Secretary Kennedy wrote in an X post on Friday:
The Drug Isn’t Approved in Japan for Hantavirus
Favipiravir is only conditionally approved in Japan for influenza, not hantavirus.
Its use against Andes hantavirus is entirely experimental, relying on very limited animal data rather than human clinical trials proving safety or efficacy for this virus.
In other words, Kennedy has now invoked federal liability protections for a drug that is not approved anywhere in the world for hantavirus treatment and was only conditionally authorized in Japan for pandemic influenza—yet is now being positioned for use on Americans.
Favipiravir Health Concerns
According to the official Japanese regulatory documents from the Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency (PMDA), preclinical animal studies have shown that favipiravir has the risk of teratogenicity and reproductive toxicity in experimental animals, including findings indicative of birth defects in mice, rats, rabbits, and monkeys, along with decreases in live fetal body weight and in the number of live fetuses.
The official Japanese product label for favipiravir warns that the drug can cause serious hepatic dysfunction and jaundice, including clinically significant elevations in liver enzymes (AST/GOT, ALT/GPT, ?-GTP), which may progress to life-threatening liver injury.
U.S. Government-Funded Hantavirus Aerosolization, Military Biolab Genome Construction, & Pandemic Countermeasure Programs Were Already Operational Before the 2026 Andes Outbreak Emerged
The U.S. government has been funding gain-of-function hantavirus experiments since at least 2017.
A July 2025 Pathogens publication confirms the U.S. military funded experiments aerosolizing hantavirus pathogens (making them airborne) with a 30% fatality rate.
Less than a year after the publication, the Andes hantavirus cruise ship outbreak would be declared.
Moreover, NIAID’s $70 million PROVIDENT program actively funded and operated a large-scale hantavirus preparedness initiative that engineered vaccine platforms, mapped Andes hantavirus structures in unprecedented detail, developed rapid-response countermeasure systems, and prioritized hantaviruses as future pandemic targets in the run-up to the 2026 international Andes hantavirus outbreak.
The Andes hantavirus genome was built from human blood at the infamous U.S. military biolab Fort Detrick.
Recent genetic analysis finds that hantavirus PCR test sequences—used to count cases—also match human DNA, raising concerns that the test is mistaking human genetic material for hantavirus.
The government’s hantavirus research, surveillance, genome-construction, and countermeasure infrastructure was already fully operational before the 2026 outbreak narrative emerged.
Bottom Line
After years of U.S. government-funded hantavirus gain-of-function research, aerosolization experiments, military-linked genome reconstruction programs, rapid-response countermeasure buildouts, and PCR systems that critics argue may be detecting human genetic material itself, the federal government is once again invoking emergency powers to shield pharmaceutical manufacturers from liability while deploying experimental countermeasures during a heavily publicized outbreak event.
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