Your understanding is incorrect. All research is unprofitable, by definition. Vaccines are wildly profitable.
We don’t generally fund Merck’s R&D with federal money. You’ll note the following critical detail from the article:
> That will impact 22 projects being led by major pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer and Moderna, for vaccines against bird flu and other viruses, HHS said.
We’ve gone so far round the bend with partisanship that straight-up corporate welfare has become a left-wing cause.
for the curious:
https://www.usaspending.gov/search?hash=5ec35bf87ec1fd63d28d...
Remember when everyone was contributing spare dimes to fund a vaccine?
If the government never funded another study for vaccines, ever, pharma companies would continue to pump them out.
Also, for the record: very few (no?) vaccines are “mandated” by the federal government. Recommendations are made, and state and local governments do this, mainly through school districts.
Various agencies and the military will, of course, mandate things for their own staff.
It is not yet clear whether mRNA will be treated like generics.
[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X1...
It is really weird that even here in HN where everyone is aware of corporate greed and corruption, corporations becomes the good guys when it comes to vaccines.
Now you might think of bringing up regulators and checks and balances at this point...
But imagine this. If approving a vaccine, or like here, a vaccine technology could unlock 1 Trillion dollars in revenue, imagine how much of that can be paid politicians/regulators/scientists/thought leadrs to act favorably?
How many of those regulators, who are just average human beings, can resist that?
The game to compensate for that is to be to convince gullible investors that your commercially viable fusion plant, or quantum computer, or unrealistic space ambitions are just 5 years away! Invest now or miss out!
The line between research and scamming in an ultracapitalist economy becomes very blurry.
The "win" is occasionally getting a steadily profitable field or lode for multiple decades after the costs of proving and the fun of raising forward capital loans for extraction and processing plant capital.