The Trump administration has cancelled over $700 million in funding for Moderna's mRNA-based avian flu vaccine development. Meanwhile, U.S. health officials, including Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Dr. Oz, are advocating to preserve a flock of ostriches in British Columbia, whose natural antibodies may provide a non-mRNA alternative for combating the disease.

The birds, housed at Universal Ostrich Farms in Edgewood, B.C., have been facing a highly contested cull order from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), despite months of public outcry from their owners who have pled for antibody testing to be performed to prove their flock is healthy and immune to the virus.

OSTRICH FARM UPDATE:
⁰Universal Ostrich Farm’s Katie Pasitney shares details of a call with Dr. Oz, who offered refuge for their healthy research birds at his Florida ranch.
⁰She tells RCMP that Conservative MP, Scott Anderson, remains engaged also.⁰https://t.co/ziF2wnLm2P pic.twitter.com/ZoIxGWgn3x

— Drea Humphrey (@DreaHumphrey) May 29, 2025

That research value, seemingly ignored in Canada, is now drawing attention from across the border. U.S. top health officials, such as RFK Jr. and head of U.S. Medicare, Dr. Oz, have gone as far as to offer collaboration with Canada on saving the farm and refuge for the healthy birds.

The stakes have only grown since the U.S. just pulled its financial backing from Moderna's mRNA avian flu program. The decision, which halts funding and cancels the government's right to purchase doses, marks a stark reversal in the approach to vaccine procurement.

RFK Jr. made the rationale clear in a March interview with Fox News. “Avian flu will never be eradicated, it is endemic in wild populations of birds,” he said. “It doesn’t appear to hurt wild birds. They have some sort of immunity.”

“The strategy the White House, all of my agencies, have advised against vaccination of birds,” he continued. “Because if you vaccinate with a leaky vaccine, in other words, a vaccine that does not provide sterilizing immunity, that does not absolutely protect against the disease, you turn those flocks into mutation factories.”

“It’s destabilizing and much more likely to jump over to animals if you do that,” Kennedy said.

OSTRICH FARM NEWS:

In March, U.S. Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr. discussed why the Trump administration wants to move away from vaccines / mass culling for the avian flu.

Says vaccines can increase likelihood of illness crossing to humans.https://t.co/ziF2wnKOdh pic.twitter.com/YRonNetE6n

— Drea Humphrey (@DreaHumphrey) May 29, 2025

Kennedy also criticized the current culling policy that the Trump administration inherited and emphasized the administration’s goals.

“We’ve killed 166 million chickens. That’s why we have an egg crisis. And the disease is not passed through food as far as we know, you cannot get it from an egg or meat from an infected animal,” he said.

“The White House strategy is to repopulate those farms that have been depopulated… We should armor the domestic population to insulate them from wild infiltration. And also to intensively test therapeutic drugs on those flocks," he said. "That’s what we should be doing.”

Co-owner of the Edgewood farm, Dave Bilinski, is unsurprised by the U.S. government's decision to pull the plug on Moderna’s mRNA avian flu research while exploring alternatives like his farm’s natural antibody production.

“I think what they’re doing is they are looking at the natural production of the health benefits,” he said in a statement to Rebel News.

“We’re not relying on the antibodies being produced in a lab in this case,” he said. “We have a natural solution, and the research we’re doing is finding the best way to use the antibodies for natural healthy diagnostics, therapeutics, and filters.”

“Regarding the H5N1 strain that visited his farm," Bilinski says, “it was delivered here naturally. And if the migratory birds visit us again and give us a new variant of the avian flu, because they already have the previous antibodies, the birds won’t get sick. Their antibodies will naturally evolve to that variant.”

“It’s like a natural booster,” he added, before stating, "The stamping out policy is not working and has not been working."

Despite mounting interest from American officials, Canadian authorities remain unmoved. The CFIA continues to threaten to cull the ostriches, even as the birds remain asymptomatic and represent what some believe could be a domestic, natural research breakthrough that avoids the pitfalls of leaky vaccine strategies.

Agriculture Minister Heath MacDonald is asked about US officials like RFK Jr. and Dr. Oz weighing in on 400 ostriches set to be culled in BC.

MacDonald says the "process is in place" for the cull order, but it may not mean all of the birds will be killed. pic.twitter.com/dVM3HqocB8

— Rebel News (@RebelNewsOnline) May 28, 2025

The political irony isn’t lost on observers. Prime Minister Mark Carney has claimed that his government will “put Canadians first” and stand “elbows up” against the U.S. to protect our economy, while quashing economic opportunity to protect Canadian farmers' livelihoods from unnecessary culling and their ability to create growth in the therapeutic industry.

The timing of the U.S. pivot away from mRNA vaccines for the avian flu is telling. Just days before cancelling Moderna’s contract, the FDA issued a sweeping overhaul of its COVID-19 booster policy. On May 21, FDA officials limited mRNA boosters to high-risk groups and called for rigorous clinical trials before recommending shots to healthy adults and children under 65.

Please help Rebel News send Drea to report on the cruel ostrich cull in Edgewood, B.C.

A shocking government-ordered ostrich cull is underway in Canada, leaving devastated farmers and outraged citizens demanding answers. The mainstream media refuses to tell the full story, but Rebel News is sending Drea Humphrey to report from the ground and expose the truth. Independent journalism like this depends on your support. Please donate here to help cover Drea's travel costs to get to and from the ostrich farm in Edgewood, British Columbia.

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