives for development.
The 2018 – 2019 flu season was the longest in a decade with two waves of the menacing type A virus, according to the CDC.
While adults 65 years and older are more likely to get vaccinated than are younger adults, deaths attributed to flu have risen steadily since the 2015 – 2016 flu season, peaking at 80,000 in 2017 – 2018, according to the AARP.
