President Donald Trump on Monday signed a set of health-focused executive orders that halt federal funding for gain-of-function research and accelerate domestic pharmaceutical manufacturing.
The move comes amid ongoing debate over the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and persistent concerns about reliance on foreign drug supply chains.
White House officials say the order gives agencies additional tools to enforce an existing ban on U.S. taxpayer dollars flowing to studies that deliberately increase a pathogen’s potency or transmissibility.
Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health, told reporters in the Oval Office that such experiments “do not protect us against pandemics” and carry the risk of accidental release that could spark a future outbreak.
In a parallel directive, Trump streamlined permitting processes for building drug-manufacturing facilities on American soil.
The president has threatened tariffs on overseas pharmaceutical imports unless production is shifted back home, arguing that a robust domestic industry will shield consumers from shortages and price spikes.
“We’re going to have a big announcement next week on some of this,” Trump said, hinting at further measures related to drug costs.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. hailed the order as a “historic milestone,” praising Trump for refocusing federally funded science on improving public health rather than “creating new threats.”
Kennedy traced gain-of-function studies back to post-World War II weapons programs, noting that President Richard Nixon banned the U.S. offensive bioweapons effort in 1969 and led the charge on a United Nations treaty to outlaw biological arms.
Kennedy specifically criticized Dr. Anthony Fauci for lifting a 2014 pause on certain virus-enhancement experiments in 2017, charging that those decisions reignited a global “bioweapons arms race.”
He warned that advances in AI and gene-editing technology have made it possible “to create these agents in a garage,” underscoring the urgency of the president’s ban on federally backed gain-of-function research both at home and abroad.