The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention earlier this month quietly announced 10 upcoming grant opportunities. Nearly half of them are focused on immunizations and infectious diseases.
One even calls for research into methods to promote vaccines.
The grant opportunities were published days before Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cancelled all federal contracts with companies developing mRNA vaccines. Kennedy said the cancellations were necessary to shift funding to “safer, broader vaccine platforms.
But public health officials disagreed — and told NOTUS they don’t see the new grant opportunities as enough to make up for the more than $500 million in cancelled mRNA contracts.
“It’s hard to see how it can counter,” said Gigi Gronvall, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “But it’s hard to imagine that anything positive is going to happen when the secretary has been an anti-vaxxer for decades.”
“I don’t know why anyone expects that duck to start barking,” Gronvall said.
Nicholas Evans, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania who studies bioethics and public health, said that the forecasted grants offered little consolation after the mRNA research cuts.
“I’d be surprised if these studies can make back what BARDA has lost in vaccine development and match the public health investment dollar for dollar, given that CDC funding has been stagnant or worse for years,” Evans said.
Still, the grant forecasts are notable for the language they use; many counter some of the rhetoric from leadership at the Department of Health and Human Services dismissing the importance of immunizations.
Some of the forecasted grants call for vaccine-related research to support the agency’s decisions on future vaccine policy, including one that asks for research proposals into “the economic impacts of vaccines to support immunization policy and programs.”
That grant forecast goes on to say that the results of the research may be used by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and will “guide policy and public health decision-makers in enhancing immunization strategies.”
In response to questions about the grants, an HHS spokesperson said via email that the “decision to vaccinate is a personal one.”
“The CDC continues to recommend individuals speak with their healthcare providers on their options,” the spokesperson continued. “As the secretary said, ‘Let me be absolutely clear: HHS supports safe, effective vaccines for every American who wants them. That’s why we’re moving beyond the limitations of mRNA and investing in better solutions.’”
The spokesperson did not answer questions about the specific grant forecasts published earlier this month.
Since taking his cabinet position, Kennedy has fired the entire membership of ACIP and replaced them with scientists of his own choosing, at least half of whom have a history of questioning vaccines. The White House’s Make America Healthy Again Commission report distorted research to question vaccine safety, scientists told NOTUS.
Now, the CDC wants to do its own research on vaccines.
“By promoting cost-effective vaccination interventions, these efforts seek to save lives and cut costs on communities and society,” the economic modeling grant forecast concludes.
The grant forecasts — with technical titles like “Preparedness for and Prevention of Severe Disease and Sequelae of Respiratory Viruses and Other Respiratory Pathogens” — appeared on a website where the federal government advertises future funding opportunities before they are officially opened for researcher applications.
All 10 grant forecasts were published on July 31 and Aug. 1. That puts their publication immediately after the swearing in of the CDC’s new director, Susan Monarez.
One CDC official, who requested anonymity in order to speak frankly about their employer, said the timing wasn’t due to Monarez specifically.
“It’s less Monarez, more that the apportionments are moving,” they said. The CDC drew criticism for confusion over who was running the agency before Monarez was confirmed.
Even if Monarez wasn’t directly involved in the new grants, their existence may be a sign the CDC is trying to retain its reputation for using evidence-based science to support public health. Monarez herself is a well-respected career public health official and was brought on to replace the Trump administration’s first nominee for CDC director, Dave Weldon, a vaccine-denying former congressman and doctor.
“I do hope, and expect, that Dr. Monarez will not undermine CDC’s efforts to conduct research on vaccines and to promote their use,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at the Brown University School of Public Health. “She said so in her hearing, and that would be consistent with what I’ve known of her for the last 10-plus years.”
“Of course, there are reasonable concerns that the secretary of HHS will override her,” Nuzzo added.
One forecasted grant calls for a network of flu modeling and forecasting with the goal of informing strategies to “mitigate influenza morbidity and mortality, including in disproportionately affected populations, which include those with historically lower uptake and access to mitigation measures such as vaccination and antivirals.”
Two of the postings involve travel-associated infectious diseases. One calls for research into how to increase the proportion of international travelers who receive a pretravel health consultation, which it says is an important opportunity for health care providers to “provide recommended vaccinations and drug prophylaxis.”
One forecast, the “Preparedness for and Prevention of Severe Disease and Sequelae of Respiratory Viruses” initiative, says researchers “may also obtain data from large administrative electronic health record (EHR) databases using linked maternal and infant records, laboratory results, vaccine/immunization records, and data from inpatient and outpatient encounters to address relevant questions.”
The grant forecast doesn’t specify how researchers would come to obtain this data. But Kennedy, Trump and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services recently announced a health data sharing initiative — ostensibly to give patients easier access to their data across health care providers, though digital privacy advocates have expressed concerns.
The White House MAHA Commission report included a recommendation for the HHS to use “AI-powered surveillance” to “federal health and nutrition datasets for early detection of harmful exposures and childhood chronic disease trends.” The National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in May announced a partnership to build a data platform across “claims data, electronic medical records, and consumer wearables” to determine the root cause of autism.
The grant forecast that includes the data statement says its goal is to prevent respiratory illness by evaluating the effectiveness of vaccines, among other things.
This story has been updated with a comment from an HHS spokesperson.