Health Friday 4.17.2026 Open Thread: The Sleight-of-Hand at HHS Must Stop. Now.

The vintage image of mass vaccination for today’s offering is courtesy of Google Images.

Health Friday is a series on information regarding Big Pharma, vaccines, general health, and associated topics. There are Important Notifications from our host, Wolf Moon; the Rules of our late, good Wheatie; and, certain caveats from Yours Truly, of which readers should be aware. They are linked here. Note: AI-generated items in today’s offering, if any, will be cited as such. If readers wish to post AI-generated items in today’s discussion thread, they must cite their source. Thank you.

The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is still funding Gain-of-Function research. This is despite the 5 May 2025 directive from the White House regarding pausing all Gain-of-Function research by HHS (https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/05/improving-the-safety-and-security-of-biological-research/.) Examples: Arcturus Therapeutics is still under a “Fast Track” status granted to the company in April 2025 by the FDA — a Fast Track status granted for the development and testing of the company’s self-amplifying RNA (saRNA) “influenza vaccine”, ARCT-2304 (also known as, LUNAR-FLU or as LUNAR-H5N1 (https://ir.acrturus.com/news-releases/news-release-details/acturus-therapeutics-receives-us-fda-fast-track-designation-0, 10 April 2025.)

Yours Truly begins here: https://jonfleetwood.substack.com/p/hhs-funds-gain-of-function-influenzacovid, “HHS Funds Gain-of-Function Influenza — COVID ‘Frankenvirus’ Combining Influenza Entry With SARS-CoV-2 Human Cell – Binding Domain”, 10 April 2026. Two screenshots regarding this are below: the first, from the Fleetwood article; the second, from the paper itself (published December 2025). Thanks to Mr. Fleetwood for this information:

By the way, NIH grant P01-AI165075 (going to Rockefeller University, New York) has multiple “permutations” in the https://reporter.nih.gov/ listing. **** The “permutation” that helped to fund the paper below (cited in the Fleetwood article) is 3P01AI165075 – 01S1, Sub-Project ID: 6568, awarding entity NIAID, total funding: $983,100. (And this is only ONE “permutation” of P01-AI165075.)

**** What this lab-created “combo virus”, called X31 H3 S-RBD in the paper, contains:

The RBD (Receptor Binding Domain) from the Wuhan Hu1 SARS-CoV-2 virus (the original COVID-19 virus); plus

Seven other viral RNAs (vRNAs) from the H1N1 (Influenza A) Puerto Rico/1/1934 strain (PR8)

The Abstract of this paper is below. It is a clear statement that Gain-of-Function was used to lab-create this “combo virus” (lines 28 – 35):

Let’s take a look at the involvement with the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences (CAMS) in the study that produced this paper. The paper states that Tiong Kit Tan, of the Chinese Academy of Sciences – Oxford Institute, Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, is one of the researchers/co-authors. CAMS is a collaborator with the Chinese Communist People’s Liberation Army (PLA.) CAMS is one of the “Top 5” domestic (Chinese-based) collaborators with the PLA. Please see: https://www.nature.com/nature-index/institution-outputs/china/people-s-liberation-army-pla/555c2052140ba014648b456b; scroll down the page to the list of “Domestic Collaborators.”

Further down the page, there is the list of “International Collaborators” with the PLA. It is interesting to note that NUS (National University of Singapore) is ranked as Number One here. It is also interesting to note that NUS has a large medical school that is a “satellite” of Duke University (Chapel Hill, North Carolina; https://www.duke-nus.edu.sg.)

CAMS also has ties to Yale University via the CMB Foundation Global Health Research Fellowship in Communist China (https://medicine.yale.edu/education/othereducation/cmb/foundation-global-health-research-fellowship-in-china/cams-pumc/; PUMC is Peking Union Medical College); to Harvard Medical School; and, to the NIH (https://www.science.org/cms/asset/ecaa3321-8b14-45e9-b549-1631422a83ea/cams_booklet_2016_11_18.pdf, pages 44-45.)

