The Trump administration has moved to terminate funding for a broad range of HIV vaccine research programs, citing the adequacy of current HIV prevention approaches, according to multiple scientists and federal health officials. The decision affects major research initiatives that have been ongoing for over a decade and comes at what researchers describe as a critical juncture in HIV vaccine development.
Major Research Programs Shuttered
Notifications of funding termination were delivered Friday to researchers, who were informed by National Institutes of Health officials that the Department of Health and Human Services had elected "to go with currently available approaches to eliminate HIV" instead of continuing vaccine research efforts.
The cuts will close two significant HIV vaccine research programs that received initial NIH funding in 2012 at the Duke Human Vaccine Institute and the Scripps Research Institute. Additionally, Moderna confirmed that its clinical trials conducted through the NIH's HIV Vaccine Trials Network have been placed on pause.
A senior NIH official revealed that HHS has instructed the agency to halt new HIV vaccine research funding for the next fiscal year, with only limited exceptions. The administration is also implementing a budgetary rule change that will inflate the accounting for HIV vaccine studies by requiring multi-year grant costs to be counted in a single year rather than spread across the grant period, making future funding more difficult to secure.
Scientific Community Responds
"For HIV vaccine design and development, we've begun to see light at the end of the tunnel after many years of research. This is a terrible time to cut it off. We're beginning to get close. We're getting good results out of clinical trials," said Dennis Burton, an immunology professor at Scripps Research.
Burton emphasized the long-term consequences of the decision, warning that HIV vaccine research cannot simply be restarted if future administrations reverse course. "This is a decision with consequences that will linger. This is a setback of probably a decade for HIV vaccine research," he stated.
Dr. Barton Ford Haynes, a Duke professor of medicine and member of the Duke Human Vaccine Institute, explained the unique challenges in HIV vaccine development: "HIV has established roadblocks to us fighting it off, which are unparalleled in vaccinology. We've had to learn what each of the roadblocks are and to devise ways to overcome it. This virus mutates so quickly."
Haynes described their research approach as "essentially combining multiple different vaccines" to design an effective HIV vaccine.
Administration Justification
HHS spokesperson Emily Hilliard defended the cuts, stating that "complex and duplicative health programs have resulted in serious duplication of efforts." She noted that "27 separate programs that address HIV/AIDS" had spent $7.5 billion.
"The Administration believes the United States should have the best medical research in the world. To that end, we are advancing policies to maximize the impact of every federal taxpayer dollar and ensure proper oversight of this funding," Hilliard said.
Hilliard claimed that "critical HIV/AIDS programs will continue" under a proposed new agency called the Administration for a Healthy America, which Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has suggested creating.
Timing and Alternative Treatments
The funding cancellation comes weeks before the Food and Drug Administration's June 19 deadline for deciding on approval of lenacapavir, a twice-yearly injectable drug for HIV prevention developed by Gilead Sciences. The drug builds on NIH-backed research into earlier HIV medications and demonstrated 100% effectiveness in preventing transmission in clinical studies.
Despite praising lenacapavir as a "wonderful development for the field," Haynes emphasized that a vaccine remains necessary. He noted that lenacapavir requires injections every six months to maintain effectiveness, presenting logistical challenges, particularly given concurrent cuts to CDC domestic HIV programs and U.S.-backed HIV/AIDS foreign aid programs.
"The hope was that adding an HIV vaccine to all the preventive measures that we have would finally allow us to end the pandemic," Haynes said.
Scientific Perspective on Vaccine Necessity
An NIH official, speaking without authorization, challenged the administration's rationale that current HIV prevention strategies eliminate the need for a vaccine. The official stated that "the only way of ending the HIV epidemic in the U.S. and AIDS pandemic worldwide" is through vaccine development.
The decision represents a significant shift in federal HIV research priorities, affecting programs that have been working to overcome the unique challenges posed by HIV's rapid mutation rate and complex immune evasion mechanisms that have made vaccine development particularly challenging compared to other infectious diseases.
