Flu vaccine no longer mandated for U.S. troops

Kevin Wolf/AP

After more than half a century of mandatory vaccination, the U.S. military will no longer require all American troops to get the flu shot, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced yesterday. He said that service members will not be forced to get the shot “because your body, your faith, and your convictions are not negotiable.” The AP has more details.

Some interesting background that STAT editor Zachary Tracer pulled up: The history of these military mandates goes all the way back to 1777, when George Washington demanded all soldiers be inoculated against smallpox — something they did by smearing pus from a sick person into a small cut on a healthy person’s skin. When it comes to the flu vaccine specifically, the U.S. military pushed for the development of a shot after the 1918 pandemic, which killed more than 26,000 soldiers. The military first mandated the flu vaccine in 1945, and it’s been consistently required since the early 1950s.

research

Moderna continues bird flu vax study, but limits work in the U.S.

In other vaccine news: Last year, when the U.S. government canceled hundreds of millions of dollars of contracts with Moderna, one of the casualties was an effort to test and license a bird flu vaccine, a tool the world will want should the virus ever evolve to set off a pandemic.

But Moderna, with funding support from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, is pushing forward with a Phase 3 trial of its H5 messenger RNA shot, announcing Tuesday night that the first participants in the U.S. and U.K. had received doses of its candidate vaccine, mRNA-1018.

Notably, the bulk of the work — 3,000 of the 4,000 volunteers, and 26 of the 36 trial sites — is taking place in the U.K., while the rest happens in the U.S. At a media briefing, Hiwot Hiruy, a senior director of clinical development at Moderna, declined to say whether more of the trial would have been held in the U.S. if the country’s health department, led by vaccine critic Robert F. Kennedy Jr., hadn’t cut its support for the program.

The U.K., meanwhile, has been aiming to attract more investment from biopharma companies by speeding up the process of getting trials up and running. The country has also emphasized its particular enthusiasm for mRNA research, underscored by its decade-long partnership with Moderna. — Andrew Joseph

notable quotable

‘I know there’s a debate in this country, but boy, you’re picking on an agency that funds research, that finds cures.’

That was Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) responding to health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in a Senate appropriations health subcommittee hearing yesterday. As STAT’s Chelsea Cirruzzo reports, senators from both parties seemed skeptical of the proposed cuts to health research and public health in the White House’s budget. Read more on what this means for Congress' response to the administration’s dramatic proposals.

me so hungee

STAT's better-for-you snack smackdown

Camille MacMillin/STAT

The $156 billion packaged snack industry has spotted a business opportunity in the MAHA movement. There are Pop-Tarts with extra protein and SunChips built for fibermaxxing. Smaller, boutique brands tout products like onion rings and cheese balls with “clean” ingredients. But it’s more complicated than you might think to figure out whether munching on avocado-oil potato chips is actually better for us than the regular ole’ Lays. It involves parsing the research on ultra-processed foods and understanding both human snacking habits and corporate selling ones.

Luckily, STAT’s Sarah Todd was willing to do a lot of that work for us. In her latest story, Sarah talked to nutrition experts about this grocery aisle gold rush. She also taste-tested some specific products with our STAT colleagues in Brooklyn. Read more to find out which Tostitos queso substitute reminded another reporter of vomit.

mental health

Two major suicide foundations merge

The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) and the Jed Foundation announced yesterday that, as long as the New York attorney general approves, the groups will merge to form the country’s biggest suicide prevention nonprofit.

Already, AFSP asserts it is the largest private funder of suicide prevention research. Jed has historically focused on partnering with schools and community groups on programming and awareness campaigns. The new group will have an annual operating budget of around $75 million and net assets near $140 million. It will focus on building research and then translating that work into tools and policies for coordinated suicide prevention from youth through adulthood.

The announcement comes at a time when federal funding may feel rather tenuous. Last year, the Trump administration’s funding cuts decimated the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, grinding much of the agency’s work to a halt.

first opinion

What happens when you get a cold on the moon?

After the Artemis II mission, NASA leadership announced that the journey was the beginning of a lunar “relay race” that will have a crew of humans operating out of a moon base within the next decade. The eventual goal? Mars.

In a new First Opinion essay, biosciences professor Scott E. Solomon argues that human health will be an important factor in these efforts, particularly when it comes to immunology and infectious disease. Once humans have a base on the moon, so will all sorts of microorganisms that will quickly start going through evolutionary changes. Read more on how we should prepare.

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