The question arises: How much research data, analyses, lab samples, and more, from these “international collaborators” with the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, wind up in laboratories run by the People’s Liberation Army in hospitals and universities throughout Communist China?

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Let’s look at a recent example of “Gain-of-Function Experiments Gone Wrong”: https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/exclusive-bird-flu-outbreak-40-miles-wisconsin-lab-sparks-concern-gain-of-function-experiments/, “Exclusive: Bird Flu Outbreak 40 Miles From Wisconsin Lab Sparks Concern About Gain-of-Function Experiments”, Michael Devradakis, PhD, 15 January 2026. A screenshot from this article is below:

Yoshihiro Kawaoka, DVM, PhD, is also the scientist who is heavily involved with Gain-of-Function experiments at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. And, that there is a record of prior accidents and leaks from his lab there: https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/biosecurity-issues/wisconsin-lab-broke-ebola-rules-watchdog-group-says, 25 September 2007; and, https://www.wispolitics.com/2023/wisconsin-congressional-republicans-demand-answers-on-biosafety-incident-at-uw-madison/, 23 April 2023.

The NIH grant that helped to fund Dr. Kawaoka’s work for the above cited paper is 75N93021C00014. The grant contract information is found here: https://www.highergov.com/contract/759321C00014/. An image of the Government Description of this grant, from the website, is below:

Note that sentence about, “Includes international and domestic basic and clinical influenza research…” — in other words, covering “collaborators” like CAMS. Note that “studies of viral evolution, transmission, and immune responses in animal models and humans” covers Gain-of-Function work.

CEIRR stands for Centers of Excellence for Influenza Research and Response. The website description of this research division of NIAID is here: https://www.niaid.nih.gov/research/centers-excellence-influenza-research-response. Scroll down the page to “Main Areas of Focus” to this statement: “To support projects to determine how influenza viruses evolve, adapt and transmit between humans and at interspecies interfaces”. This is “code” for supporting Gain-of-Function research on influenza viruses. There are multiple “permutations” of NIH grant 75N93021C00014 listed at https://reporter.nih.gov/search/6vlkhZH5302zeKPiGnsO5g/projects, most of which were awarded to the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York (one of the CEIRR main hubs of research.)

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Yours Truly turns to what might be, in her opinion, called a “permutation” of Gain-of-Function research: experiments on human beings to further a Patent invention.

The Patent in question is: US11369675B2, “Broadly protective inactivated influenza virus vaccine”, held by Dr. Jeffery Taubenberger, MD, Acting Director of NIAID. The Patent declaration is found here: https://patents.google.com/patent/US11369675B2/en. The application for the Patent was filed on 12 October 2020; the Patent was granted on 28 June 2022; the “Adjusted expiration” date of the Patent is 24 January 2039; and, the Patent was assigned to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS.) Dr. Taubenberger, during this timeline, was an employee of HHS, before he became Acting Director of NIAID. He, in fact, is a career HHS (NIH) employee.

Dr. Taubenberger’s Patent describes a “universal influenza vaccine.” Yours Truly has written on this situation; for example: https://www.theqtree.com/2025/05/16/health-friday-open-thread-5-16-2025-about-that-universal-vaccine-theres-more-than-meets-the-eye-part-two/.

It appears that Dr. Taubenberger is working to further the Patent regarding the development of an intranasal “universal influenza vaccine.” His most recent published paper in this regard is here: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12375958/S#23, “Nasal and systemic immune responses correlate with viral shedding after influenza challenge in people with complex preexisting immunity”, Jeffery Taubenberger, et al., 6 August 2025. This paper describes a very small study of 74 persons (originally 80 persons) that was conducted in 2019 per the cited paper above (NCT01971255.) However, the ACTUAL study dates of NCT01971255, per https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT01971255, indicate a timeframe between September 2013 and September 2015. In addition, the referenced paper number 11 in the cited paper above describes the same experimental study, but via a paper published about it in 2024 (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/article/PMC10865821/, “Mucosal correlates of protection after influenza viral challenge of vaccinated and unvaccinated healthy volunteers”, Jeffery Taubenberger, et al., 9 January 2024.) This, to Yours Truly, raises questions regarding the timing of the publishing of these papers, since the actual study was conducted over 10 years ago. What goes on here?

