Trump administration ending multiple HIV vaccine studies, scientists and officials say

The Trump administration has moved to end funding for a broad swath of HIV vaccine research, saying current approaches are enough to counter the virus, multiple scientists and federal health officials say.

Notifications that the funding would not be extended were relayed Friday to researchers, who were told 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.

The cuts will shutter two major HIV vaccine research efforts that were first funded by the NIH in 2012 at the Duke Human Vaccine Institute and the Scripps Research Institute, multiple scientists said. A spokesperson for Moderna said the vaccine manufacturer's clinical trials through the NIH's HIV Vaccine Trials Network have also been put on pause.