The Trump administration is investing $500 million into research that will use an existing, traditional vaccine technology to develop vaccines that protect against multiple strains of “pandemic-prone viruses,” according to a joint press release from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
The investment will fund in-house development of universal vaccines for influenza, coronaviruses and multiple strains of viruses like H5N1 avian influenza and coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV-1 and MERS-CoV.
The new research program, Generation Gold Standard, appears to be a revamp of the Biden administration’s Project NextGen, according to The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the story.
Project NextGen, a $5 billion effort to fund new COVID-19 vaccines, was the successor program to Operation Warp Speed, a partnership between HHS and the U.S. Department of Defense. Several Project NextGen studies have been halted in recent weeks.
“Generation Gold Standard is a paradigm shift,” said NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya. “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.”
HHS said the platform is adaptable for future use against RSV or respiratory syncytial virus, metapneumovirus and parainfluenza.
The project will focus on producing vaccines from chemically inactivated whole viruses, which is how flu viruses were made in the past, the WSJ reported.
According to the joint press release, researchers will develop the “next-generation, universal vaccine platform,” using a mechanism called a beta-propiolactone (BPL)-inactivated, whole-virus platform.
Dr. Meryl Nass expressed some skepticism about the announcement. “This holy grail in vaccinology has been sought for decades, so far unsuccessfully,” she told The Defender.
Nass said that BPL technology has been used in vaccine development for at least 70 years, and its value in producing vaccines is not a new discovery.
“The press release fails to tell us how this method is suddenly going to produce the holy grail that has long been sought of a universal flu or corona pandemic vaccine,” Nass said.
Epidemiologist Nicolas Hulscher from the McCullough Foundation also advised caution in interpreting the announcement. Hulscher said:
“These BPL-inactivated whole-virus vaccines represent a return to more traditional technology — likely offering broader and more durable protection than the narrow, spike-only focus of mRNA shots.
“However, it’s important to remember that any injectable product delivering toxic antigens — even if inactivated — can still result in serious adverse events, especially if distributed at scale without rigorous long-term, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials.”
HHS confirmed Wednesday that going forward, all vaccines will be required to undergo placebo-controlled trials.
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‘A transparent vaccine platform will change the pharmacology world’
Other experts said that although it remains unclear at this point how this proposed vaccine development will play out, the news is encouraging because it directs payments to government researchers rather than to Big Pharma.
Children’s Health Defense (CHD) Senior Scientist Karl Jablonowski said the news that the agencies were committed to transparency was encouraging. Because of how private industry funds regulators, there has been an “inherent conflict” in vaccine development for some time, he said.
“The NIH could only promise transparency on a wholly government-owned product and process, as most of what transpires in private pharmaceutical companies lies beyond a citizen’s freedom of information rights,” Jablonowski said. “A transparent vaccine platform will change the pharmacology world.”
The Generation Gold Standard project includes research on a universal flu vaccine co-developed by NIH flu vaccine researchers Drs. Matthew Memoli and Jeffery Taubenberger, according to the WSJ. It will also research another universal flu vaccine and universal coronavirus vaccines.
CHD CEO Mary Holland said that the announcement was “interesting,” given that it doesn’t direct payments to Big Pharma and in light of the HHS announcement yesterday that all new vaccines will have to be tested against a placebo.
Clinical trials for universal influenza vaccines are scheduled to begin in 2026, with U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval targeted for 2029.
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