The bottom lines of NCT10971255: there were 80 enrolled study subjects; half were vaccinated with a licensed influenza “vaccine”; half were unvaccinated; ALL subjects were then given an intranasal LIVE VIRUS H1N1 (swine flu), called Ca/04/2009/H1N1r Challenge Virus; ALL subjects were then tested numerous times via a middle turbinate nasal swab (this means that the swab samples were taken from well inside the upper nasal cavity each time); apparently, ALL subjects became ill with flu symptoms, some of which were severe; 6 study subjects withdrew for various reasons; all testing using the “intranasal challenge virus” was performed at the NIH Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland; the study subjects were brought there for the “challenge” (and likely had to stay there or in the immediate area, as they were assessed daily for a minimum of 9 days.)

Yours Truly will point out that Patent holders at HHS (NIH; NIAID) can earn significant royalty payments for the use of the their registered inventions. Please see: https://www.lankford.senate.gov/news/press-releases/lankford-hsgac/republicans-request-information-from-nih-on-the-disclosure-of-royalty-payments-to-nih-employees/, 1 June 2022.

Dr. Taubenberger is the recipient of NIAID research funding related to Avian Influenza viruses, his “universal influenza vaccine”, and to the SARS-CoV-2 virus — in the 2025 fiscal year, among other years. However, 2025 is the year in which Dr. Taubenberger became the Acting Director of NIAID. The “umbrella grant” prefix number is either 1ZIAAI00 or 1ZIAAI000, each followed with the suffix number: for example, 1ZIAAI001372-03, “Universal Influenza Vaccine Development”, for $2,153,677. This grant, as at least one other per https://reporter.nih.gov/ (search: Jeffery Taubenberger), lists NO contact data; NO Project Start Date; NO DUNS number; NO Budget End Date; among other lack of public information. What goes on here? Is Dr. Taubenberger perhaps granting NIAID research funds to himself?

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Finally, is appears that HHS Sec. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is going to start a podcast:

Sec. Kennedy, Jr., states that he will “…ask the questions and lift the taboos and expose the hypocrisy and the conflicts and the corruption…We’re going to follow the evidence wherever it leads, and we’re going to name the names of the forces that obstruct the paths to public health.”

All well and good. However — will Sec. Kennedy, Jr., “name the names”, such as: the person who invented the SARS-CoV-2 virus itself — Dr. Ralph Baric of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill? Such as, the person who could have stopped the entire COVID-19 “vaccine” disaster in the United States in December 2020, but who instead signed off on the CDC’s “recommendation” for the use of Pfizer-BioNTech’s modRNA COVID-19 bioweapon “vaccine”, BNT162b2, without any further investigation — Dr. Robert Redfield, then-Director of the CDC? Such as, the person who was responsible for the NIAID funding that produced the SARS-CoV-2 virus itself — Dr. Anthony Fauci, former NIAID Director? Such as, the USAMRIID personnel responsible for working with PfizerUSA (Pfizer-BioNTech) in the development of BNT162b2? Will Sec. Kennedy, Jr., “name the names” of the products that, by far, have obstructed, and continue to obstruct, “the paths to public health” — the COVID-19 bioweapon “vaccines”?

ALL GAIN-OF-FUNCTION WORK IN THE UNITED STATES, OF ANY TYPE, MUST BE STOPPED. NOW.

Peace, Good Energy, Respect: PAVACA

(Intellectual Property Disclosure and Notice: Except for the linked URLs and other items that can be found in the Internet, the ideas and/or opinions of today’s offering are by PAVACA. Credit must be given to PAVACA if the ideas and/or opinions of today’s offering are used by other blog writers, podcasters, or in social or print media.)